Business to the Buddha

Tag: Business

  • …because there are only means!







    On Saturday I read a twitt of Paulo Coelho – renowned author – “A warrior of the light knows that the ends do not justify the means. Because there are no ends, there are only means”. I inferred from the statement that – means are values on which we base and live our life. Some time back I had written on integrity as one value for organization and individuals. Another article I glanced through in Outlook India – “How Not To Court The Law” by Uttam Sengupta. At the end of the article Mr Ranjan Mondal commented – “…where is our Ethics in law?”

    Recently, I happened to meet and discuss the same with Mr Abhaynath Mishra. He is a trainer, consultant and is extensively working on value system of individuals and organizations.  He said, sustainability of an organization is based on values and ethics it follows. In short run there may be loss but the long run success of an organization is assured by the belief and sticking to the values. Also, I had a few telecon with my MBA Professor Ms Mala Kapadia – we too discussed on Values and Business. Mala Ma’am suggested “…somewhere I feel interpretation of Bhagwat Gita too has been wrong, in saying that war for Dharma is justified.”

    I asked this question to myself – do ends justify means? and What are the values business follow, do the businesses really follow these, values? I stopped at a very good question – where is ethics? We seldom talk about it in debates, in our closed rooms and perhaps in boardrooms. Ethics are there in closed door – safe, not touched by anyone! In practice – well, we practice everything except ethics because for a long time we have imbibed lessons such as “ends justify the means.” Now is the time when we – as a community – are questioning the means used to achieve goals, ethics in business and values of individuals. The reason to ask such questions is the problems we face today – recession, political unrest and other personal problems. The biggest identified cause for these problems is  ‘greed’. The problems can be resolved when we learn what Paulo Coelho twitted recently – ends do not justify the means. Because there are no ends, there are only means. Be ethical …because there are only means!

  • What more you need?







    I was watching Padosan (Old Hindi Comedy movie). The movie is interesting and I came to know that it has been made in different Indian languages. In that movie the protagonist (Sunil Dutt) repeats a couple of times an ancient concept of Hindu culture.  The concept is Ashramas of human life. According to these Ashramas there are four stages of life each divided in roughly 25 years duration. These duration and our current life style made me think. I have always been wondering about what we want? We all have been running, some know why, some do not know why are we running? Many of those who know are running behind money, other few are behind fame and so on. Yes money is required to fill our stomach on a daily basis, is required for basic amenities. Beyond a certain point do we still need money? Yes!

    When we are not satisfied with what we have. We run behind something either closing our eyes or because we can not think of anything else.

    Rajat Gupta

    Whole life we have been running behind money, if one day at an age of 60 we are told – ‘stop it!’ For some time we would feel uncomfortable what to do? Then since whole life we have been doing just one thing we would start the race again. Unknowingly money becomes purpose of life, if this running around wont be there we wouldn’t have any reason to survive, right?

    Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

    With due respect to those who have made a lot of money, I was wondering about a recent case of insider trading, involving Mr Rajat Gupta. Mr Gupta made it big in the corporate world, proved how successful a person could be. Yet in a recent court case sentenced for 25 years imprisonment. The reason – an  inadvertent (probably) or wishful (probably) – sharing of boardroom discussion. I was seriously wondering what more a person needs? You are famous, you are rich and you have had a very successful life, what more?

    Maslow‘s needs need hierarchy theory seems to have failed us repeatedly. There seem to be no end to the level of ‘Esteem’. What more we need to move beyond Esteem to self-realization?

    Image source – Maslow’s need hierarchy – Wikipedia, Mr Rajat Gupta – The Hindu

  • “Social Strategy” – a step in the future!







    A couple of days back I was on Facebook. Yes it happens when you are too occupied with work and commitments are such that you are socially cut-off – even if you do not want to. I checked Facebook update of one of my friends – Nishant Jain, a Supply Chain specialist with HCL – “Outsourcing is dead. Co-sourcing is the only way to go” by Vineet Nayar. This comment of Mr Nayar and subsequently sharing the statement by Nishant makes an statement that we are going to grow together, there is no other way out! I wrote on this earlier – Collaboration in logistics… What we call competition or what we see as “servicing clients” is actually helping client perform their duty better and there needs to be more ‘open-ness’ and involvement in what service/product we are offering. I started writing my blogs with the same concept (Refer – Why this title?).

    …“When Ferrari and Honda run on the racing track competing for the first spot, they are not eying at the first spot, they are racing to offer best product to their customers.” The Buddha’s teaching on ‘Dependent co-arising’ teaches me this. “Each one of us is a rung of a ladder to the other and vice versa, hence for self development and moving higher up, one’s ladder should be strong enough, even one’s competitors.” I believe this will be the extension of P&G’s present approach of Connect & Develop in future; working on various fronts with the competitors such as IPR – strategically innovating – besides others…

    I requested Nishant that would it be fine if I refer you in the blog? He is kind enough to say yes. Around the same time, when I was drafting this blog I happened to read an article in McKinsey Quarterly – The social side of strategy.  This article, Nishant’s facebook update and my owns earlier blog connected all the dots. I could see the relationship between Business and the Buddha in another dimension yet again.

    According to the McKinsey article companies are trying their hands on social strategy. Further it states that such strategy planning efforts would be more inclusive, action oriented, detailed and of course measurable. The other advantage of such efforts would be enthusiasm people would have; it would provide ownership to the execution. The reason for these strategic initiatives to be far more measurable is that these would increase accountability. Everyone in the organization would review progress of each initiative resulting in improved quality.

    Effectively, we are moving toward a more inclusive society and more inclusive organizations. Caution – the idea of open strategy or social strategy is to provide a platform to the organization for brainstorming, yet the whole idea is not yet completely evolved. So, companies need to open up slowly in some regards such as intellectual property.

    As Indian philosophy states – Vasudhev Kutumbakam (one-world family), I sincerely hope to see that happening.

    I would continue this in future blogs, too. Until then thank you for reading.

  • Business of religion!*







    The first message we heard in the class of Brand Management of Professor Ram Kumar, was “It is an eco-system…”. An entangled, closely knit or perhaps confusingly mingled ‘Eco-system’. Econ-system of brands, products, product variants (variants are very confusing, no doubt) and bombardment of marketing messages (communication). Here everyone wants to say that our product is the best using different channels and different language. Hum! it sounds very common, right? So common that we overlook it.

    In another class of Marketing we were asked which is the oldest business in the world, still running successfully? I (when I say ‘I’, literally I) responded ‘religion’. Every religious institution says our religion is better (perhaps the best) than others and is the only path for salvation. Walmart, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Tata or Reliance might exist, or not, for 1000 years but for sure we will (and had) many religion for 1000’s of years and we will have them in future too. Why? Because – religious institution sells itself on emotions. Even without learning any Marketing concept, religious institutions learnt that emotions should be hit directly to let people decide emotionally and justify rationally.

    Let us talk about the channels they use. It is similar to what we learn in distribution channel or managing supply chain. ‘Retail store’ of Religion or distribution channels are found everywhere, and finances? Well there is no limit to it (find it for yourself – a recent News in an Indian Newspaper The Hindu or Google search for $ with any major religion of the world…). Every religion has a source of income this source of income germinates from the EMOTION we talked earlier about. Yet there is a lot to learn from religious institutions, learning the administration, Marketing and distribution channel and much more, is not that true?

    Personally, I am a strong believer that religion plays an important role in building and binding society. Religion is a path wherein you have to follow the traffic rules. If you do not follow the rules you are likely to meet with an accident. What is the question of saying rules of left hand drive better than right hand drive? The rules are there to avoid accidents and make the journey safer and easier. When I say ‘firm believer’ I mean the rules taught by the religion, and not the comparison of one to the other.

    Well, not only for business but also for being righteous person we can learn a lot from religion!

    * Conditioned applied – Thoughts presented here are my own and learnt from different sources, I do not intend to hurt any sentiment or question any religion.

  • A tree is only as strong as its roots







    Have you heard this saying before?

    This is the second blog in the series of … wait for it… (updated on Jan 2013) Connecting the dots – innovation

    Well, to continue from the earlier blogs – Cricket… here I am to write the next in one which takes off from the Amar Chitra Katha.

    Why Amar Chitra Katha? Because it relates to me on two levels. One on Business and the other the Buddha… As an innovation consultant I observed that innovative ideas not necessarily become successful revenue source. There could be many reasons for the same. One most important point for constant innovation and healthy top/bottom line is understanding the customer, understanding their overt and covert needs. That is what Uncle Pai could do with the concept of Amar Chitra Katha. No doubt he had a noble cause at the center. However, he also knew the need gap and could fulfill the same. So effectively, he was one who could understand the consumer insight and voice of the customer.

    I loved reading the comic and magazines by him and I was unfortunate that even though I lived in Dadar for a long time I could never meet him and when I heard about his sad demise I was not in India.

    Part two of Amar Chitra Katha is the Buddha. Again reiterating the fact that when I say “the Buddha” I do not restrict myself to the Buddha only. This relates to every possible concept which connects us more on a higher plane above our made so called ‘religion’. Amar Chitra Katha was born for all round development of kids. Read any story it would be either for knowledge, imparting some lesson or last but not the least to develop the habit of reading. Uncle Pai took this root as an obvious path – stories are easy to remember, kids (at least that time – 60s-70s) used to hear stories (Dada Dadi ki kahaniya) – when Jatak tales were used by the Buddha why reinvent the wheel?

    A to Z mysteries 1, A to Z mysteries 2, A to Z mysteries 3, A to Z mysteries 4, A to Z mysteries 5, A to Z mysteries 6,

     

  • The Business, the Buddha and both…







    The Business
    What is business? Trade is the underlying concept of business and exchange of one thing for the other is trade. Earlier trade was based on barter system. Later, with the introduction of the concept of money, more sophistication was added to trade e.g. business. Based on a very basic definition of business, I can say life is a business, you trade relations; in fact you trade pretty much everything in life. On a tangent, even the so called most emotional feeling a human being has e.g. love, seems like a trade in today’s depiction of art. Though, love is a sacred feeling which should not be a trade.

    The Buddha
    Here, I want to state I am neither a Buddhist nor supporting Buddhism (any -ims for that matter), I am just associating the business to the longest lasting systems (which are generally religion) in the world. I may write on Islamic banking in future or stories of Jesus. The idea is to keeping eyes and ears open to learn that is how I could relate to Business and the Buddha, and still learning. I found words of wisdom of the Buddha relating to many places in businesses be it Singapore, Western world, India or other places, and that is what Business to Buddha made sense to me.

    … And the business and the Buddha
    There is relationship between business and the Buddha, in future the businesses would be more evolved and we would have more than profits in our mind. I got to watch this Video of Money Control earlier and this is one such instance where we might see an evolution in corporate thinking process. I will take an example on ‘interdependent co-arising’ (a concept of Buddhism) in some future blog. This video is on “Business Sutra” broadcast on CNBC, the link of the same is here relates to the same concept. Indian Walmart – the Big Bazaar – has a dedicated Chief Belief Officer (Dr Devdutt Pattnaik), we might see more involvement of ‘perhaps not belief‘ but social causes in business e.g. CSR.

  • Why this title?







    First thing first, why this title to the blog? Does Business and the Buddha sound ok together? Is there any connection? Let me explain origin of this thought and why I see there is relation between business and the Buddha.

    I was reading a book – old path white clouds, walking in the footsteps of Buddha – by Thich Nhat Hanh. There were many lessons of Buddhism in the book. One which stuck to me very profoundly was – interdependent co-arising. My interpretation of the concept in layman’s terms is – we all grow when we help each other to grow whether it is our subordinates or our competitors.

    “When Ferrari and Honda run on the racing track competing for the first spot, they are not eying at the first spot, they are racing to offer best product to their customers.” The Buddha’s teaching on ‘Dependent co-arising’ teaches me this. “Each one of us is a rung of a ladder to the other and vice versa, hence for self development and moving higher up, one’s ladder should be strong enough, even one’s competitors.” I believe this will be the extension of P&G’s present approach of Connect & Develop in future; working on various fronts with the competitors such as IPR – strategically innovating – besides others.

    What I feel is as we evolve as humans further, such philosophical concepts will come in our main stream without our conscious knowledge. We studied a case in our marketing course recently, launch of Z3 (BMW car) with the New James Bond movie Golden Eye. This was again a case of interdependent co-arising. How many knew about this?

    Effectively, the title of business to Buddha looked apt to me. The other reason for the same was – these two seemingly different concepts encompass almost everything on which I would possibly write on the blogs. Therefore, I selected the title with its caption – Everything from earthly and unearthly. The blog would be my thoughts from physical to metaphysical all. I trust I will be able to keep pace with life and still take time to write some or the other things on the blog.