What I learnt about managing people from running utility operations in a factory at 22

"Mr. Karan, you are an electrical engineer, no? The forklift is not starting."

This was my second day as a graduate engineer trainee in the Central Maintenance Department at the Siemens plant in Navi Mumbai. I was 22. Responsible along with the team to ensure uninterrupted utility operations across three factories - power supply, compressed air, air-conditioning, water supply and some other areas. I had no idea what I had to do.

The forklift got fixed that day. But that was not the lesson.

The people in that department had been there for years. Some for decades. They knew every pipe, every valve, every fault pattern in the plant. I knew none of it. And those two years taught me a lot about managing people.

Not because I managed them, but because I worked with them. I stayed.

The person who had been maintaining that compressed air system for fifteen years held knowledge I could not buy, replicate, or override. The moment I understood that, something shifted. I stopped thinking about authority and started thinking about usefulness. What could I contribute that helped them do their work better? What could I do to develop the infrastructure that made life easier at the Plant?

What I also understood, slowly, is that people do not need you to know more than them. They need to know that you will not abandon the problem. That when something breaks at 5 AM (which it did), you will be the person trying to fix it. That you will ask the question you do not know the answer to, rather than pretending you do.

I left that plant in 1992. The relationships built on that factory floor have lasted. I have not found a better explanation for why than this: they knew I would not walk away from the problem; that I would be with them and be the last one to leave. That was enough.

I have managed large teams since then. Pan-India commercial operations. Multiple teams across geographies. The fundamentals have not changed.