Business to the Buddha

Tag: Savji Bhai Dholakia

  • Broken pail







    Once upon a time in India, there was a farmer – Ram. In those days there were no facilities of having water in nearby areas. So, Ram used to go long distance to bring water for farming. He used to tie one pail (Ghada in Hindi) each on two corners of a stick and used to take it on his shoulders to the nearest water body. He used to fill these pails and bring them back to his farm.

    FarmerOne of the two pails was broken and Ram was poor so he wouldn’t afford to buy new one. He used to fill both the pails but by the time he is back, the broken pail used to get empty. It kept on happening for long time. The other pail used to feel proud of himself.

    These were old times, when non-living things too used to have sentiments – now even humans seem to have lost the emotions. Much to his chagrin, the broken pail used to feel because it is broken, Ram’s efforts get wasted.

    Once, out of compassion, the broke pail told to Ram – yes those were the days when people could hear murmur of non-living things too. Alas we dont listen to ourselves and fellow human beings – “I feel bad for you that I am broken and your hard-work goes in vain when by the time you reach home, I am empty. I am sorry for that.

    Ram too felt bad for the pail, however he said to the pail – today When we come back with water, look around en-route, there are a lot of flowers dont worry about water.

    The pail followed, there were a lot of different colored flowers with many different fragrances. it was happy seeing the flowers allover the route. When the famer reached his farm the broken pail was empty. Pail again felt sorry for loss incurred by Ram because of him. He again asked for apologies to him.

    Ram laughed this time around, he said to the pail. You know what? Those flowers exist because of you, I know you are broken, and water spill out of you all over the route. Knowing this I had put seeds of the flowers in the route. These flowers have made the road beautiful. People pluck the flowers to confer it to gods during prayers. You are broken but see, this helped a lot of people.

    —

    In my innovation consulting engagements, we used to talk about – utilization of available resources. This was a good example of utilization of resource. Can you learn from Ram how to utilize the shortcoming of his resource to his benefit, or society’s benefit?

    Is it the case of strategic decisions – get rid of loss making or less profitable business and utilize the resources on other higher RoI projects? Does our Farmer in this case looks like Mr Ratan Tata?

    No, no, I have my opinions on the corporate (mis)governance, recent development in Tata group and Mr Dholakia of Shri Ram Krishna Exports. I hope to write on these some other time.

    Source of this Jataka Tale – http://www.hindisoch.com/jataka-tales-in-hindi/  (translated with freedom by KRD Pravin)

    Image source – http://mindry.in/blog/2011/05/29/civil-society-asks-government-to-acquire-highways-and-make-them-arable-lands/

  • Has the time for this idea come?







    When I wrote Problem of top 5% blog I was little too concerned due to various reasons. One was, I – being a centralist – am not a good judge of the situation in completely capitalistic societies. Second was – I myself was at the center of the example. How can I judge myself. I may get biased was the very obvious possibility. I shared the draft with Prof Mankad, again various reasons. He knows me, he has lived in the US for many years, he is an economist etc. His response was –

    QUOTE# – The solution lies with top 5/10%. Regulators – teachers, principals – also bank on 10% and would not want to do anything to hurt them. (Refer to a very long article in Huffington* Post yesterday -26th Sept 2014 – on ‘culture’ at FED NY to ignore the trespasses of Goldman’s.)
    With current socioeconomic yardsticks of success, it will take time for the 10% to shed their arrogance. The society may attempt to generate a social consciousness to move away emphasis (not d-emphasise) top 10 %. Can we start with admissions to prime colleges? Take an honest, mathematically random system of selection of say 50 from top 500? Such a system would retain the academic standard and defuse the arrogance of top 50 and perhaps reduce the commercial exploitative practices of coaching classes.
    Same practice may be chosen in recruitment of employees. (And perhaps in selection of brides!) [that “bride” part a “late cut” – as Prof Mankad calls it 🙂 – on me]
    This would be revolutionary. Who will start the revolution? UNQUOTE

     

    So the possible solutions Prof Mankad suggested starts from the top. Top 5% or 10% need to shred their arrogance (read Problem of top 5% a figurative real life example of representing our society, economy and even schools).

    An interesting case happened recently in India. A Gujarat based Jeweler – Savji bhai – has gifted generously to his employees this Diwali. Apparently he is a standard 4th dropout! Mahatma Gandhi used to say what Prof Mankad suggested in his opinion – “…the wealth of the owners is distributed among the workers and when this situation is arrived at, only then would India grow in real terms…”

    According to reports Savji Bhai has given Diwali gifts based on a loyalty program, so even though he did not study typical “Employee Engagement” and “Loyalty Marketing” or any other jargon of an MBA. Additional interesting this is – he supports pilgrimage of his employees families, has made stadium in Surat.

    Just to conclude – Mahatma Gandhi said wealth distribution as the way for Swaraj, Top 5% are hoarding the wealth (reference Dr Joseph Stiglitz) and even Govts are afraid of top 5% so we have a creative solution which Savjibhai experimented with recently. Has the time for this idea come? Wish we see Business and the Buddha co-exist positively to make this world a better place to live and be enlightened.

    NDTV interview (I am yet to watch it though)

    Savjibhai in a brief speech (Gujarati) 2012 – when not many people knew him.

     

    Note –

    # The blog Problem of top 5% was published on 11th Oct, draft created was on 26-27th Sept. Prof Mankad shared his opinion on 27th Sept.

    * I read Huffington Post article which Dr Mankad referred, however currently not able to get that link, so here is related link – http://www.propublica.org/article/carmen-segarras-secret-recordings-from-inside-new-york-fed