'I quit Tata Chemicals due to professional differences of opinion'

A little over three weeks after he quit as managing director of Tata Chemicals Limited. Dr Manu Seth, 48, chemical engineer and son of the legendary Darbari Seth, is excited about the future.

In his first major interview after he quit Bombay House, Dr Seth revealed his mind on several issues to Associate Editor Y Siva Sankar.

What are your future plans?

I have not decided what I'm going to do. However, I have decided on the principle on which I am going to work. First, because of my involvement in various community activities, I would like to devote 20 per cent of my working life to public causes in some form or the other, not directed towards profits or shareholder value.

Second, I do not wish to be a managing director again. That phase is over. The chapter is closed.

I do not wish to involve in just one endeavour because I find that a bit limiting.

I am at a very happy age in my life. I am mature now, not too old, not too young.

Would you be doing something completely different from what you have done in the past?

Not necessarily. I doubt if it would be completely different because you spend so much of your life in certain areas of business that, to the rest of the world, you are most valuable in those areas. And so, it's unlikely that somebody would accept me as an impressionist painter or writer or whatever.

I do not wish to be limited to doing one job. I would expect that I would keep my fingers in as many pies as I can handle. I would like to do something that is somehow connected with the government. And I believe that there may be opportunities now because the government is also looking at becoming more business-like.

Are you looking at any specific areas?

There is the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh (Digvijay Singh) who wants to computerise every village to spread education. There is the issue of divestment of government stake in public sector units. There is a lot more professionalism, lot more professionals are involved in a business-like manner. So there may be an opportunity there.

All said and done, government may be very intelligent, but they do not have exposure to business. So, if there are cases where I can contribute, I would love to consider the opportunities.

I see scope at two levels: at the state and the central level. At the state level, there are very specific situations where people might want to go in a particular way or decide to develop the state in a particular way, where the availability of business expertise may help them in formulating a policy that is more achievable on the ground.

At the central level, there are areas like divestment, policy-related matters with respect to the Indian industry in the context of WTO... It's a large canvas. But basically it arises out of the fact that our governments are becoming more business-like. And, therefore, I think there is value for them if they avail of the services of professionals.

Any other areas?

Another area where I have been approached by several companies is this business of independent directors. The SEBI guidelines are getting stricter. The role of the independent directors is more meaty, where directors are required to play more of a fiduciary role, where there are legal issues and responsibilities. That would necessarily entail that boards become more alive and active than earlier. And I am in a very independent position just now.

What I would like to do is... basically, if I can spread myself out over three or four industries or areas, I do believe I can give the time and whatever effort it takes.

I can understand that you would not like to identify those who have approached you. Maybe you could tell which industries are they from.

Initial approaches were, of course, from chemicals and fertilisers industries, but that is spreading now. Part of the role of an independent director is to come with the fresh view. If I am in yarn, and everybody on my board is somehow related to making yarn, then there is little chance that they would think out of that box.

I am finding that people do appreciate other people having different backgrounds, with different perspectives. Obviously, they won't have the same depth of knowledge, but maybe they (independent directors) can come up with ideas that should have been in the industry for sometime but somehow weren't thought of.

That (prospect) is very interesting to me because it would give me exposure to different industries; it would give me an opportunity to grow and to contribute in a substantial way.

Has there been any offer from the Tatas?

Let's not get into 'what is from where' because to narrow down is not right for matters under discussion.

If the Tatas were to request you to join them as an independent director on the boards of their group companies, would you accept the offer?

Oh, absolutely! I have very good relations with the Tatas and I would like to maintain them.

No question about that. I'd consider it favourably, primarily because I know a lot of people in Bombay House (corporate headquarters of the Tata empire) and that makes it that much easier.

You would get, what shall I say....a flying start. But again, it depends on them. I'm sharing my perspective. But from their point of view, they might want somebody who is not connected or has not been connected to the Tatas.

So, independent directorship is one area that definitely interests me.

Is there anything else that might interest you?

What interests me at this point in time is also to do not consultancy work, but work where you take the responsibility for what you do. As a consultant, you mostly don't take responsibility. You say, 'I think you should do this'. The guy who agrees with you, he has to take the responsibility. So not as a consultant but as a member of a group or a team or a leader of a group or a team that takes responsibility for executing some endeavour which has a specific time-frame. Say, 'Go do this project', or 'Go build this system', or 'Go change the way this is being worked', and you have got two or three years, to do it in.

I could equip myself for the work and I will give everything to it. I'll get the job from Point A to Point B. Once that is done, I wouldn't be there anymore. Then whoever is going to run the show would take over.

That's something that would be interesting, especially if it is time-bound, if it is in the nature of a project, in the nature of a well-defined set of objectives...whether it is creating an asset, or changing an existing system or introducing a new technology. I'd be inclined to do such work.

Have you made any progress in that direction?

There have been some preliminary discussions in that area. I have not spent too much time on all of this. What I am telling you is the framework under which I might operate. What I have had is time to myself as I roamed from one place to another, discharging my various responsibilities and obviously thinking about what I want to do in future.

What else?

Last, but not the least, I would like to do a business of my own, even if it is a small business. One of the things that I think corporate executives, especially seniors, suffer from is a lack of ground reality, a degree of street smartness, a degree of knowing how the world actually works, which you get if you were to be doing your own business.

I am not a very wealthy person and whatever I have, with a small amount of capital, I'd start.

What went wrong at Tata Chemicals? Why did you quit?

It's not right to say that something went wrong so I quit.

Your question reminds me that a business newspaper published a report which was pure conjecture because they got nothing from me and they got nothing from Bombay House. So they just went back to the office and did this standard thing, which is to go back to the last article that appeared on that particular subject, which happened to be the quarterly results (of Tata Chemicals). And they said, 'Ah, the quarterly results (are unimpressive), therefore (Manu Seth had to quit). ' That is rubbish.

If you use the 30 per cent decline in the profitability of a company as a criterion for the resignation of a managing director, there will be no managing directors in Bombay House. None! And there will be very few managing directors anywhere.

This is a commodity business and it has been going through a difficult period.

Later on, I guess, mediapersons confronted Mr Ratan Tata (at the annual general meeting of the company) and asked him why I resigned. And he said because of differences in professional perception. I am using Mr Tata's words here.

A few days back, you had cited personal reasons as the reason for your resignation.

If you had asked me on the day I quit, that was the reason I gave. The two are not exclusive -- one is a subset of the other. The personal reason was differences in perception. But I did not feel like elaborating at that time because I felt that it's better if the matter was just left between the company and its managing director. Just let it go, I thought.

But, yes, there were differences in professional perception between me and the members of the board, or at least some members of the board, which grew over a period of time.

Now there were two ways of dealing with it. Either you could sit there and argue your head out, which would not be very good for the company, or say, 'Okay, call it a day.'

Why did you choose to call it a day?

Because I thought I was coming in the way.

Of what?

You see, if you and I have differences, and if you want to do something in a particular way and I am reluctant to do it in that way, then the progress of the whole thing gets slowed down, of course.

So, it's not something that happened overnight. It's something that developed over a period of time. It was quite clear to me, and quite clear to some members of the board that, yes, these differences have arisen. And they were purely on professional lines... they were honest, professional differences of opinion

Is this a euphemism for interference in your work?

No. It is the responsibility and the job of the board to supervise. And the managing director reports to them. So did my boss -- in this case the collective board -- interfere with my day-to-day work? No. That's their job. Does you boss interfere with your work? No. He guides you, he directs you. That's what he is supposed to do anyway. He may have a different point of view. He may believe strongly in that point of view. He may not agree with you.

Was it a such a serious issue that you chose to quit?

It was not an issue. It was a perception. It's not appropriate for me to say anything more. It was just not a single issue that prompted me to quit. It was not that I came, and someone said A, and I said B, and I said 'Go to hell' and walked off. No.

There was a perception of what the company was and where it should be going in its entirety. I don't think being outside of Tata Chemicals, it would be appropriate for me to discuss what were the differences. If the board wishes to disclose those differences, it has every right to do so. They are the ones with the fiduciary responsibility for running the company.

Do you think Mr Ratan Tata, too, should have remained silent instead of saying there were differences?

No. I think he did the right thing. Call a spade a spade. Why not? I mean, what's wrong with it? It's quite normal, quite ordinary...in fact, it would be extraordinary if human beings did not have differences of opinion.

But mostly, there is a compromise. Mostly, one person bends to the other's views. Lot of times, both sides did bend to each other's views; it's not as if we were rigid; but over a period of time, there is a general perception that we should be heading in this direction, and you think we should be heading in another direction. And so, at some point in time, you part company. I don't think there is anything wrong with it.

There is no bitterness. There is no feeling that, 'Oh, somebody was trying to stuff something down my throat', or he did some injustice or something unkind or inappropriate. No.

Are you upset that a few media reports linked your resignation with the unimpressive financial results of Tata Chemicals?

I know for a fact that it has nothing to do with the company's financial results. It has absolutely nothing to do either with my integrity or with my loyalty to the group or with my competence in doing my job or with the temporary dip in the financial performance of the company.

Is there any significance to the timing of your resignation?

In fact, one of the things was that it was a good time for me to leave because, I think, a large portion of the problems that we have had in the last two or three years had been sorted out even though they were not of our making. The most difficult period is behind us. I believe the company has a clear-cut path on how to deal with those problems. They are over the hump.

I'd have felt worse if I had left at a time when the problems had not been resolved. But in my mind, yes, they have been substantially resolved. I've been telling the board too, 'Look, for these, these reasons, I believe we are over the hump'. So now is the good time for somebody else to take charge.

Do you think your successor, Prasad Raghava Menon, has a good company under him?

Oh yes, definitely. No question about it.

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