I was not particularly excited about meeting Shoji Shiba, an international management expert who gave introductory classes to students in the Post Graduate Programme for Executives Visionary Leadership in Manufacturing (PGPEX VLMP) at the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.
The PGPEX VLMP programme was launched in 2007, with IIT Kanpur, IIT Madras and IIM Calcutta coming together to train future manufacturing professionals. It is a popular course. I went to the institute to meet Professor Shiba, but I was also hoping to get other stories.
Professor Shiba was interacting with students in a large hall when I entered. He was explaining to them the principles of breakthrough management which made little sense to me. I had given up any hope of a story. It was only when he started talking about his compulsion to carry a mobile phone to his class that I realised that Professor Shiba’s visit to IIM Calcutta in 2011 was no ordinary one.
Professor Shiba said that his 100-year-old mother was hospitalised and her doctor had asked him when he was leaving Tokyo to carry a mobile phone. His house had been damaged in the tsunami just a few days before, on March 11, he said, but because he had promised to address the new batch of students, he didn’t want to back out under any circumstance. “In Japan, we keep the promises we make,” he said.
Amazed by the Japanese professor’s dedication, I called up the institute to speak to him a few days after the meeting. I was told that Professor Shiba’s orientation programme was over and that he had left for Japan. Out of curiosity, I contacted the director of the academic programme, A.K. Chaudhury, who said that the students were so touched by Professor Shiba’s professionalism that he was given a rousing send-off. About 35 students in the class started clapping, he said, and many went to the main gate of the campus to escort him. The clapping continued till he left the campus.
On the last day of his class, at about 1.30 p.m., Professor Shiba got a call from doctors in Japan informing him that his mother was no more. He requested other faculty members not to announce the news. He only told the students at 8 p.m., after his final class. “It seems as though my mother was waiting for me to finish my assignment here,” he said.
The next year, I heard that Professor Shiba had been honoured with the Padma Shri for strengthening India-Japan ties.
I have lost touch with Professor Shiba after 2011, but his dedication to his profession stays with me as a reminder of how professional we must always be.
