CAN VALUES BE TAUGHT?
The question of interest to us is can human values can be taught to modern managers in any systematic way and, if so, to what effectiveness? This is clearly depicted from the following three companies which have taken the step of educating their employees about the values and its relevance in the society as well as the company.
TELCO
The author Sarosh J. Ghandy shares his thoughts and his experience on the value system prevailing in the TELCO. He starts with the most important value of the organization which is the trust and the belief which the Tata leaders have held in their men. They believe the best can be achieved only through this mode. Here the author presents an encounter where J. R. D. Tata confers full trust on Mr. Charles Perin, a geological surveyer. J. R. D. Tata entrusted full responsibility of site selection of steel plant on Mr. Perin. This was the trust J. R. D. Tata held on Mr. Perin thus reflecting the value system of the organization.
And thus the leaders at Tata allow their men to act on their own and thus providing them immense opportunities to become leaders and thus give scope to their creative impulses.
One of the values that Tata’s have inculcated among their men is that of environmental protection. They have constantly adopted villages for the purpose and thus staying with the commitment of social responsibility.
Tata’s also encouraged workshops to help their men search for their own values as well as help them augment their knowledge about the value system of Tatas. Thus the values of the organization and the values of the individuals were homogenized. After the program the employees were surveyed and the values were ranked according to the significance the employee attach to them.
Those values were:
Growth
Commitment to productivity
Development of personnel
Corporate ethics
Customer affection
Environment development
And thus it can be said that world class modernization, high sales turnover is supported by a strong value system. Therefore rightly said in the words of Robert D. Hass of Levi Strauss,
“Values provide a common language for aligning a company’s leadership and its people.”
INDIAN PETROLEUM CORPORATION LTD.
A large number of business & industrial enterprises, in India & abroad tend to disregard the importance of ethical & moral values which effects the quality of work – life in an organization.
The educated & cultured person appears to have accepted & quite often redefine it as “success”. In today’s world cheating is considered a necessary condition for winning. ‘Result- Orientation’ is often used as a justification for unethical & amoral practices.
Human happiness is one of the ultimate objectives for which a business exists. Although economies in the world have achieved material progress during the last hundred years, but still are unable to achieve this target of human happiness i.e why business schools in U.S have started educating “BUSINESS ETHICS” a subject.
Irrespective of religious diversity, there exist a remarkable degree of agreement about values like Honesty, Integrity, Comparison, Tolerance & Selflessness. People at various levels within the organization derive inspiration at the workplace if they perceive such qualities in their leaders.
IPCL, which came into being in 1969 is today the established leader in the field of petrochemicals in the country, with its workforce of about 12,000. IPCL believed that people are central to the organization & had given rise to philosophy where the development of people becomes an end in itself. This philosophy has led to include employee as a whole & not confine ourselves to the development of management power only.
IPCL therefore has been exercising subordinate self interest to organizational interest. In IPCL a diagnostic survey was conducted by professional institutions in the field, such as Tata Management Training Centre, Administrative Staff College of India and Human & Natural Resources research society , covering all levels of employees.
After the survey IPCL has arranged one workshop for employees on Value System and Mind – Stilling Program. Middle and Senior management personnel in six groups attended this programme. For each of the six groups the programme was conducted in the three modules of three half days each. This made a total of fifty – four half days. The content included – theories of leadership, motivation and team- building, developed for a Indian setting and based on the values ingrained in the Indian psyche. Practical mind- stilling exercise also formed a part of the programme.
However afterwards when the response was collected it was seen that this workshop proved to be effective for the participants.
BILWARA
Bilwara’s value-system efforts began in 1980, when the author MR.L.N. Jhunjhunwala was introduced to this subject by a monk of the famous Ramakrishna mission. Mr. Jhunjhunwala had spoken to Ramakrishna about the disturbing trends in industry today; he narrated that today the atmosphere was such that honesty could not co-exist with industrial & business prosperity. He has also given examples of lot of people who had reached the peak of prosperity through wrong ways.
The monk has narrated the story of Jamshedji & Swami Vivekananda, that once J.R.D. TATA & Swami Vivekananda was together travelling on ship from India to Japan. J.R.D. Tata talked to his companion about the necessity of science & technology in India & his ambition for creating a big research institute in Bangalore. He wanted Swamiji to implement this vision in order to build up our backward country. But Swamiji told that he could not join him, but influenced him to go ahead & complete his vision. Which brings Mr. Jhunjhunwala the light of inspired value system & character of Tata Empire, which is still surviving.
With few meetings with monk, the author has experienced instances of house of Ambalal Sarabhai & house of Birla’s.
Also, Swami Buddhananda tried to explain that businessman was not an exception to the law of truth & that the prosperity of the span of house depends on the Tapasya of the founder & the team which creates the organization.
In 1983, the first corporate experiment on INDIAN INSIGHTS FOR VALUES” seminar was organized in the forest of Siriska in the atmosphere similar to that of hermitage.
Details about the Workshop
ü The workshop was a full-fledged residential course.
ü The workshop lasted for two nights & three days with 7 hours of expositions & discussions in 3 sessions each day followed by intensive practice sessions.
ü The workshop was attended by Bilwara’s top ten people, including Mr. L.N. Jhunjhunwala & his three family members.
ü Everybody was spellbound by the end of seminar & found themselves better human beings than what they had stated. In this way the seminar continued, 3-4 times in a year & non- residential courses for four years till the end of 1986.
ü The second session was taken very lightly by three profit center heads. whereas the third session was ignored by the profit center heads. But there was atleast 3 out of ten who were serious about it.
The three profit center heads hint that all these talks of INDIAN INSIGHTS FOR VALUES were for those who could not deliver the goods. They have no relevance to corporate life. The programme did not seem to be valued by the company.
At this, the workshop was resumed from 1987 onwards where other colleagues were asked to initiate the particular subject. The workshop was based on three pillars of Indian ethos – doctrine of karma, the theory of samskars and the dynamism of guna system. This is how the efforts continued on limited scale. This has helped in the last two years. Their centers of operation are now much more profitable. All this had happened for the best.
In a nutshell it can be said that the values & dedication automatically brings skill & raises employees efforts & improve their behavior.
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