Managing India - turning a dream into reality

Dear friends,

The new year is but 4 days away. One more year, a turbulant one, will be behind us. It is a good time to reflect on how we are faring as a nation. Today instead of my usual Vizag centric post I thought I should publish a speech delivered by my good friend, an exceptional manager and a visionary Mr. T.G.S. Babu who currently lives and works in Chennai. He worked in Vizag in the late '70s then left for greater assignments in other parts of the country. He gave this keynote speech in February 2010 at the Coimbatore Management Association annual day. Do take the time to read it.

Managing India: turning a dream into reality

Good evening to all of you. You have chosen to assemble here on a Sunday evening to listen to a speech instead of opting for a movie or an outing with the family. I hope that you will not regret the choice that you made at the end of the event. I agreed to give a short address on the theme “Managing India: turning a dream into a reality” that has been chosen by AIMA for its annual day cum national management day celebrations tomorrow.  

Difficult task

We must admit right at the outset that managing India is an inherently complex task by virtue of the sheer size and diversity of religions, cultures, and languages that we have in one country. The task would have been easier, purely from a managerial standpoint if we had a highly centralised command and control governance like in China, where decisions are taken and implemented very fast. However we as a nation have chosen the democratic governance model. Therefore we must seek to find better management models within the democratic framework.

Collective output

The great management guru Peter Drucker pointed out decades ago that the single most defining aspect of our modern society is the role played by organized institutions in day to day life. In the olden days the society’s performance and output was purely a sum total of what the individual citizens did; there were physicians but no hospitals; there were horse carriages but no transport corporations; there were teachers but no colleges. Individual excellence mattered. Now, every product and every service is the collective output of many people in an organization. The best example of this profound transition is Coimbatore itself; take a look at the role played here by large institutions in the fields of education, engineering, textiles, and healthcare.

Management skills is crucial

As a natural corollary, management has become the single most important social function in modern civilization; because management skills are at the heart of any organised institution where a collection of people are to be inspired into consistent performance over a set of agreed goals through a  common purpose and common culture. And therefore success belongs to that firm, that city, that society, that nation which masters the science and art of management.

Well-developed nation

Let’s get back to the theme of “Managing India: turning a dream into reality”. What is my dream? Given my managerial bent of view, I prefer to substitute the word “vision” for the word “dream”. And it is my vision that India should be a well developed nation in the next 25 years respected not only for its economic power but also its soft power.      

You will notice that I have used the phrase “well developed nation” instead of the commonly used phrase developed nation. To my mind the popular term developed nation has a substantial economic smell, typically meaning more GDP, more wealth, more facilities, and more good things. So what do I mean by the phrase well developed?

Five characteristics

According to me a well developed nation will have five characteristics, in this orderIt will be free of abject poverty; abject poverty defined as a person not being sure of his next meal

1. It will be free of abject poverty; abject poverty defined as a person not being sure of his next meal
2. It will pursue balanced affluence; balanced affluence defined as GDP growth without an increase in inequalities
3. It will be disciplined; discipline defined as voluntary adherence to rules and norms without the need for policing
4. It will show sensitivity to all forms and aspects of life on the earth
5. It will have a universal outlook, willing to do what is best for the world as a whole  

1. Free of Poverty

We must begin with an honest assessment as to whether we are a well managed nation now. Regrettably we have failed badly against the very first test of not having abject poverty. We are indeed a rapidly developing economy, with growing economic output largely arising out of the increasing domestic consumption of a burgeoning middle class. But we have a shocking level of abject poverty. We must work to eliminate this basic flaw.

2. Balanced affluence

Our track record in the second test of equitable growth appears to be better, because of the large involvement of the aspiring middle class, particularly in the services sector.    But there is the danger of growing inequity between urban and rural wealth.

3. Discipline

Now I come to the third test of being disciplined. I am sure no one will quarrel with me if I were to say that we are a particularly undisciplined nation. The world sees us as a noisy, chaotic democracy. In a democracy you get plenty of rights; but with accompanying responsibilities. For example you have a right to listen to any music of your choice but you must ensure that you are not disturbing others in doing this. In our country we have mastered the rights part but not the responsibilities part. We need to get much better at three things:

• at following rules in all areas; on the road, in the train, in the airport, in the meeting, at work, at home, everywhere
• at the art of debating logically using facts and figures, avoiding emotions
• at a consensus approach to resolving conflicts

 4. Sensitivity to all forms of life

How about our performance in the fourth test of showing sensitivity to all forms of life?    A somewhat mixed record. Thanks to the Hindu culture and tradition we treat animals and trees also as sacred. The nobility of the ancient Indian mind can be seen from the following clip from a Vedic Shanti mantra: “Daivee swastirastunaha| Swastirmanushebhyaha| Oordhvam jigatu bheshajam| Shanno astu dvipade| Sham chatushpade| Om shantih, shantih, shantihi|” translatable as: "May the Gods bless us! Let there be peace to humans. Let the trees and plants grow abundantly upwards. Let there be peace to two legged creatures. Let there be peace to four legged creatures. Peace, peace, peace!" What a broadminded prayer!

But in the wake of rapid economic development forests, water bodies and wildlife are rapidly depleting. Thousands of species in the air, on land and in the sea have become extinct. The common sparrow has disappeared from most parts of India. Most Indians are not consciously thinking of their responsibility to nature. There is a great need for us to regain the traditional Indian respect for ecology and proactively support nature: trees, hills, lakes, rivers, oceans and wildlife.

5. Universal outlook

Now I come to the last test of having a universal outlook. It is here that we as a nation score better than most nations. Arguably we are one of the least parochial nations. We acknowledge the goodness of others, the greatness of other cultures, and the virtues of other languages very easily and integrate them into our culture. It is this outlook which has produced respect for Indian intellect and Indian culture everywhere in the world.   This broad outlook is a gift that we inherited from our rishis who pondered over philosophical dilemmas in a very deep manner and declared the oneness of world in the pithy Sanskrit axiom: Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (The entire earth is indeed one family!) 

The overall picture

The overall picture is a nation that is inherently broadminded and spiritual but is not good at fixing problems and not good at producing effective behaviour from masses of people. In simple language there is a need for large doses of management medicine across all spheres in our country.

Action plan - five primary agencies

Now we come to the action part as to who will infuse this management competence into all aspects of the Indian society and how will this task be accomplished. To my mind there are five primary agencies whose energies need to be galvanised for bringing about this societal transformation that I have in mind.

These are: governmental departments, business organizations, educational institutions, NGOs and individual citizens. Ideally we need to have a master plan where each of these agencies is focussed on a limited number of social interventions that will improve our performance on the first 4 qualifications for being a well developed nation.

Owing to time constraint and the complexity of subject I will stay clear of the role that the government can play. Instead I want take you through some specific ideas for leveraging the remaining 4 agencies, namely business organizations, educational institutions, NGOs, and individuals through one common noble theme:

Voluntary social responsibility

• Support and enable the creation of a nationwide network of well managed charitable institutions focussed on delivering food, medicine, clothing and education to the poor; I mean institutions such as the Ramakrishna Mission

• Support the work of NGOs in the area of ecological conservation such as tree planting, water bodies conservation, preservation of hills etc in your area

• Inspire your employees to donate 5% of their salaries for charitable causes  

• I have identified a single point social agenda for educational institutions: Adopt the village or the colony in the town where you are located

• Similarly I have a single point social agenda for the average citizen: Be disciplined; do not shortcut rules and norms

Inspired and energetic leaders required

And now we come to the trickiest part as to who will drive this transformational agenda. You need many, many inspired and energetic leaders. And where are they? Right here in this hall. There is no better community than the professional managers to lead this effort. They have the managerial skills and they have the influence.

If you are a CEO, you have enormous power to set the social agenda for your organization. Use it. If you are a senior manager, you have significant influence within your company.  Use it. If you are a management teacher, you have a lot of influence over your students. Use it. Each one of you over your lifetime of a managerial career will come to know  a few hundreds, maybe thousands of citizens; employees, dealers, suppliers, customers, students. Influence them towards the social agenda!

I estimate that there will be 200,000 managers with a proper managerial title in the corporate sector itself and perhaps double that number in the private sector as a whole; may be a million managers if you added the public sector. If we can inspire even 10% of this group we can do wonders.   

The professional manager as a social change agent! That’s my message.