"I believe in a soul I cannot quantify. And I like to think &at my soul chose its new, body with a definite purpose. I may not remember the Perpose while I live this life but I know that there is a meaning to the suffering go through."

Dinesh Chandra does not head a religious sect. He is a Florida- based engineer who writes poetry, starts singing a Shammi Kapoor number at the drop of a camera lens and holds transformation leadership workshops around the world. The Total Quality Management workshops focus on how managers can get the best out of their employees. Chandra says that if the top bosses are willing to relate to their workers as people and take care of not just their monetary needs but also their individual development, the quality of work improves.

Chandra is president of Global Quality Associates. a firm specialising in organisational transformation. Having studied and then worked in the 1Jnited States, first as an engineer and then as TQM expert, for 25 years, Chandra's dream in the last five years has been to create 'prototypes of success' in India.

The management guru shares some secrets of happiness with Rachna Subramanian And he has seen it come true with companies such as Eicher (Parwanoo), Enfield (Madras) and Larsen & Tubro (Mumbai).

"A transformation leader.' says Chandra, is one who lives in the moment. "He does not live in the past feeling guilty, or in the future worrying most of the time. What he think's says and does are all aligned - what we call manas, vachan, karam - and therefore others trust him. He brings out the best in himself and helps others to attain their maximum potential.

"One of his surprising success stories has been K N Company, which deals with lotteries. Says Chandra, 'The owner is obsessed with the environment and this has percolated to the 300 staff. The company has 10 drivers and whenever they are free they go around pulling off the billboards hammered on tree trunks. If the drivers later find these have been re-place by advertisers, tire pull them off again until the advertisers tire of repeating the process.'

The transformation leadership guru discovered a truism about people every-where. 'Every person wants to be appreciated for his meagre contribution - and wants to make that contribution. Once the top people realise this and put it into practice, the work ethos automatically changes."

Chandra was not always so adaptable. He grew up in Kanpur and was labelled a non-believer and rebel by his family. He questioned every establishment rule and worked against the stream.

Chandra looks back to the time he first met the girl who was to become his wife: "She was a Muslim and as soon as I saw her I knew I had to marry her. I did not realise it at the time but I now know it yeas a spiritual experience. We were very unlike each other, North and South Pole I would say. Yet we married and stayed together despite the odds." Chandra's life changed eight. years ago when he discovered that his wife was dying of leukemia "When you love someone so intensely and know you are going to lose her, you can never remain the same person" he says.His mother used to tell him to meditate when he was a boy but Chandra had rejected all of that as nonsense, Some years ago he tried meditation: " I began to feel that suffering must have a purpose. Since I do not believe that everything is pre-ordained I developed my own theory which gave me some answers I was looking for. My belief might seem bizarre to you but it has made me a happier person.

Chandra left India in 1969. He was working with the American firm Coulter Corporation when, in the face of cut throat competition, he was put on the job of finding out what the management needed to do to improve the quality of work . He understood it was the top man's qualities that shaped the way workers handled their jobs. He worked towards synthesising management concepts with basic values: " When you get 20-30 people in a workshop, they all begin by voicing their own ambitions.

Three to four days together and they start thinking about each other's welfare too. But "s cannot remain a one time exercise. it is necessary to keep reinforcing the idea."

His efforts worked and by 1987 Coulter Corp was back on rails. His success in the United States brought him invitations from India. Vikram Lal of Eicher attended one of his workshops and invited him to take up the project for his company. Chandra asked just one question: "Are you ready to change?' Lal's answer must have satisfied him. He came back to India with his wife and two daughters to work towards increasing productivity and teaching people about quality. In the two years he spent in India, he worked mainly with Eicher." I can say with pride that I did manage to make some change in their thinking." Another of his successes has been L&T, Mumbai.

"There was so much improvement in union-management relationship that the union asked the management to decide on workers' promotions instead of putting forward its own conditions."

His wife illness forced the family to go back to the Stares in 1992. Following her death. his daughters insisted on staying on in Florida as they were still studying. 'I struck a deal with my daughters. I would make three trips to India every year to conduct workshops.' says Chandra with a smile. 'and I have held them to their promise.

At the time Chandra felt that following liberalisation. Indians were increasingly becoming aware of the need to maintain quality. What encouraged him further were the pockets of excellence he could spot in industrial India. Chandra believes that "Indian managers are better read than their counterparts in the West. What they lack are implementation skills." But he says he sees the change in their mindset.

Putting some Western management concepts into action, Chandra strongly feels the need to Indianise them: "We have to try and create a leadership that thinks globally and acts locally. For example, the Western notion of competitiveness is not what we need in India. We have to he more collaborative. I am impressed by the attempts to synthesise the two cultures but we have not been able to put it into practice as effectively as the Chinese. "We are moving from the industrial to the information age and India is five to 10 years behind the West in the field of software. If just 20-30 leaders understand that the global customer wants excellence, we can make believers out of the people. The business and bureaucratic communities me supportive. We now need consistent political initiative."

But Chandra believes these hurdles are easy to overcome once you learn to accept that you are responsible for your own life, not politicians, your family or your friends.

"It is this strong belief that put me on the track of my spiritual theory - that the soul is the software that has the right to choose its hardware when it enters a body."