Dhirubhaism No 1: Roll up your sleeves and help. You and your team share the same DNA.
Reliance, during Vimal's heady days had organized a fashion show at the Convention Hall, at Ashoka Hotel in New Delhi.
As usual, every seat in the hall was taken, and there were an equal number of impatient guests outside, waiting to be seated. I was of course completely besieged, trying to handle the ensuing confusion, chaos and protests, when to my amazement and relief, I saw Dhirubhai at the door trying to pacify the guests.
Dhirubhai at that time was already a name to reckon with and a VIP himself, but that did not stop him from rolling up his sleeves and diving in to rescue a situation that had gone out of control. Most bosses in his place would have driven up in their swank cars at the last moment and given the manager a piece of their minds. Not Dhirubhai.
When things went wrong, he was the first person to sense that the circumstances would have been beyond his team's control, rather than it being a slip on their part, as he trusted their capabilities implicitly. His first instinct was always to join his men in putting out the fire and not crucifying them for it. Sounds too good a boss to be true, doesn't he? But then, that was Dhirubhai.
Image: Dhirubhai Ambani, with his 'Man of the Century' trophy, as the then Maharasthra Governor P C Alexander looks on during the Chemtech-CEW awards on November 8, 2000 in Mumbai. | Photograph: Sebastian D'Souza/AFP/Getty Images
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