“On the Factory Floor” — by Rajiv Menon, former operations manager, Pune, India
People talk about Mr. Tata like he was born to rule. But I saw something else: a man who was never afraid to listen.
Back in 2002, I was managing day-to-day operations at the Tata Motors plant in Pune. We were hitting delays on a project—bad ones. Most top bosses would’ve sent a memo from Mumbai. Ratan Tata? He came down in person.
I remember it clearly: He showed up in a crisp white shirt, walked through the factory line with no fuss, and sat down with our welders during their lunch break. Not in a boardroom — on the floor. He asked what tools they liked. What slowed them down. What could be done better. And he listened as if their answers mattered more than any quarterly report.
Later that week, he pulled me aside and said, “If we don’t respect the men and women who build the machines, then we’re building nothing at all.”
That moment changed how I led people. And when the Nano project launched a few years later — a car for the common man — I wasn’t surprised. It was the kind of dream only someone like Ratan Tata could believe in.
I never called him “sir.” To me, he was always “Ratan Saab.” And I’d follow him again in a heartbeat.
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