In 1996, the joint venture between the erstwhile Godrej Soaps and Proctor & Gamble fell apart. The former was left without the basic building block of a consumer goods company - a distribution network. The company had to rebuild itself almost from scratch. "We had a situation of life after death," jokes Visty Banaji, director (corporate HR) at Godrej Industries.

And the rebirth pangs were real. The company had to recruit about 250 employees - 27% of its staff strength of about 900. The result was an organisation with an average age of 35 years. That was good, but the problem was this team had to fit into a business group that was more than 100 years old and had core values of similar vintage. Marrying the grey and the green has been one of the challenges at Godrej Consumer Products (GCPL), as the company was renamed in 2001. "It's not about values alone, but winning the race while maintaining the values,'' says Banaji.

So Parivartan, a training programme for new employees, was launched in September 2000. For that a team of 18 senior Godrej executives were roped in from different parts of the company - sales, logistics and HR. Also, about 350 secondary employees (those employed by the distributors) were put through the programme.

"We thought of engaging consultants to talk to them, but realised nothing works better than getting your own people to do that," says Sumit Mitra, manager (HR). The impact of Parivartan was evident a few months later. In November 2002, a Gallup survey on employee engagement showed that the field team was the most motivated group in the company.

Diffusing knowledge throughout the company is encouraged in other ways too. Senior executives act as coaches. For instance, Jayant Khandeparkar, who heads personal care and is a master coach, helped one of his junior managers learn the intricacies of making an acquisition. To involve youth in strategy, GCPL has the 'Red' and the 'Blue' teams. They operate on C.K. Prahalad's premise that if two teams work on a specific goal, the probability of getting different and diverse views is much higher.

Last year, the two teams were asked to prepare business plans for the next three years. They had to be presented to the executive committee of the board. The teams had their budgets and were free to consult anyone (except the other team).

Around 18 of their ideas were incorporated in the company's final business plan. These were taken up by a joint group - the Plum Team - for implementation.

The constant desire of the organisation to reinvent itself stems from the culture created by CEO Adi Godrej. GCPL employees say that he leads the change and is involved in all the seminars and conferences for advancing ideation. He reads almost a book a day. "The proof of it is not in how many books he has read, but how much he has changed (himself),'' says Banaji.

Senior colleagues recall how he has changed over the last five years. At a recent seminar, Godrej confessed that he was not a great communicator and not seen among the people. But he added: "This is what came out in the 360° appraisal and I changed (myself).''