Settling in the UK, becoming a regional director at corporate headquarters at age 40

(Excerpted from the autobiography of Lalith de Mel)

“With my wife and two-year-old daughter, I came to London to take up the new appointment. We were taken to a hotel and the next day I was provided with a nice car which I drove nervously through the London traffic to Chiswick.

Reckitt & Colman had its corporate office in an elegant, ivy-clad building. It was all wood-panelled walls and period furniture and original oil paintings on the walls. I was shown to a very nice large office by a girl who said she was my secretary. I thought that was a good start. A nice office and a pretty secretary.

The Main Board members had their offices in this building on the ground floor. In a string of large offices there was the Chairman, the Chief Executive and four Group Directors. The next level below Main Board Directors were called ungraded staff and in this group there were three Regional Directors, the Head of Finance and the Head of HR. They all had their offices in Chiswick. The Managing Directors of five major businesses UK, France, USA, South Africa and Australia were also in the ungraded level. They were located in their markets.

From Ratmalana to London Corporate Headquarters was indeed a change. It was from short-sleeved shirts to three-piece Saville Row suits. The first challenge I had to negotiate was the Directors’ dining room. Lunch was like an informal meeting of the Board. It was useful for them to have the Regional Directors around and so they too had lunch with the Board. There was an ante-room to the dining room with a well-stocked bar. Most of them had a sherry or a gin and tonic and chatted for a while before going into lunch.

Lunch was a sit-down, three-course meal with some nice wine, and the menu and the wine list was on the table. The butler would take your order and ask you which wine you would like to drink. All good Chateau wines did not have a front label, which indicated whether it was red or white or mention the grape variety. On day one itself before I made a mistake like asking for a red wine with fish, I said I preferred not to drink at lunch time and declined wine. I knew that this could be a small black mark and so added quickly, unless I was entertaining guests.

When I met my Group Director in the afternoon on my first day, I sensed that someone had questioned the wisdom of appointing me a Regional Director. Ted Wright looked uncomfortable as he prattled on about nothing of importance and then got it off his chest. Ted said that it would be good both for me and the company to do a review after six months. He said, ‘Then we can both see whether it is working out well.’

John West who had been the Chairman of the Indian company and also the Ceylon Company was now a Main Board Director and I knew him well. After my chat with Ted Wright, he popped in to my office and said, `Don’t burn your boats; in case it doesn’t all work out, keep the job open in Ceylon, do not appoint a Managing Director and ask one of the Non-Executive Directors to be Acting Chairman to guide the management team.’ I thought, ‘What a vote of confidence.’ Still I was not fussed as I knew that I could do the job.

But overall it was all very stressful. We could not live for long in a hotel and we had to find a place to live. I had to be supportive of my wife who had to cope with a young daughter. We had no relatives or old friends in London who could perform a support role. In a month I would have to leave my wife on her own and travel. I had to visit all the countries that reported to me. I had the Indian subcontinent, Singapore and Malaysia.

I gave a lot of thought as to what could possibly go wrong. I had no fears or concerns at all about managing the businesses. I had good experience and knew well what impacted the key measurements by which the performance of a business was judged.

The only thing that could sink me like a torpedo was people. If the Brits in the Asian businesses and the corporate staff I had to work with said they could not work with me, I knew that was the end of the journey. At the end of six months, Ted Wright would have said, ‘I’m sorry, it’s not working out.’

The people scenario was a serious issue that had to be managed carefully, as to some of them it was perhaps an uncomfortable experience to have for the first time in their lives a coloured person as their boss.

I knew I had to change my command and control Asian style of management. I knew I had to change from ‘Will you please do this or that?’ to ‘What do you think we should do?’ Surprisingly, I did this with ease and settled well into a participative style and created the right vibes about the new black man at corporate!After six months, Ted Wright did a long review, and was very pleased with my performance and said I had done well.

Excerpts from appraisal

‘An exceptionally rapid and effective start to his job underlined by the evidence of progress in some difficult situations achieved with gains rather than losses in personal relationships.’

`Cannot be faulted on any count on the evidence of performance to date; but inevitably in a job of this kind any one year does not necessarily test every attribute uniformly. My personal estimate is that his all-round ability will be confirmed by experience and that his logical and uncompromising pursuit of clear objectives will be a distinct asset in achieving results.’

It was Ted Wright who made the brave decision to invite Lalith to the corporate office and Ted was due to retire in about a year and so he also said: ‘The onus will be on the company to make use of his outstanding abilities. It has been a privilege to have had a hand in his career to date and I wish him very well in the future,’ and he added at the end: ‘LdeM has potential beyond his present responsibilities.’

His appraisal of me had to be sent to his boss, the Chief Executive, for comment. Sir James Cleminson, the Chief Executive, wrote: ‘I totally agree.

Then at the same meeting, after the appraisal, he switched to housing and said it would be sensible for me to buy a house. I smiled and said I had no money. He said: `I know restrictions prevent you from bringing in any funds from Sri Lanka, but we have discussed this and decided to give you a loan for a good deposit on a house and we will arrange a mortgage for the balance.’

It was a clear signal that they no longer had any doubts about my ability to perform my role in the UK. I had come through the first glass ceiling without being unduly damaged by the broken glass!

Finding friends

The only thing troubling me was the rather cold and not-so-friendly atmosphere at Chiswick. The staff were more or less all English. I knew from my university days that the English were reserved and did not make friends quickly with strangers. Not like the Irish, gregarious and friendly like the Sri Lankans. Unfortunately no Irish at Chiswick!

My Secretary, who perceived that I knew very few people in the building and was a bit lonely, said: ‘We have a nice cricket ground and an enthusiastic cricket team. They practise on Thursdays. You should go along, it will be fun and you will get to know more people who work in this building.’ She was right. It was good advice.

I went and had a good net and impressed the captain who said, `Come and play for us next week’ and added, “I would like you to open batting.” It was much later that I came to know why I was offered the opener slot. The next match was London Transport, which was a regular fixture. They had a number of young West Indians who ran a mile, jumped up, grunted, and tried to bowl as fast as possible. They were wild. If you stood still, they could not hit you. I opened and scored some runs. I became the regular opening bat and played whenever I was not traveling and continued to do so until I was 50.”

There was a weekly news-sheet at Corporate called Chiswick News. After one match this is what it said:

“DE MEL’S Match

Last Wednesday evening will go down in the annals of Chiswick cricket as De Mel’ Match. Opening the innings against the Paul Abbott All Stars, Lalith contributed a faultless 65 before sacrificing his wicket in the hunt for quick runs. His innings contained many of those sinuous cuts and glances so typical of high-class oriental batsmanship. Possibly his best shot, however, was a six over midwicket which owed more to the cow of the English village green than to the sacred version of the east. He capped his performance by holding a brilliant catch in the deep off, a hit which went higher than the Taj Mahal.