K.S. Gopalakrishnan
Pharma Professional
Death can end a life, but not a relationship
Being together for 37 years, as a colleague, friend, guide, mentor, family member, is no small a relationship.
L – 1: Introduction and Induction
Memory takes me back to the year 1984, when I was newly promoted as Area Manager and was to take charge in Kolhapur. My promotion was hard earned after rigorous written tests, group discussions and a grueling personal interview. I was asked to meet Mr. KS Gopalakrishnan in hotel Sudhara at T. Nagar Chennai. I drove immediately to the hotel in the evening on my green Bajaj 150 scooter. I entered the room and there I see this 6 feet, well built, thick and well styled mustached, gentleman. He immediately reminded me of a young energetic army officer. His loud booming voice full of life, energy and enthusiasm, welcomed me and congratulated me on my promotion. He made me extremely comfortable and offered me a cup of filter coffee. We could quickly strike a positive commonness . My nervousness of meeting new boss vanished within a few minutes of conversation with him. Conversation in common languages of English, Hindi and Chennai Tamil worked as a great ice breaker. He quickly explained the geography, the men, the business in Kolhapur area. I was taking over from him as Area Manager as he was promoted as Regional Manager to Hyderabad. KSG had a very successful track record in sales and handling people and tasks. I had to excel on that high benchmark. The confidence given to me during my induction by KSG, removed all my nervousness as I knew I have a rock solid backing to fall back on to achieve my new task.
L -2: Nurturing
In Kolhapur, I was developing my managerial and leadership qualities under the watchful guidance of KSG. Apart from introducing me to few important customers, he also introduced me to the addictive Kolhapuri Anda bhurji sold outside the local bus stand. He transferred his single room accommodation to me and helped open a bank account. Such small deeds of support from your superior enhances the respect, trust and bonding towards each other to achieve common goals. We call it – a Team.
In one of my first Area Manager’s meetings in Hyderabad, in the presence of late shri Appa Rao Garu (guru of new citadel), I observed KSG address the gathering. I was totally awestruck, mesmerized and captivated on his communicative and oratory prowess. His extempore reeling of facts and figures, his analytical reviews, had the audience captivated. He had this natural enthusiastic voice and flow of language. He had wonderful capacity of connecting real life situations to our work situation, he used anecdotes only from real life situation and I have never seen him picking examples from textbooks. He can go on extempore until the cows come home without any presentational aids. In fact, it made me feel so insecure and small at that moment, thinking of what would be the response when I take the stage for the sales review!! I didn’t have any stage experience, nor my vocabulary was anywhere near 5% of his. That was the time, KSG said, chama (as he used to call me till the end) don’t get stressed, imagine you are talking to stones, be yourself and stick to figures, public speaking comes with experience. These words of wisdom still linger in my ears. Initially, I tried my best to imitate him while addressing sales team, and I found out quickly that this is not going to work, better be yourself, develop your style, address only what is required and stick to fundamentals. I can never forget his often used example of a farmer he often quoted in all Meetings. He emphasized on timely sowing of seeds (working on fundamentals like leg work, call average, detailing, communication and developing product knowledge) so as we can reap a rich harvest. Also, his example of how an uneducated sales man on the street and on buses and a beggar choose their customers rightly, can never be forgotten. That taught me, keep communication simple with interesting anecdotes, so as it reaches the destination.
L – 3: Personal Development:
I moved to Hyderabad in 1986 and was very fortunate enough to work with him closely in the same HQ where he was now Divisional Sales Manager with a small office. We had a small office staff and a very well knit sales team in Hyderabad. Despite hierarchy, we had only one single man to look up to, for anything and everything. He had this tremendous capacity of connecting with people and their families with equal ease. He never made us feel that we are dealing with a tough and assertive boss, which he was many a times when required. We again and again went back to him, rallied around him, met up on weekends for a beer and dinner and went back to work. He had a perfect balance of task and people management. I and many of his disciples picked up many of his traits, style of dealing with situations and crisis, work enjoyment and celebrations. I found him to be highly emotional, but never never saw him buckle down under stress or pressure. Many a leaders were born out of Hyderabad and Zones who had an opportunity to work with him. This was also the time when he successfully launched Citadel in states such as Orissa, MP, Chattisgarh, Mumbai, Gujarat.
L – 4: Love for small enjoyments:
He had this amazing quality to enjoy and celebrate small little things in life. He would love to have tea on roadside stalls, buy snacks from stalls manned by senior citizens, talk to a beggar on the street, hotel staff, pick up conversations with the unknown doing minion jobs, plucking mangoes from trees, eating street food like peanuts, bhajias, pakoras etc. This humble approach towards life, was a standing example of humility. In fact, he always kept telling me on a lighter side that: “Chama, one day before we retire, we should experience for one day, being a watchman, vegetable seller, auto driver, rickshaw puller, tea-seller and anything we can experience being in other man;s shoes”. This was this great man’s empathy.
L – 5: Walk the Talk:
KSG was instrumental and was a pioneer in his contribution towards tremendous growth of Citadel in the West, Central and parts of South and East India. KSG was not an armchair executive type nor was he a preacher without practice. He would always walk the talk and never put his subordinates to manage situations by themselves. During the brief period, when we encountered few union issues in MP, he was there for my support literally every month, and we would communicate with each other every day on the phone and provided all logistical support from HO. His guidance and encouragement, gave me enough and more strength and courage to take the issue by its horns and finally we had our way. He was pretty tough when it really needed to be. He would just not spare anyone on integrity issue. He had quite an eventful stint at Mumbai, narrowly escaping the infamous Hotel Sea rock Blast. However, none of this deterred him from performing his duties for the organization.
L – 6: Embraced Challenges: Participative Management
KSG had this incredible appetite to embrace and take challenges upfront. The grit and determination with which he took to the task is amazing. One such challenge was, when he was given the responsibility to take over as Head for Indus Division under CABL. KSG knew the roadblocks ahead and carefully handpicked four of his trusted lieutenants. The first task was to put the house in order and reorganize the entire set up including the team size, products, dealing with old APL issues with distributors and many more. All this was done within a short span of time by having regular team meetings at Chennai. He strongly believed in participative management and never failed to consult the opinion of key leaders before taking any key decision. This style of management yielded very quick business results and we witnessed the division grow from strength to strength. With the hands on support of KSG, we could break into many corporate hospital accounts, and were poised for the big leap. While the external competition was easy to tackle, the internal comparisons was becoming a hindrance for progress, and at one time, we had to resort to rightsizing the division. Despite all these melee, I saw this man standing tall by assuring and reassuring all his team mates to focus on business.
CABL JV did not last long. Even during last months from December 2005 to March 2006, when uncertainty was prevailing, KSG was the only man for us, who stood like a rock and was providing moral support and confidence that things would work out and that we should not panic. He would be on the phone for at least two hours with each of his team mates. But as destiny would have it, CABL ceased to exist.
L – 7: People work for People: Dream Project:
With the combined efforts of Mr. K. Rajiv, KSG and promoter or APL, Veritaz Happened. This project was a bigger challenge than CABL and was attempted for the first time in the country. There was trust deficit, ex- employee resentment, distributor issues, retailer issues, CF issues, trade union issues and not the least doctor related issues. Not one, there were multiple issues that required to be tackled and resolved simultaneously. Knowing the situation, not a single big wig in the Industry would have even dared to have ventured into this project for any amount of compensation. But for KSG, Veritaz may not have been conceived. He accepted the challenge with high level of confidence. It was again time for KSG to take up the arduous task of dealing with multiple situations in hand, resolving them and moving forward. His confidence brimmed from his strength of People connect, who will rally with him. Thus started the journey of a new venture. KSG rightly coined it as Veritaz Movement. It took almost six months to put the house in order, resolve each issue one by one, procure NOC from trade union, settle employee dues, work out distributor accounts, and then get the whole thing executed. Billing started in June 2007. KSG was extremely passionate about this movement and had a dream of building one more Citadel! Many old Citadelian joined at one Clarion call of KSG at different cadres all over the country, without even bothering or caring to know anything about this company. For them, the only and only confidence was “arre saab, aap hain na?? that’s all. The journey began and continues…
But then, there can only be one Citadel…. as there can only be one … KSG. He retired as Director in the year 2017 owing to his failing health.
KSG as I knew him:
Gopal’s involvement, passion and commitment to the organizations he worked for was unparalleled. Gopal’s practice of values and moral ethics is unmatched. I am yet to come across, a second person with such immense engrossment in whatever task he took up. High level of integrity and discipline was kind of inbuilt in his DNA.
Gopal was a very kind-hearted gentleman, and was always connected to his roots. Extremely humble in his behavior, despite possessing extraordinary talent and skills. His empathy for employees especially from a challenging socio-economic background was a great learning for me. He would always say in Tamil ” poor guy, we need to support him to build his career so as he can take care of his parents”. I have never heard him using ‘I’ language, he always used the ‘WE’ language while addressing people.
His capacity to speak and connect to all team members of all cadres was amazing. He loved lighter moments and heartily laughed on jokes, and was very lively with all team members. Gopal’s post meeting interaction with team members was a great hit. People who would have got a stick during the meeting hours, too would wait for the post meeting session to enjoy his company. He would speak, debate and discuss on any topic of interest and keep people engrossed for hours . That session would really be a great learning and enjoyable one. People would not leave the venue until the hotel management shooed us away for their next event preparation. Gopal did not believe in building teams by way of management talks. He very firmly believed in building teams by way of connecting to people, professionally and personally. He would be there personally with his team mates in happiness and sorrow.
Gopal had this god given gift of sixth sense and could foresee situations that many may miss very easily. Most of his forecasts on various issues have always come true. Therefore, I used to rely a lot on his views to take decisions, both professionally and personally. I was shocked, when he rightly predicted my wife’s birthday without even knowing anything about her.
Gopal’s sales contribution to Citadel, CABL and Veritaz can be measured, but what one can never measure is his contribution to people development, who build organizations. He always said – let’s work on making people good, they will make the company good.
Many of my colleagues and I grew up watching Gopal, admiring and respecting his qualities and character. Unknowingly, we may have imbibed few of his characteristics, but I must admit, it is almost impossible to be Gopal.
Gopal sir, you will always be with us in our hearts, be our inspiration and guide us through the rest of our life. We humbly pray to the Almighty for your soul to rest in peace.
Dear Gopal Sir…We will miss you forever….
Swaminathan
Citadel Alumni Blog 