Mr. Mahesh Thampi is a passionate learner and is somebody who empowers his team with a prime sense of belief. His career began at Xerox where he was part of their maiden batch. He then moved into 3M where he had the opportunity to work across several divisions starting with the Construction Market, and then was part of their most important division – Automation. After his first 9 years with Xerox & 3M, he joined the Telecom sector and has been there ever since. This includes seven years at Bharti, followed by a small spell at Reliance, and for the past two and a half years or so, he has been part of Tata Teleservices (Brand Docomo).
At Docomo, Mr. Thampi is the Regional Manager for east and looks after the business operations of five circles – Bihar, West Bengal, Orrisa, East & West UP, and North East. According to him, Tata’s work culture is fabulous and the reason for the continuous success of Tata Group is the sincere value base and the highest levels of transparency.
“Tata has the best qualities and the values are lived here”. This reminds of the Tata Steel TVC which features some employees of Tata, and ends with a tagline – “Values Stronger than Steel”. Mr. Thampi believes that Tata as a group has earned the respect of all people and this respect is truly earned in every regard. “Tata has been consistent and is an enterprise based on values”, he adds.
In the world of telecom, Mr. Thampi feels that in the future, ‘data’ is going to be prevalent over ‘voice’. “Voice was at its peak during 2008-09, but now, the next wave is certainly data”. He justifies this by explaining that with people using multiple mobiles and with the advent of hi-speed internet devices on the go (3G & 2G). Data will be at the core of all communications he feels, both in terms of pure internet consumption and a greater adoption of innovative services and solutions not only by individual users but also enterprises. “Mobile as a device will evolve as a data usage device from being a voice device”. Thus in future data capability enhancement will be the buzz word.
Mr. Thampi himself is a participation oriented leader and believes that it is essential to get down to the people’s level to bring out the best ideas and thoughts. “It is more about harnessing idea generation within the team. Secondly, it is about driving two things – clarity and conviction”, he asserts. Clarity is achieved by letting your team know well about what to achieve and how to achieve it. And, as a leader he feels that it is his primary role to develop a conviction that the objective can be achieved. Mr. Thampi opines that in order to remove communication gaps, it is important to keep talking to your people and never make things complex.
Remembering his times at IIPM from the year 1982-84, Mr. Thampi says, “I had a good time at IIPM and made some very good friends there with whom I am still in touch”. He adds that the visiting faculty was very prolific and he loved the classes by Prof. JK Mitra, Prof. Manab Adhikary, Dr. NR Chatterjee, and, Dr. Malay Chaudhuri. Mr. Thampi also stresses the point that back in those times, IIPM had a very elementary campus and today’s generation cannot contemplate such things.
To the generation of today, Mr. Thampi puts forth some very valuable insights. He feels that today youngsters lose focus way too easily owing to a host of distractions. “Decide what you want to do in life, keep a fixed aim, and chase it”, he iterates with conviction. For Mr. Thampi, it is about a very basic input-output equation. He explains that when you do most things right in your job (input), you always get good results (output). “It is when you get out of focus that the mind gets logged with silly things and then you falter”, Mr. Thampi warns. When the young minds enter the corporate set up, he feels that they should always remember the fact that pleasure and joy in a job does not come from physical infrastructure. “Joy comes when you have great people to work with and when you are proud to work for the organization”, he adds. It is a good peer group, a good team, and a reasonable boss that matter, not the shape and size of the cabin. In terms of etiquette, Mr. Thampi feels that discipline helps to develop seriousness in communication. He hates it when youngsters arrive late at work because that reflects wrong kind of attitude. If one is not bothered to come on time, he or she will have other short-comings for sure. He affirms, “It is not at all cool to come late”. He then mentions the importance of dressing formally in meetings and thinks that one should never be a passive person at work but look to participate actively. Mr. Thampi loves to spend time with his family that includes his wife – Ms. Hema Thampi and two daughters – Vedika and Kriti. He also has a passion for long drives and has recently revamped his music collection. His ultimate dream in life is to be happy! Cult wishes that he remains happy, and goes on to achieve more milestones as his zeal to learn never seizes to exist.
