P V R Murthy as an Institution Builder

People behind NHRDN: P V R  Murthy

(This is first in the series and will form a part of my forthcoming book on "The Autobiography of Two Institutions: NHRDN and AHRD" and is expected to feature a number of  individuals who made a difference to both these institutions)

“Institution building is an act of faith”- Ravi J Matthai.

Whose faith? Certainly of “some people”. No institution gets built by a single individual. It is the faith of several though one or two or a few may be the champions. 

PVR is one who has shown such faith in primarily in two institutions with which he was associated: NHRDN and ISABS.  He rarely held any office and even if he was an office bearer what mattered to him is the building of the body and not the office he held. His commitment to these institutions was total and lifelong.

 He was a participant in the National seminar of “recent Experiences of HRD” held at Sea Rock hotel Mumbai on February 27- March 2^nd 1985. I came in touch with him first in this seminar. He was working with Sundaram Clayton as DGM HR. When we decided to start the NHRDN he along with Chandrasekhar of L&T volunteered to steer it in Chennai. Since then there was no looking back. He continued to support NHRDN with his time and spirit. His contributions are both in terms of intellectual capital and continuous rejuvenation whenever the Chennai network was inactive and in trouble. He played the same role with ISABS.

I still remember the several journeys we used to have driving down from Bangalore to Hosur when he invited me to work with Sundaram Clayton to introduce the PMS. We used to meet and the only issue we used to discuss was NHRDN and its foundations and shaping its future. It was in these conversations we designed a distance education program and also the HRD Facilitators program which we implemented along with ISABS in Jaipur. It is the funds from these programs that helped us to start the Academy of HRD. When he told me the story of how he narrowly missed getting his Fellow title from IIMC, I felt bad and repeatedly persuaded him not to give up. He used to narrate proudly how he met Mrs. Indira Gandhi when she was PM, for his dissertation work. He wrote a thesis but to the extent I recollect it did not get the approval of someone in IIMC and he had to join back his company and could not pursue the same. He registered for his Ph. D. with me with Gujarat University as an external candidate from IIMA. I felt he was very competent and certainly deserved a Doctorate. His thesis was on how Indian Managers learn from various sources. I tried to get him to write a paper on his thesis as a tribute to Udai Pareek but could not persuade me beyond a point due to his health a few weeks ago. I did not even know that he was going through serious health issues till the other day. He also made his contributions silently to Academy of HRD. He participated in some of the major projects of AHRD with the General Insurance Company and with the Rubber Board and so on in which Udai Pareek, Fr. E. Abraham, Dr. Sethumadhavan and Keith D’Souza were also involved. He was a great team worker.

His association with NHRDN and ISABS are over thirty years. He had been a silent worker. In what both Udai Pareek and could not succeed in starting a Journal of the NHRDN PVR succeeded and made the journal a jewel of NHRDN. For those who are not aware, Dr. Udai Pareek was to start the NHRDN Journal in earl y nineties.  M R R Nair was president and people like Ishwar Dayal, Suresh Krishna, KKK Nohria  were on the Board of the Journal. After six months of struggle with articles Udai managed to get over thirty articles and found not more than a couple of them as of quality. For want of quality articles, it was abandoned. With this experience in background, when PVR mooted the idea of the journal once again I was not very positive. However PVR not only made it a reality but got wider participation, and published almost about 30 issues of the Journal. After establishing this journal he quietly laid down office and found a good successor Pallabh Bandopadhyay to continue the good work.

Each issue that was brought out is like a book and has short, simple to read and quality articles with people from all over the world contributing.  This is a silent and extraordinary contribution of PVR.  These journal issues can each be offered as course in any PG program on Humanities, Social Sciences, HR, OB, OD and Institution Building. These offer both concepts, experiences and views from the west and the east. These journals will remind us forever of the silent and great contributions or f people like PVR to the profession.  He has also been a great facilitator of ISABS and would keep pushing old and new members to meet frequently and also mentor as well as create mentoring opportunities for others. PVR is undoubtedly a silent Institution Builder who took rarely any credit for whatever he has contributed.  

Undoubtedly Institution Building is an act of faith and not of one person but of many silent contributors like PVR who exhibit immense faith in the institutions they are associated.