Indian corporates are possibly the single most powerful engine of
growth in our burgeoning economic advance and it’s a machine of
frightful efficiency. Guess our mantra? We can deliver anything and with
chutney on the side!
In an economy that is still shaking itself out of the shackles of
Nehruvian economics and socialistic import substitution policies, our
current generations picked themselves up in the wake of liberalization
and globalization. We embraced technology, refused to be seduced by
plastic credit and stayed liquid through the worst financial crisis of
the decade.
We are brash, talk trash but have ready cash….
India is finding itself, or perhaps Indians are. We are a bunch of
self-congratulatory, aggressive and very-much-full-of-ourselves people.
We love to say “told ya so!!” and then charge to process a solution. Not
much wonder why our corporates are hated, feared and possibly
considered alien in structure, thought and processes.
As an expat, an 8 hour working day was laughably easy and overtime
was silliness – but then who’s complaining? A boss who is abusive cannot
be tolerated and deadlines are set after collective deliberation? This
was not heaven, we told each other – it’s a holiday from the real world,
OUR world. A world where 12 hour days without overtime are the basic
norm and words like employee exploitation are matter of fact, amongst
many other “things” that are par for the course.
Like many things that we have learnt from the fabled West, we have
learnt how to ensure our profit margins stay healthy. Maximise profits,
minimise costs, utilize resources optimally and do all this on a set
time-frame, usually condensed and compromised by human frailty and
faults – we don’t merely expect the impossible, we take it for granted.
And what of attrition, employee fall-outs and segmentation – for anyone
unhappy with their job, there are 20 or even 200 others who would
happily take that job. Pay 100 employees marginal wages and pay a
manager top dollar to sustain the product is a very western concept that
is losing prevalence in the country of its origin.
“Get off your chair, this is not the bloody governmental bureaucracy
that you have inherited and get on with your job” We talk in lacs and
crores and refuse refusals – nothing is impossible and haven’t you heard
the cliché – I (a)M Possible??!
It is surprisingly easy to say that things have changed in our lives
here in India. Much too easy but perhaps easy is as easy does for the
possibilities are endless; the requirements still stay the same – the
wish for security, substance and respect of labour. And despite
everything that has happened in the past 100 years, a majority of our
people, educated or not, employed or not, are still struggling for the
very same even today.
Success is a state of mind, achievement is merely perspective. Shift
your focus, I tell my students and often as not, to myself. The hardest
test is the one you don’t know you’re being graded upon – and as I write
these lines, I realize that we Indians refuse to grade ourselves. We
refuse refusals and in the process refuse to acknowledge ownership.
Sometimes it’s the lowly menial who refuses to accept ownership for his
area of endeavours and sometimes the proprietor who would rather
overlook ownership of his endeavours towards his employees – in both
cases, out of baser instincts usually.
We have inherited responsibility from the bitter teachings of a
restricted economy; accountability was imposed on our untrammelled
spirits to ensure delivery and standards, but we are yet to embrace
ownership. Ownership for actions and consequences of the same –
especially when we do business or invoke the holy triumvirate of
corporate policy, development and growth.
And in this process, how do we take ownership for our ideals and
principles? Or do we give them a quick polish when it suits our needs or
wants. Do we trot out our mission values and statements only when we
showcase our code of business conduct paperwork for the next foreign
contract or tender? Do we realize that our capitalistic excesses in
making hay while the sun shines is self-destructive towards creating
institutions rather than quick profits to retire upon?
But then, do we really BUILD for the future today or is that merely a
hoary old phrase? Do we actually expect something to outlast our
lifetimes and reach out to touch people we are yet to know or might
never know. This internet age states that we can access information at
the click or a keystroke – how much of it do we actually value and
re-use?
A person’s life is similar to the growth cycle of a company – not
merely envisaging the ups and downs of the market and the shifting
vagaries of demand & supply economics. Building a company is similar
to building a life, a sensible stage by stage progression of choices,
none of which are wrong. And no theory ever devised by the ingenuous
minds of facile imagination can ever comprehend fully the rich diversity
of actuality or its causality. Except that of the person building the
damned foundations for a structure to call their own and he/she
definitely takes all the risks and definitely deserves a bigger slice of
the cake. But, exactly HOW big a slice are we talking about here?
To blog is to basically stand on a soapbox and explain to yourself
how elevated your thoughts are to the rest of humanity. It is perhaps a
vain effort to stretch out to oneself in the ravaging clamour of an
uncaring world, too busy blogging itself or variations thereof. My blog
is to question how we find the balance between the raging inferno of our
ambitions and the consequences of our actions. I apologize if I am
unable to state more clearly or categorically as I am lost between the
two.
*This piece was selected as a Winning Entry for the ‘Viewspaper Express Yourself Writing Competition’*
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