LESSONS FROM MY CAREER; SYNTHESISING MANAGEMENT THEORY WITH PRACTICE – PART 5

by Sunil Wijesinha

Being attached to the Research and Development (R & D) Division of the State Engineering Corporation (SEC), I was suddenly asked to take over an abandoned plot belonging to the Lands Department on Jawatta Road to set up a new Building Research Centre (BRC). Apparently, the new Government wanted to research local building materials to replace imports, import substitution being a key strategy of the then Government.

After the taking-over preliminaries, I had a lot on my hands. There was only one building and some sheds with a substandard toilet in the building and a toilet for workers. The Lands Department had left behind one wooden cupboard and a photograph of Dudley Senanayake, which provided a clue to the period in which it had been abandoned. My new boss has just joined after his PhD from Sorbonne. He remained at the Head Office while I had to make the place habitable. There was no toilet I could use, but fortunately, I lived nearby and would use the site bicycle to go home whenever nature called.

Fitting square pegs into round holes

I had no workers, but a few skilled workers were transferred in the next few days. I borrowed some workers and tools from the Agrarian Research and Training Institute (ARTI) site being built by the SEC at Wijerama Road, Colombo 7, and commenced cleaning up. Soon, I realised these workers from Colombo Central and had never seen or used a mammoty or similar tools. Following tradition, the Minister of Housing and Construction Pieter Keuneman stuffed most of the institutions under him with Colombo Central voters. I had to teach these workers to hold a mammoty and even an axe. One man tasked with clearing fences had not benefited from my training and cut his hand within hours instead of a branch. He had to be rushed to hospital.

Goats on the land

My priorities were the perimeter security, a gate at the entrance, and the workers’ facilities. An enterprising neighbour, seeing the abandoned lush green pasture next door facing his backyard, abandoned for years, had embarked on a small goat farm. He did not have even a blade of grass in his backyard. He did not remove his goats despite my many requests. Therefore, my priorities were erecting a barbed wire perimeter fence, constructing an entrance gate, arranging facilities for workers and arranging an electricity connection.

Progress must be visible

Dr Nath Amarakoon, the Secretary to the Ministry, who I understood mooted the establishment of this unit, would visit the site a couple of times a week. He was getting impatient, saying he could not see much progress. It was obvious because my fencing, toilets and cleaning progress were not visible. One day, he gave me an ultimatum to make some good progress. I wondered what to do, when I recalled a dinner table discussions at home. My father and one of my sisters were lawyers, while the other was still at Law College. I often heard the phrase, “Not only must Justice be done; it must also be seen to be done.”

It dawned on me that I should use the same advice with an adaptation: “Not only should progress be made, but it must appear to be made”. Therefore, I immediately arranged with Ceylon Oxygen, got a tractor load of Carbide and painted the fronts and sides of buildings with Carbide, leaving them pure white. The site looked impressive. At the next visit, Dr Amarakoon was highly pleased. “Now I can see progress”, he complimented.

I have used this principle ever since, especially in human resources matters and dealing with staff and unions. Visibility and transparency are perhaps even more important than achievements and progress.

The importance of building relationships

The undulating land was challenging to manage for the construction of new buildings, and my boss approved a contract to fill and level the site with laterite earth. Finally, we ended up with hundreds of piles of earth that needed to be levelled and compacted. This is where relationships I built up during my training days became useful. The Mahaweli scheme was in full swing, and the heavily used earth-moving equipment was regularly brought to the Peliyagoda workshop for repair.

I asked the head of the heavy vehicle maintenance unit, who I had befriended during training, for a dozer for one day. He told me it was quite impossible because the machines had to return to the Polgolla dam site immediately after the repair. He, however, gave me a solution: if a repair finishes in an evening, he could release a dozer to work in the night before it leaves for Polgolla the following day. It worked. My site was levelled, and my boss, who visited the following day, could not believe his eyes and how fast I got the job done.

The role of a boss

I often remember two incidents where I realised the value of having a caring boss. When Dr Nath Amarakoon visited the site one day, my boss was also there. I had decided to lay a thick layer of quarry dust on the internal roads to reduce constant weeding and muddying during the rains. Dr Amarakoon threw a fit when he saw this layer of quarry dust and threatened to surcharge me for the “waste” (A tractor load of quarry dust was only five rupees then). Immediately, my boss chipped in and said it was his decision and he would face the consequences. It was a grand gesture by a wonderful boss. That was the end of the incident; ultimately, there was no surcharge on anyone.

Another incident was when I was taking study leave. I had completed my engineering exams and came across a handbook by the Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of the UK. (Now CIMA). The syllabus fascinated me, so I enrolled and took the exams. SEC was very generous with study leave, matching an equal amount to the vacation leave you had left over. It was immaterial that Accountancy qualification was not a requirement for my position. I applied for study leave, which was approved.

The day before I was due to take leave, my boss inquired who would handle the daily tests (of the ongoing research projects) under my purview. I answered that since I stay close to Jawatta Road, I would come for an hour every day and handle this, although I was on study leave. He responded, “No. You stay at home and focus on your studies; I will come every day from Head Office and handle your tests”.

This was an eye-opener and a good lesson. It showed how a caring boss should act. Since then, I have always encouraged my subordinates to study further and facilitated their studies. A subordinate of mine many years ago, still talk about how I gave time off for his MBA studies. He retired recently as a Chairman/CEO. In one institution where I had created a learning culture and facilitated with leave and resources, a bad incident occurred when my successor refused leave even on the day of an exam. This had led to a heated exchange of words, almost ending in fisticuffs and the subordinate being sacked. He was such a loyal high performer during my time.

The BRC became the BRI for the Building Research Institute and finally an independent body the well-known NBRO (National Building Research Organisation) today. My next episode will be about how I joined the Sri Lanka Tyre Corporation.

(The writer is a Consultant on Productivity and Japanese Management Techniques
Retired Chairman/Director of several Listed and Unlisted companies.
Awardee of the APO Regional Award for promoting Productivity in the Asia and Pacific Region
Recipient of the “Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Rays” from the Government of Japan.
He can be contacted through email at: bizex.seminarsandconsulting@gmail.com)