Wings of fire - Sir APJ ABDUL KALAM Wings of fire | Page 103

what basis did you select these five Pandavas (he meant
the Project Directors)?” I was, in fact, expecting this
question. I wanted to tell him that I found all these five
Pandavas married to the Draupadi of positive thinking.
Instead, I told Rao to wait and see. I had chosen them to
take charge of a long-term programme where new storms
would arise everyday.
Every tomorrow, I told Rao, will give opportunities to
these enthusiastic people—the Agarwals, Prahladas, Iyers,
and Saras-wats— to gain a fresh perspective on their
goals and a strong hold on their commitments.
What makes a productive leader? In my opinion, a
productive leader must be very competent in staffing. He
should continually introduce new blood into the
organization. He must be adept at dealing with problems
and new concepts. The problems encountered by an R&D
organization typically involve trade-offs among a wide
variety of known and unknown parameters. Skill in handling
these complex entities is important in achieving high
productivity. The leader must be capable of instilling
enthusiasm in his team. He should give appropriate credit
where it is due; praise publicly, but criticize privately.
One of the most difficult questions came from a young
scientist: “How are you going to stop these projects from
going the Devil way?” I explained to him the philosophy
behind IGMDP—it begins with design and ends in
deployment. The participation of the production centres and
user agencies right from the design stage had been
ensured and there was no question of going back till the
missile system