The Prince of HR

OBITUARY: RANJAN BANERJEE

After a full and rich life, he slipped away at eighty two, just before midnight in Mumbai on January 31. A shishya pays tribute to a guru.

If one had to paraphrase what Ranjan stood for professionally, it would be The Prince of H.R. He practised all that the H.R. tomes preach nowadays, but he did so forty years ago when everybody was innocent of the cornucopia of today's HR lexicon.

He did so initially as Personnel Director, later as Vice Chairman of Hindustan Lever. He was active in all professional H.R. fora at Assocham, Employers' Federation, All India Management Association, etc. He was also Chairman of Lowe Lintas for two decades.

A brilliant chemist, he went to England in the late forties. He completed a PhD in petroleum engineering and returned in 1949 to join Lever Brothers as a technical trainee.

Those were the days when typically, half educated but extremely experienced Englishmen occupied senior technical positions in MNCs.

Ranjan was among the early breed of 'over qualified engineers' to join the humble profession of making Sunlight soap and Dalda vanaspati. Another recruit was Michigan trained Vasant Rajadhyaksha, who went on to become HLL Chairman and Member, Planning Commission.

During his successful seventeen years in manufacturing, Ranjan perfected the art of reaching out to people with warmth and sincerity.

This must have induced Prakash Tandon to request Ranjan to become HR chief in the mid sixties, when the company was going through a tumultuous spat with the union over a sales force reorganisation.

Although such a lateral move has become common at HLL, at that time, it must have been unusual. I recall asking him what a petroleum engineer was doing in HR, and he replied, "Human Engineering."

For the next sixteen years till he retired in 1981, Ranjan supervised the recruitment and training of over eight hundred managers and trainees for HLL, including myself.

He was like the dwarapal of the temple, no manager could join HLL without an encounter with Ranjan. Considering that HLL is best known and uniquely for its leadership development, Ranjan's cardinal role can well be imagined.

His touch would be readily acknowledged by many - Suman Sinha of Pepsi, Debu Bhattacharya of Hindalco, Anirudha Lahiri of Ananda Bazar, Keki Dadiseth and Vindi Banga, Prem Mehta of Lowe Lintas, Tarun Sheth and R.R. Nair, and most certainly, myself.

So what was the quiet greatness of Ranjan Banerjee? Whatever the pressure, he would make time to meet people. You felt like confiding in him.

He just could not make an enemy. No doubt these are the qualities one expects from HR professionals, but unfortunately, these qualities are not readily visible among them!

I recall the amount of time he invested talking to young managers when one of our contemporaries, Subhash Roychowdhury, was unfortunately bludgeoned to death in some social event.

When we would go downstairs to MLA hostel at 6.00 p.m. for our idli, Ranjan Banerjee was the only senior manager to be seen there - in fact, he was already a Director by then.

Like a mother hen, he would sit amongst us youngsters and discuss diverse subjects: Pirandello's plays, Bohurupee Theatre in Calcutta, Rabindra Sangeet and so on.

I experienced a touching episode in the mid 70s. I was the company communications manager and he was my boss.

The Chairman, T. Thomas, was furious with me for some act of impetuosity that young men are prone to committing.

I was shattered by the 'tongue job' administered to me by Thomas while Ranjan Banerjee sat protectively at my side. I was ready to cry.

Ranjan insisted on my eating a sandwich with him in his room so that he could calm me down with his magical words.

He convinced me that the chairman bore no grudge and that this would not mar my career. "Some day in the future, you could be sitting in my chair, so do not despair," he chortled.

Twenty years later when I sat in his chair as Vice Chairman, I said a silent prayer of thanks to the prince of H.R.

After I joined Tatas, I invited Ranjan Banerjee home with Vasant Rajadhyaksha. He was full of stories about people and episodes, not about himself or his accomplishments.

Great managers come to terms with their mortality and as a result, they develop a compassion for others; they learn how to invite an idea with an emotion.

This was Ranjan's uniqueness and greatness, an attribute that was widely acknowledged by leaders like Bipin Shah, Susim Datta and Ashok Ganguly.

Finally, nature took a toll of his body and vanquished it, but not his spirit and his warmth. Among his shishyas, the prince of H.R. will live on for long and the stories about him will continue to circulate.

R. Gopalakrishan is Executive Director Tata Sons