Evolution of Love 2

Long Live the Legend TATA

Dont miss this..


It was the year 1946. Germany stood devastated by the Second World
War. The Allies had won the war, and many German cities, including
Munich, had been severely damaged by the British Royal Air Force.
Munich, the picturesque capital of the Bavarian region of Germany, and
centre of the country’s diesel engine production, had suffered as many
as 74 air-raids. More than half the entire city had been damaged or
destroyed.



On one gloomy morning that year, at the Munich Railway station, stood
the Directors of Krauss Maffei, the reputed German engineering
Company. They were waiting for the arrival of their guests from India.
Founded in 1838, Krauss Maffei was a leading maker of locomotives of
various types, and an engineering company with a formidable
reputation. Unfortunately, the Company now stood devastated by the
World War, since their factories had been destroyed by the Allied
Forces.



The guests from India got down from their train. They were Directors
from the Tata Group in India. If you had been there, you would have
seen JRD Tata, the young, tall, lanky Chairman of the Group, get off
the train. And accompanying him was a forty-year old engineer, Sumant
Moolgaonkar, representing TELCO (now Tata Motors). They had come to
Munich for discussions with Krauss Maffei, regarding the manufacture
of locomotives in India. What they found, instead, were scenes of
destruction and ruin.



The Germans requested the Indians to take some of their unemployed
engineers to India, alongwith their families, and provide them jobs
and shelter. The Directors of Krauss Maffei are reported to have told
the Tata Directors – "They are very skilled people. They will do
whatever you ask them if you take care of them. They can also teach
your people."



This would have to be done without a formal contract, because the
British, who were still ruling India, had forbidden Indian Companies
from having any contracts with German Corporations, during those times
of the World War. But this request was urgent, and compelling. Because
in that year, with factories lying destroyed, unemployment in Germany
was rampant, and the then German currency, the Reichsmark, had become
almost worthless.



The Tata Directors agreed to this request, and assured the Germans
that their people would be well looked after. The German engineers
from Krauss Maffei then came to India, and they were provided good
jobs and housing by the Tata Group. They were well taken care of, and
they also rendered great service to Tata Motors. In 1945, Tata Motors
had signed an agreement with the Indian Railways for manufacture of
steam locomotives, and this is where the German engineers provided
valuable technical expertise. They helped the Company manufacture
locomotives, which were amongst the Company’s very first products.



In 1947, India became independent In the 1950s, Tata Motors moved on
to manufacture trucks in collaboration with Daimler Benz. Many years
had now passed since that fateful meeting at the Munich Railway
Station. Germany had substantially recovered from the ravages of the
war, and the reconstruction effort had borne great fruit. In one of
these happier years, the Board of Directors of Krauss Maffei was
surprised to suddenly receive a letter from India.



This letter was from the Tata Group. It offered grateful thanks for
the services of the German engineers, and it contained an offer of
compensation to Krauss Maffei for the skills which had been
transferred by the Germans to Tata Motors. Krauss Maffei was
surprised, even taken aback at this offer. There was no legal
contract, and therefore no obligation for the Tata Group to pay any
compensation. In fact, I think, neither did this expectation exist,
because the Tata Group had helped by providing jobs and shelter to the
otherwise unemployed German engineers, during those dark days. So, the
Germans were astonished, as they read the Tata letter.



This story was narrated many, many years later, in the 1970s, by
Directors of Krauss Maffei, to Arun Maira, then a senior Director of
Tata Motors. Arun Maira is one of India’s most respected and
distinguished business thinkers today. In a thoughtful article that he
wrote for the Economic Times in 2005 (thank you, Mr. Maira, for this
wonderful piece), he recollects how two elderly German gentlemen met
him as part of a business transaction in Malaysia, jumped up, shook
his hands, and wanted to express their deepest gratitude to him They
then narrated to him this fascinating story, which, they said, is now
part of their Company’s folklore.



One interesting and unexpected sidelight of this story occurred when
Tata Motors was asked to provide a legally binding financial guarantee
in the 1970s, but this was rendered very difficult because of the
Indian Government’s regulations at that time. This matter was taken up
to German bankers, who said that a guarantee on a Tata letterhead,
signed by the Chairman, was more valuable than any banker’s guarantee.



I do not know what exact thoughts ran through the minds of Tata
Directors in the 1950s before they sent that letter to Krauss Maffei,
offering compensation where none was agreed upon or expected. But I
think the Tata Group did this because it was the right thing to do.



The right thing to do is never defined by formal agreements or legal
contracts alone. Neither is it defined by the expectations that others
have of us. What is right is defined by our own high expectations of
ourselves, by the culture of fairness and trust that we wish to
establish. Are we being truly fair to the people and the Companies we
work with? We always know, if we listen deeply enough to our inner
voice, whether we are being totally fair and right. The Krauss Maffei
story holds such a beautiful lesson for all of us.