Debasis Chatterji plans his week as soon as it begins, right down to every meeting of every hour of each day. The CEO of telecom firm Netxcell prefers noting down his schedule in a diary rather than his smart phone. And no, he doesn’t have a secretary either.
“While hierarchy is important, a secretary creates an unnecessary barrier for other employees,” explains the CEO who doubles up as story-teller to motivate his subordinates during crisis.
He shares one such story with us. “During the finals of a soccer match in Brazil, a young player hit two winning goals. Normally, he was the least preferred player in the team. When coach asked him how he did it, the boy said, ‘I lost my father before the match. He is in heaven now. He wanted me to give my best. That’s what I did’.”
“Motivation is invisible. It comes from the highest level. Likewise, it has to flow from the seniors of a firm,” says Debasis, who narrated this real-life story to his employees when they failed to deliver a very important project.
“When we failed, I first accepted my fault because there’s nothing wrong in failing. Secondly, I rectified it readily. While doing so, one must be realistically optimistic. Which means, if you are capable of achieving only 60 per cent, don’t make false promises of 100 per cent,” he says, pointing out the lessons from the episode.
This advice not only helped his team deliver a project in less than two months as promised, it also facilitated the firm’s expansion in Africa.
Debasis has taken his work philosophy, beyond his Hitec City office, to colleges across the country. He attributes his line of philosophy to the various books he’s read on numerous trips around the world. “Even CEOs need help and I find them in books. They are my best friends,” says the businessman.
