Human Resources and The BG

HR Management on the Principles of Bhagvad Gita
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INTRODUCTION
One of the greatest contributions of India to the world is Holy Gita. Arjuna got
mentally depressed when he saw his relatives with whom he has to fight. The
Bhagavad Gita is preached in the battle field Kurukshetra by Lord Krishna to Arjuna
as counseling to do his duty while multitudes of men stood by waiting. It has got all
the management tactics to achieve the mental equilibrium and to overcome any crisis
situation. The Bhagavad-Gita can be experienced as a powerful catalyst for
transformation. Bhagavad Gita means song of the Spirit, song of the Lord. The Holy
Gita has become a secret driving force behind the enfoldment of one's life. In the days
of doubt this divine book will support all spiritual searches. This divine book will
contribute to self reflection, finer feeling and deepen one's inner process. Then life in
the world can become a real educationdynamic, full and joyfulno matter what the
circumstance. May the wisdom of loving consciousness ever guide us on our journey.
What makes the Holy Gita a practical psychology of transformation is that it offers us
the tools to connect with our deepest intangible essence and we must learn to
participate in the battle of life with right knowledge?
There is no theory to be internalized and applied in this psychology. Ancient practices
spontaneously induce what each person needs as the individual and the universal
coincide. This is the basis of alignment of goals in any human resource practice. The
work proceeds through intellectual knowledge of the playing field (jnana yoga),
emotional devotion to the ideal (bhakti yoga) and right action that include both feeling
and knowledge (karma yoga). With ongoing purification we approach wisdom. The
Bhagavad Gita is a message addressed to each and every human individual to help
him or her to solve the vexing problem of overcoming the present and progressing
towards a bright future. Within its eighteen chapters is revealed a human drama. This
is the experience of everyone in this world, the drama of the ascent of man from a
state of utter dejection, sorrow and total breakdown and hopelessness to a state of
perfect understanding, clarity, renewed strength and triumph.
Human resource management has become a part and parcel of everyday life, be it at
home, in the office or factory and in Government. In all organizations, where a group
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of human beings assemble for a common purpose, H.R.M. principles come into play
through the management of resources, planning, prioritizing, policies and practice.
H.R.M. is a systematic way of carrying out activities in any field of human effort.
Its task is to make people capable of joint performance, to make their weaknesses
irrelevant, say the Management Gurus. It creates harmony in working together equilibrium in thoughts and actions, goals and achievements, plans and performance,
products and markets. It resolves situations of scarcity, be they in human fields,
through maximum utilization with the minimum available resources to achieve the
goal. Lack of H.R.M. causes disorder, confusion, wastage, delay, destruction and even
depression.
Managing men, in the best possible way, according to circumstances and
environment, is the most important and essential factor for a successful H.R.M.
"We're discovering that what we thought was fine, which was to be more efficient,
harder working and richer, doesn't actually lead to the Nirvana we hoped for ... those
who are making the most money are not sure it's worth it. Who wants to be rich in the
graveyard? And those who aren't making any money think that the world doesn't make
sense, because money is supposed to be the only thing worth having and they haven't
got any."
Tomorrow we are going to wake up in a world in which we all need to realise that we
are condemned to freedom ... There is no escape. Institutions won't shoulder
responsibility because they are in a state of confused flux. There is no church, no
nation state, and no market to rely on. There are no cut and dried values to use as
escape tools ... we are faced with the prospect of taking charge of our own freedom ...
responsibility for our own health, for our own education, for our own careers responsibility for our own lives."
"The recent anti-capitalist protests indicate a growing frustration with the institutional
arrangements currently in place. They also, largely, miss the point. Global market
capitalism is not a political ideology. It is neither good or bad, right or wrong - it just
is."
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H.R.M. guidelines from the Bhagavad Gita

There is an important distinction between effectiveness and efficiency in H.R.M.
Effectiveness
is
Efficiency
doing
is
the
right
doing
things.
things
right.
The general principles of effective H.R.M. can be applied in every

field, the differences being more in application than in principle. The
Manager's functions can be summed up as:
Forming
planning
Cultivating
a
the
strategy
the
Establishing
Building
vision
to
realize
art
of
institutional
an
Developing
human
teams
Delegation,
motivation,
vision.
leadership.
excellence.
innovative
Building
the
organization.
resources.
and
and
teamwork.
communication.
Reviewing performance and taking corrective steps when called

for.
Thus, H.R.M. is a process of aligning people and getting them committed to work for
a common goal to the maximum social benefit - in search of excellence.
The critical question in all managers minds is how to be effective in their job. The
answer to this fundamental question is found in the Bhagavad Gita, which repeatedly
proclaims that you must try to manage yourself. The reason is that unless a manager
reaches a level of excellence and effectiveness, he or she will be merely a face in the
crowd.
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Old truths in a new context
The Bhagavad Gita, written thousands of years ago, enlightens us on all managerial
techniques leading us towards a harmonious and blissful state of affairs in place of the
conflict, tensions, poor productivity, absence of motivation and so on, common in
most of Indian enterprises today and probably in enterprises in many other
countries.
The modern (Western) management concepts of vision, leadership, motivation,
excellence in work, achieving goals, giving work meaning, decision making and
planning, are all discussed in the Bhagavad Gita. There is one major difference. While
Western management thought too often deals with problems at material, external and
peripheral levels, the Bhagavad Gita tackles the issues from the grass roots level of
human thinking. Once the basic thinking of man is improved, it will automatically
enhance the quality of his actions and their results.
The H.R.M.philosophy emanating from the West, is based on the lure of materialism
and on a perennial thirst for profit, irrespective of the quality of the means adopted to
achieve that goal. This phenomenon has its source in the abundant wealth of the West
and so 'management by materialism' has caught the fancy of all the countries the
world over, India being no exception to this trend. My country, India, has been in the
forefront in importing these ideas mainly because of its centuries old indoctrination by
colonial rulers, which has inculcated in us a feeling that anything Western is good and
anything Indian, is inferior.
The result is that, while huge funds have been invested in building temples of modem
management education, no perceptible changes are visible in the improvement of the
general quality of life - although the standards of living of a few has gone up. The
same old struggles in almost all sectors of the economy, criminalisation of institutions,
social violence, exploitation and other vices are seen deep in the body politic.
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The source of the problem

The reasons for this sorry state of affairs are not far to seek. The Western idea of
H.R.M. centres on making the worker (and the manager) more efficient and more
productive. Companies offer workers more to work more, produce more, sell more
and to stick to the organisation without looking for alternatives. The sole aim of
extracting better and more work from the worker is to improve the bottom-line of the
enterprise. The worker has become a hireable commodity, which can be used,
replaced and discarded at will.
Thus, workers have been reduced to the state of a mercantile product. In such a state,
it should come as no surprise to us that workers start using strikes (gheraos) sit-ins,
(dharnas) go-slows, work-to-rule etc. to get maximum benefit for themselves from the
organisations. Society-at-large is damaged. Thus we reach a situation in which
management and workers become separate and contradictory entities with conflicting
interests. There is no common goal or understanding. This, predictably, leads to
suspicion, friction, disillusion and mistrust, with managers and workers at cross
purposes. The absence of human values and erosion of human touch in the
organisational structure has resulted in a crisis of confidence.
Western management philosophy may have created prosperity for some people
some of the time at least - but it has failed in the aim of ensuring betterment of
individual life and social welfare. It has remained by and large a soulless edifice and
an oasis of plenty for a few in the midst of poor quality of life for many.
Hence, there is an urgent need to re-examine prevailing management disciplines their objectives, scope and content. H.R.M. should be redefined to underline the
development of the worker as a person, as a human being, and not as a mere wageearner. With this changed perspective, management can become an instrument in the
process of social, and indeed national, development.
Now let us re-examine some of the modern H.R.M. concepts in the light of the
Bhagavad Gita which is a primer of management-by-values.
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Utilisation of available resources
The first lesson of H.R.M. science is to choose wisely and utilise scarce resources
optimally. During the curtain raiser before the Mahabharata War, Duryodhana chose
Sri Krishna's large army for his help while Arjuna selected Sri Krishna's wisdom for
his support. This episode gives us a clue as to the nature of the effective manager - the
former chose numbers, the latter, wisdom.
Attitudes towards work
Three stone-cutters were engaged in erecting a temple. An HRD Consultant asked
them what they were doing. The response of the three workers to this innocentlooking question is illuminating.
'I am a poor man. I have to maintain my family. I am making a living here,' said the
first
stone-cutter
with
dejected
face.
'Well, I work because I want to show that I am the best stone-cutter in the country,'
said
the
second
one
with
sense
of
pride.
'Oh, I want to build the most beautiful temple in the country,' said the third one with a
visionary
gleam.
Their jobs were identical but their perspectives were different. What the Gita tells us
is to develop the visionary perspective in the work we do. It tells us to develop a sense
of larger vision in our work for the common good.
Work commitment
A popular verse of the Gita advises detachment from the fruits or results of actions
performed in the course of one's duty. Being dedicated work has to mean working for
the sake of work, generating excellence for its own sake. If we are always calculating
the date of promotion or the rate of commission before putting in our efforts, then
such work is not detached. It is not generating excellence for its own sake but
working only for the extrinsic reward that may (or may not) result.
Working only with an eye to the anticipated benefits, means that the quality of
performance of the current job or duty suffers - through mental agitation of anxiety
for the future. In fact, the way the world works means that events do not always
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respond positively to our calculations and hence expected fruits may not always be
forthcoming. So, the Gita tells us not to mortgage present commitment to an uncertain
future.
Some people might argue that not seeking the business result of work and actions,
makes one unaccountable. In fact, the Bhagavad Gita is full of advice on the theory of
cause and effect, making the doer responsible for the consequences of his deeds.
While advising detachment from the avarice of selfish gains in discharging one's
accepted duty, the Gita does not absolve anybody of the consequences arising from
discharge of his or her responsibilities.
Thus the best means of effective performance management is the work itself.
Attaining this state of mind (called nishkama karma) is the right attitude to work
because it prevents the ego, the mind, from dissipation of attention through
speculation on future gains or losses.
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Motivation self and self-transcendence

It has been presumed for many years that satisfying lower order needs of workers adequate food, clothing and shelter, etc. are key factors in motivation. However, it is a
common experience that the dissatisfaction of the clerk and of the Director is identical
- only their scales and composition vary. It should be true that once the lower-order
needs are more than satisfied, the Director should have little problem in optimising his
contribution to the organisation and society. But more often than not, it does not
happen like that. (The eagle soars high but keeps its eyes firmly fixed on the dead
animal below.) On the contrary, a lowly paid schoolteacher, or a self-employed
artisan, may well demonstrate higher levels of self-actualisation despite poorer
satisfaction of their lower-order needs.
This situation is explained by the theory of self-transcendence propounded in the
Gita. Self-transcendence involves renouncing egoism, putting others before oneself,
emphasising team work, dignity, co-operation, harmony and trust and, indeed
potentially sacrificing lower needs for higher goals, the opposite of Maslow.
Work must be done with detachment. It is the ego that spoils work and the ego is
the centrepiece of most theories of motivation. We need not merely a theory of
motivation but a theory of inspiration.
The Great Indian poet, Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941, known as "Gurudev") says
working for love is freedom in action. A concept which is described as disinterested
work" in the Gita where Sri Krishna says,
He who shares the wealth generated only after serving the people, through work
done as a sacrifice for them, is freed from all sins. On the contrary those who earn
wealth only for themselves, eat sins that lead to frustration and failure.
Disinterested work finds expression in devotion, surrender and equipoise. The former
two are psychological while the third is determination to keep the mind free of the
dualistic (usually taken to mean "materialistic") pulls of daily experiences. Detached
involvement in work is the key to mental equanimity or the state of nirdwanda. This
attitude leads to a stage where the worker begins to feel the presence of the Supreme
Intelligence guiding the embodied individual intelligence. Such de-personified
intelligence is best suited for those who sincerely believe in the supremacy of
organisational goals as compared to narrow personal success and achievement.
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Work culture
An effective work culture is about vigorous and arduous efforts in pursuit of given or
chosen tasks. Sri Krishna elaborates on two types of work culture daivi sampat or
divine work culture and asuri sampat or demonic work culture.
Daivi work culture - involves fearlessness, purity, self-control, sacrifice,
straightforwardness, self-denial, calmness, absence of fault-finding, absence of
greed,
gentleness,
modesty,
absence
of
envy
and
pride.
Asuri work culture - involves egoism, delusion, personal desires, improper

performance,
work
not
oriented
towards
service.
Mere work ethic is not enough. The hardened criminal exhibits an excellent
work ethic. What is needed is a work ethic conditioned by ethics in work. It is
in this light that the counsel, yogah karmasu kausalam should be
understood. Kausalam means skill or technique of work which is an
indispensable component of a work ethic. Yogah is defined in the Gita itself
as samatvam yogah uchyate meaning an unchanging equipoise of mind
(detachment.) Tilak tells us that acting with an equable mind is Yoga.
(Bal Gangadhar Tilak, 1856-1920, the precursor of Gandhi, hailed by the people of
India as "Lokmanya," probably the most learned among the country's political leaders.
For a description of the meanings of the word "Yoga", see foot of this page.)
By making the equable mind the bed-rock of all actions, the Gita evolved the goal of
unification of work ethic with ethics in work, for without ethical process no mind can
attain an equipoise. The guru, Adi Sankara (born circa 800 AD), says that the skill
necessary in the performance of one's duty is that of maintaining an evenness of mind
in face of success and failure. The calm mind in the face of failure will lead to deeper
introspection and see clearly where the process went wrong so that corrective steps
could be taken to avoid shortcomings in future.
The principle of reducing our attachment to personal gains from the work done is the
Gitas prescription for attaining equanimity. It has been held that this principle leads
to lack of incentive for effort, striking at the very root of work ethic. To the contrary,
concentration on the task for its own sake leads to the achievement of excellence
and indeed to the true mental happiness of the worker. Thus, while commonplace
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theories of motivation may be said to lead us to the bondage or extrinsic rewards, the
Gitas principle leads us to the intrinsic rewards of mental, and indeed moral,
satisfaction.
The Gita further explains the theory of detachment from the extrinsic rewards of
work in saying:
If the result of sincere effort is a success, the entire credit should not be
appropriated
by
the
doer
alone.
If the result of sincere effort is a failure, then too the entire blame does not
accrue to the doer.
The former attitude mollifies arrogance and conceit while the latter prevents excessive
despondency, de-motivation and self-pity. Thus both these dispositions safeguard the
doer against psychological vulnerability, the cause of the modem managers'
companions of diabetes, high blood pressure and ulcers.
Assimilation of the ideas of the Gita leads us to the wider spectrum of
lokasamgraha (general welfare) but there is also another dimension to the work
ethic - if the karmayoga (service) is blended with bhaktiyoga (devotion), then the
work itself becomes worship, a sevayoga" (service for its own sake.)
(This may sound a peculiarly religious idea but it has a wider application. It could be
taken to mean doing something because it is worthwhile, to serve others, to make the
world a better place ed.)
Manager's mental health
Sound mental health is the very goal of any human activity - more so management.
Sound mental health is that state of mind which can maintain a calm, positive poise,
or regain it when unsettled, in the midst of all the external vagaries of work life and
social existence. Internal constancy and peace are the pre-requisites for a healthy
stress-free mind.
Some of the impediments to sound mental health are:
Greed
Envy
Egotism
for
power,
regarding
-
position,
others'
about
prestige
achievements,
one's
own
and
money.
success,
rewards.
accomplishments.
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Suspicion,
anger
and
frustration.
Anguish through comparisons.
The driving forces in today's businesses are speed and competition. There is a distinct
danger that these forces cause erosion of the moral fibre, that in seeking the end, one
permits oneself immoral means - tax evasion, illegitimate financial holdings, being
economical with the truth, deliberate oversight in the audit, too-clever financial
reporting and so on. This phenomenon may be called as yayati syndrome.
In the book, the Mahabharata, we come across a king by the name of Yayati who, in
order to revel in the endless enjoyment of flesh exchanged his old age with the youth
of his obliging youngest son for a thousand years. However, he found the pursuit of
sensual enjoyments ultimately unsatisfying and came back to his son pleading him to
take back his youth. This yayati syndrome shows the conflict between externally
directed acquisitions (extrinsic motivation) and inner value and conscience (intrinsic
motivation.)
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Management needs those who practise what they preach

Whatever the excellent and best ones do, the commoners follow, says Sri Krishna in
the Gita. The visionary leader must be a missionary, extremely practical, intensively
dynamic and capable of translating dreams into reality. This dynamism and strength of
a true leader flows from an inspired and spontaneous motivation to help others. "I am
the strength of those who are devoid of personal desire and attachment. O Arjuna, I
am the legitimate desire in those, who are not opposed to righteousness," says Sri
Krishna in the 10th Chapter of the Gita.
The despondency of Arjuna in the first chapter of the Gita is typically human. Sri
Krishna, by sheer power of his inspiring words, changes Arjuna's mind from a state of
inertia to one of righteous action, from the state of what the French philosophers call
anomie or even alienation, to a state of self-confidence in the ultimate victory of
dharma (ethical action.)
When Arjuna got over his despondency and stood ready to fight, Sri Krishna
reminded him of the purpose of his new-found spirit of intense action - not for his
own benefit, not for satisfying his own greed and desire, but for the good of many,
with faith in the ultimate victory of ethics over unethical actions and of truth over
untruth.
Sri Krishna's advice with regard to temporary failures is, No doer of good ever ends
in misery. Every action should produce results. Good action produces good results
and evil begets nothing but evil. Therefore, always act well and be rewarded. All
clouds will vanish. Light will fill the heart and mind. I assure him of this. This is the
message of Holy Gita.
My purport is not to suggest discarding of the Western model of efficiency, dynamism
and striving for excellence but to tune these ideals to India's holistic attitude of
lokasangraha - for the welfare of many, for the good of many. There is indeed a
moral dimension to business life. What we do in business is no different, in this
regard, to what we do in our personal lives. The means do not justify the ends. Pursuit
of results for their own sake, is ultimately self-defeating. (Profit, said Matsushitasan in another tradition, is the reward of correct behaviour. ed.)
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Ethics in management
The Practice of Management, stresses that modern managers should lend the
"dynamic, life-giving element" to business. Prof. Amitav Bose, Director, IIM Calcutta
(which prescribes a module on "values") observes: "Professionalism does not mean
goodbye to ethics". While Maharishi University of Management refers to "the selfreferral consciousness" of the manager, the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad,
makes a holistic study of "mind, body and soul" compulsory. Thus, value-based
management, with focus on the individual, has become the mantra of the new
millennium.
The author of this autobiographical-cum-professional book under notice adds yet
another dimension to human resource (HR) problems and perspectives. The main
feature of this book is its offbeat approach in application of dharmic values to modern
managerial practices. The book has seven chapters.
Chapter one, "Trials and tribulations" is the curtain raiser to the author's
eventful corporate career. His early contacts and purposeful dialogues with senior
managers, trade union leaders and grassroots level workers at the Aluminium Industry
Ltd., (ALIND) and the Indian Leaf Tobacco division of India Tobacco Company
(ITC) went a long way in laying firm foundations for future growth. Experiments and
experiences shaped the writer to become a vital link in the employee-management
chain instead of a cog in the industrial wheel. Development of industrial culture
embedded with noble qualities like duty, character and loyalty treating all employees
as associates was discovered to be the hallmark of a good HR manager.
Chapter two, "Speak-up and at the right time" draws inspiration from a host of
spiritual texts. For instance, Vidura's counsel to Dhritharastra in the great epic,
Mahabharata, on decision-making is eminently applicable to the present day corporate
scenario. Another precept is a king (read manager) should have integrity, consult
seniors and seek consensus, be discreet in choice of words and maintain equanimity.
Managers who practise these qualities motivate others and become leaders before
long.
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Chapter three, "Confrontation and collaboration" provides guidelines for
settlement of conflicts and disputes. It highlights how different yogas of the Bhagavad
Gita (an outstanding exposition on self-management), serve as several disciplines in
the art of living for survival in the oppressive organisational world. One is also
constantly reminded of Kartavya (duty), the cardinal message of the Gita. Similarly,
Adi Sankara's sane advice in dealing with fear and desire is very helpful in the
development of human resources.
Chapter four, "Nice to be tough" proclaims the need of "loose- tight" and "nicetough" approach in developing leadership capacity. A case study "The way we want to
manage" structured by C. R. Jagannathan, former Deputy Chairman, ITC (annexure
I), comprehensively deals with various topics like organisational diagnosis, need for
paradigm shifts, employee involvement in strategic planning and total quality
management (TQM) et al. The anecdote of Ramarao, an ILTD employee, walking 16
km in deep water of cyclone-affected Ongole area to provide succour to colleagues in
distress, is an enlightening HR lesson worthy of J. Krishnamurthy's saying "first a
human being". That this employee had no career growth speaks ill of corporate ethics.
Chapter five, "Commitment to truth" reminds the well-known Sanskrit slogan
(of the Government) "Satya meva jayathe" of Mundakopanishad. According to
Valmiki's Yoga Vasishta, Lord Rama's ministers include Hanuman, Sushena, Indrajith
as well as dispassionate, deteached, above greed and possessiveness. Besides listening
to advice, a ruler should have noble qualities. The prevalent craze for lofty titles, such
as chairman, vice- chairman, president and vice-president et al look ridiculous, since
this sort of ego trips threaten the fundamentals of participatory management. Service
to customers, employees, community and stakeholders becomes meaningful only if
openness, empathy and trust are spread all around.
Chapter six, "Principles do pay" emphasises that formal corporate
communication through group induction and common development programmes have
to be fine-tuned towards achievement of spirit of cohesion and common culture. The
phenomenon of top jobs going to outsiders can be reversed, if employees become
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more career conscious than job (for money) conscious. Providing future leaders from
within the industry should become the sheet anchor of corporate philosophy.
Chapter seven, "Truth prevails" relates how America's greatest leadership
problem i.e. "arrogance" also plagues the Indian chief executive officers (CEOs), who
practise the "Ahameva Brahma" (I am the ultimate person) concept. Jack Ebbels
categorises people as big-big men and big-little men; while the former are genuine
and human, the latter gets puffed up about nothing.
Annexures at the end of the text, illustrated with diagrams and flow charts,
explaining different aspects of management like stakeholders' image, organisation
climate survey and environment are interesting and instructive. The author has four
decades of managerial experience in a number of prestigious organisations.
His interactions with stalwarts lend authenticity to issues discussed and
solutions arrived at. It may be difficult to agree with all that the author says;
Ganguly's projection as a leader (sports) is a case in point. At places, the text appears
to be didactic and repetitive.
A list of abbreviations (found throughout) and a sum-up at the end of each chapter
should have made the book more reader- friendly.
Despite these minor hiccups, this excellent treatise will be of immense use to business
management students, faculty and practising HR managers. With a blend of tradition
and modernity, theory and practice, here is a role model of Indian management as
distinct from the American and Japanese brands. A valuable addition to the corpus of
management literature
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Questions
we
frequently
ask
ourselves
on
job
HR: I last asked that of myself about five minutes ago, and I will probably ask that of
myself in another 10 minutes because I'm feeling secure. Essentially I ask that of
myself all the time, with every word that I write and every phone call that I take and
every email that I read because every bit of communication is an invitation to go off
course. That's what you want to do. I remember the days when staying on course was
the
goal.
You founded the Currency imprint at Doubleday. You had a real corporate job,
one that someone once called "as good as it gets" in the publishing world. Were
you ever wondering about leaving that world without being able to acknowledge
to
yourself
that
you
wanted
to
leave?
HR: I was able to acknowledge it and as soon as the question got raised I heard it.
The problem was I didn't have an answer for it. And it took another three years of
thinking
And
about
how
that
did
question
you
go
before
found
about
finding
the
the
answer.
answer?
HR: By keeping the question very much alive and also by realizing I had become the
person to whom everyone went to with questions in this particular arena in corporate
America. I had no questions myself which means I was learning nothing. In addition,
my responsibility was far outstripping my authority, which often happens in corporate
America. Phrases like intellectual capital were very popular in those days but I felt my
own intellectual capital was going bankrupt. Because I kept giving and giving from
what I had learned and discovering very little to nothing. It took three years of testing
and
experiment.
What's an example of an experiment you conducted in this period?

HR: In my case it meant thinking about a book project of my own. Not editing a book
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for yet another author. As a publisher, that was my bread and butter. The idea of an
editor writing a book in those days wasn't as prevalent as it is now, so I floated a book
proposal and sold it and taught myself how to write a book. The result was The
Princessa: Machiavelli for Women. That more than anything convinced me I could
have a life outside corporate America. It convinced me I could be doing something
different
from
what
I'd
been
doing
for
fifteen
years.
During the period you were working as an editor/publisher had you always
dreamed
of
writing
your
own
book?
HR: In those days I was happy seeing my ideas filtered through my authors. I don't
think I would have dared admit to myself that I could write a book. I don't think I felt
that
had
enough
to
say.
Let's say someone is out there in corporate America and she's unhappy in her
work and knows she could do something on her own, but isn't quite sure what
that is?what is the single most important thing that one has to do in order to
break
out
of
that
situation?
HR: A divorce lawyer sat me down and said, "How would you rate your job on a
scale of 1 to 10? Answer it immediately, don't hesitate." I answered "3." Her response
was, "If it's less than a 4, you should move on, you should get out." People don't even
realize how unhappy they are in their jobs. In the same way a lot of people are
unhappy in their marriages. But they don't know what can be better; they don't know
how life can be better because they've been in a rut so long. And when you force
yourself to give it a number, you force yourself to see the truth. If you're living in a
job that's a "3," my god, what are you doing with your life? With your time? With
your
passion
and
your
love?
What if you say 5?HR: Well, if you say 5, then chances are you're not ready to go.
You've got to want to leave. Leaving has got to be more important to you than staying.
That's what it became for me. You have to feel that every cell in your body just wants
to be out of that organization, that your soul waits for 5 p.m. each day; even if you
don't know what it is you're going to be doing once you do get out because that's very
__________________________________________________________________ 17

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difficult to know. It's very difficult to see the future when you're stuck in a part of
your
life
that
represents
the
past.
Then I'm hearing you say that if you're unhappy where you are, you're not
feeling productive, you've become 'Dilbertized,' you're just putting in your time,
you need to make the break in order to begin to see clearly.
HR: Absolutely. It was true for me, and it's true for many of the people who've gone
solo.
That seems so terrifying. You've got a family, you've got a mortgage?how do you
get
the
courage?
HR: I think it takes more courage to get up every morning and go to a job that's
killing you. That's courage. To do something for yourself is one of the best things you
can possibly do. Also for your family. And the funny thing is that in this world, more
rewards go to the person who does what he or she loves because you do such a better
job
at
it.
There are three different references to gifts in Soloing. You write that you always
carry two books, one that you're reading and one that you've already read and
will give to someone you meet. The second was the story about Tibor Kalman
and how he was in the habit of giving unique gifts on particularly obscure
occasions. And the third is that you mention sending a gift to a potential client
who has rejected you, as a way of keeping open a channel of communication and
good
relations.
What
does
gift
represent
for
you?
HR: It's a form of bonding. It's one of the greatest and oldest forms of friendship. At
the "potlatch" ceremonies among native American tribes, people would always
exchange gifts. And thereby seal a friendship, seal a commitment for the future. So
even if someone rejects you on a certain project, if you respect their work, give them a
gift. Whenever you call back, or if they hear your name from someone else, they'll
think well of you. It's one of the great transactional vehicles we have. Better than
money,
really.
__________________________________________________________________ 18

_____________________________________________________________________
Is there a sense of karma in that? A lot of people will devote a good amount of
energy wishing ill on someone who'd rejected them. There's a life philosophy
here
it
seems?
HR: My hero is Gandhi, and he always said you should always love everyone,
particularly your enemies. With a philosophy built on that simple belief, he was able
to drive his enemy, the British overlords, out of India and give India its freedom. And
even more importantly, he taught the Indians not to be afraid of the British who
considered themselves superior. Our lives are limited by our fears. Our ideas of what
we can do together in collaboration, our goals, are limited by our fears. If the
backdrop in any collaboration is love or friendship or gift giving, it means that so
much
more
can
be
created,
so
much
more
can
be
produced.
You quote Carl Jung: "People are more frightened of their strengths than they
are
of
their
weaknesses."
What
does
that
mean
to
you?
HR: Many people in corporate America today are dying to go solo, they're dying to
walk out the front door for the last time in their lives. They know they're good, and
deep down they know that they can do better and more satisfying work by themselves,
but they are afraid of that strength, afraid of that ability. Because when you know how
strong you are, it comes with a responsibility. You have to use that strength, or act on
that talent. For women, this is problem number one: women have so much power that
even hearing the word power frightens them. They think that if anyone realizes how
powerful they are they will hate them, they will wish them ill, wish them defeat. We're
all afraid of how good we are. We're much happier dressing in black and disappearing
into the background, not speaking in full voice, just speaking at half volume,
undermining our opinions with qualifications like "maybe this is right?" or "I think
that?" rather than just saying what we believe. We're always looking for ways to
diminish
ourselves.
Why is this? Do you see this happening more in females than in males?
HR: You see it a lot more in women than in men because women don't have the same
__________________________________________________________________ 19

_____________________________________________________________________
expectations of success by and large that men grow up with. But I also see it these
days in men who have been beaten down by the gender wars. The doctrine of
machismo has been discredited and no pride or strong new sense of masculine identity
has replaced machismo for men. But then, the corporate culture instills this feeling in
us of being lesser creatures. The corporate culture which very neatly gives us a nice
little box to work in, a very clear job description, tells us not to rock the boat, not to
reinvent the wheel. And as long as we feel we can't do any of these grand things, we're
going to feel small and inhibited and defeated even before we begin.
You say: "Aim higher." This reminds me of one of Tom's slides that is a quote
from Michelangelo: "The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too
high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it." How do you help
people
to
aim
higher?
HR: Always take a risk. Aim higher than your credentials allow you to represent in
one way: if you tell someone that you can do something that you can't do, it forces
you to learn how to do it. That's one way to aim higher. For example, I agreed to
consult with a woman CEO on developing her identity. I had done some of that when
I worked with CEOs on their book projects, but I had never done it to the extent
required for this engagement. But I said that I could do it -- and I did it. The aspiration
is what gets people to work in their discomfort zone. As long as you have at least one
foot in the discomfort zone, you're always growing and always learning.
Do
anxiety
and
learning
go
hand
in
hand?
HR: I've never seen an artist create anything worthwhile when life was good and
perfect. And if life was just good and perfect, they did something to break it all apart.
Look at Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, any of the great American painters or poets:
they wouldn't relax without thinking about the next painting, the next poem. You may
be perfectly happy living your life sitting in front of the TV watching golf
tournaments,
but
lot
of
people
aren't.
A line from your book states: "A client is someone who pays you to learn." I
know this fits into your model of continually putting yourself into a discomfort
__________________________________________________________________ 20

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zone,
but
is
this
something
you
want
your
clients
to
know?
HR: No. I wasn't writing this book for clients. But if they read that statement, it
shouldn't disturb them. Because what I learn, I make available to them. Columbus got
famous from discovering America, which Queen Isabella paid him for. But she got the
gold
from
the
expedition.
There is a character in John Barth's The Sot-Weed Factor who wanted to learn
how to play the violin. To do this, he set himself up as a violin teacher. In this
way, he forced himself to learn the instrument. Your theory seems quite similar.
It's
got
wonderful
counterintuitiveness
to
it.
HR: What you say reminds me of Peter Drucker's beliefs. He says the only way to
learn something is to teach it to someone else. He suggests that if you know it
beforehand you're not going to be effective at teaching it. Every summer Drucker
teaches -- at least he used to, I don't know if he still does -- a course, such as the
Russian novelists. He'd sit down and study the books along with the students. It seems
to me a great formula. These days I find that people love to read stories of adventure.
They love to see somebody struggle with a problem as they go through it. They don't
want to hear the lecture at the end. They don't want to hear, "This is how I did it."
They want to go through the drama with you. And I think that's true of clients, too. So
if I get someone who says to me, "I have a leadership task," and it's one that I've never
encountered, well, since I know some of the coolest thinkers on the planet, why can't I
go
and
find
out
the
answer
and
learn
it
with
them?
You're, in effect, saying to the client: "Let's explore this problem together, let's
learn
together."
HR: Because if I knew the answer at the beginning then I don't think the answer is
worth their time or effort. Known knowledge doesn't go far enough anymore. We've
got
to
find
new
questions
and
new
solutions.
You're making yourself the guide through the wilderness? Is that right?
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_____________________________________________________________________
HR: The guide?yes, but it becomes a collaboration. It becomes a co-created solution.
Clients, I find, love to create something with you. They add a tremendous amount of
wisdom
to
What's
the
an
project,
example
and
they
of
want
co-creating
to
feel
with
ownership.
a
client?
HR: For example, earlier this year I did a web site for iVillage.com. I was brought on
as a consultant. Nancy Evans, who is a co-founder of Women's Network, and I sat
down and co-created this channel called Working Diva. Could I have done it on my
own? Sure! Could Nancy have just spun out all the ideas she had to some assistants?
Yes, she could have. But the idea of co-creating it was that each of us would be able to
struggle through high level and interesting problems and come up with something that
would probably not be cookie-cutter. You're working peer-to-peer, arguing and
respecting each other's points of view. The result is something very rich and unusual.
Part of this world of soloing you say is freedom and you quote Sartre who says
that freedom is nausea and you write that soloing can feel like a freefall. You're
not painting an entirely pretty picture. It's like jumping out of a plane without a
parachute. How can people guard against that or stop that kind of anxiety from
consuming
them
or
ruining
them?
HR: You can't guard against that anxiety is the true answer. But you can stop it from
ruining you. You can't completely minimize anxiety because it's what keeps you alive,
it keeps you curious and hungry and searching. If you don't want to feel it, get a job.
Really. Get a job and tick off every day as it comes and goes?until?until you can't take
it
What
anymore.
are
the
most
important
attributes
of
soloist?
HR: Courage. An ability to work well with others. (Yes, that sounds like a clich ut
it's true.) And a ferociously allergic reaction to office politics. Such that if you get
close to it, you break out into hives. A real delight in creating something that only you
could
create.
Making
personal
difference.
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_____________________________________________________________________
Is
everyone
an
artist?
HR: No?but many people are. And the people who are suffering most in anonymous
corporate environments are the artists. They're poets and they've been working
underground for a long time. Soloing can free up their gifts and free up their spirits.
Just
Do
release
you
have
them
from
the
all
seven-word
kinds
definition
of
of
bondage.
a
soloist?
HR: Someone who, unlike a free-lancer, works on projects that keep testing her and
stretching her limits. A free-lancer pretty much does the same thing for a wide variety
of clients. A soloist is always doing something different for somebody.
Harriet?s
This
is
favorite
so
hard
because
fall
book:
in
love
with
everything
read?
All time great favorite for the last few years is The Divine Comedy, by Dante. This
book is about power and the excesses of success. What most people miss out on is any
sense of an inner life. When you read Dante, it wakes you up from inside out. One of
the most beautiful books ever written. I suggest that people just read it through, even
if they don't quite understand every line of what they're reading. They'll be different
by the time they've finished reading it. They'll have learned so much they didn't even
realize
they
were
learning.
The Bhagavad Gita: What the Kama Sutra is to sex, the Bhagavad Gita is to work.
How to achieve ecstasy with your clothes on! A tiny, awesome book.
Human Stain, Philip Roth. About ambition and what it does to the soul.
Narcissism and Character Transformation, Nathan Schwartz-Salant. A better guide to
the power personality I have never read. When we're in the narcissist's world, we feel
larger and more capable of magic than when we're not in their world. They give us a
great gift in that. But boy, are they tough. The downside is that they can be destroyed
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by their own characteristics just as they destroy other people. An eye opener!
What's
next
for
you?
I'm writing a new book on leadership in a changing world. The findings are based on
a two year study of leadership I've made, searching for the unobvious sources of
power: the approaches that, for example, made Mandela Mandela, or gave Steve Jobs
a third chance at success after two major failures, or turned John Chambers of Cisco
into the most successful CEO this country has seen. I have found that vision, values,
execution -- most everything we believe to be the bedrock principles of leadership -can't explain their success as well as other answers can.
__________________________________________________________________ 24

_____________________________________________________________________
ACCEPTANCE
OF
PAST
AS
PART
OF
FUTURE
DEVELOPMENT A vision
They speak a new language on the management campus these
days: Sanskrit. The buzz words in business circles are no longer TQM (Total Quality
Management) or Kaizan. They are Ahm Brahmasmi (I am God) and Tat Tvam Asi
(Thou art That). And for the aspiring managers, the new Bible is the Bhagavad Gita.
In its '90s avatar, Indian spirituality is sashaying down corporate corridors, ready for
business. The quest for self-awareness, once confined to mystics and spiritual adepts,
is bursting out of secret places to fertilize mainstream business activity. By now it has
gone well beyond the mandatory yoga and meditation, the only indigenous concepts
to have gained corporate acceptance, albeit disguised as stress relievers, in the past
few years. The gloves are finally off.
Industry is boldly mining the depths of Indian wisdom, the Vedas, Upanishads,
Puranas, looking for a framework springing from Indian roots and thought. "It is time
we rediscover our own ethos and cultural context if we are to give meaningful and
relevant management education," says S.K. Chakraborty, convener of the
Management Center for Human Values at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM),
Calcutta.
At the Himachal Futuristic Communication Ltd. (HFCL), Delhi, managers and senior
staff tune into fortnightly lectures on Indian philosophy. Alacrity Foundation, a
premier construction company in Chennai, practices human values such as integrity
(reportedly, they have never given a bribe), trust, and the welfare of others. Industries
like Excel and Nirlep also encourage worker participation and try to create a stressfree, familial work atmosphere.
Much of the credit for this new synthesis of spirituality and materialism goes to the
resurgence of some spiritual organizations and their new found popularity among
urban westernized professionals. The Mount Abu-based Brahma Kumaris regularly
__________________________________________________________________ 25

_____________________________________________________________________
teach corporate clients the value of listening, tolerance, adaptability and decisionmaking through the practice of Raja Yoga.
Two other programs that have made steady inroads at the corporate level are the Rishi
Samskruti Vidya Kendra's (RSVK) Siddha Samadhi Yoga (SSY) and Sri Sri Ravi
Shankar's Art of Living course.
Management consultants, many of them Vedantists and swamis, are also entering the
fray. Swami Someshwarananda, founder of the Vivekananda Centre for Indian
Management in Indore, outlines three reasons for developing an Indian style of
management: "To have an appropriate management style in India; to show how ethical
values help in every aspect of industry and business; and to show that a great achiever
can lead a peaceful life."
Suresh Pandit, a productivity expert, endorses the use of Indian concepts along with
the standard western practices. "There is power in the concept, which often brings
about a total change in attitude," he says. But the greatest catalyst for this change are
the management institutes which have designed their curriculum In line with eastern
thinking.
Some spiritual organizations have themselves entered the field of management
education. Mata Amritanandamayi Math has opened the Center for Value-Based
Management Education at Ettimadai, Coimbatore in India. Maharshi Mahesh Yogi's
organization has five centers of management study in the country. The emphasis here
is not so much on spiritual and ethical principles as on expansion of consciousness
through meditation, yogic techniques and creative thinking.
The Calcutta IIM's capitulation to this new thinking through its Management Centre
for Human Values has given the changeover much-needed credibility, even among
hard-core champions of western empirical thought. The center came about, admits Dr
Chakraborty, when managers attending the Executive Development Program
questioned the absence of concepts from Indian philosophy in the curriculum.
__________________________________________________________________ 26

_____________________________________________________________________
Says he: "Management in action is a holistic process. Nowhere in our education, least
of all in our management training, is it taught so. We are told to be rational and to
concentrate on analysis. This fragmentation of the mind into analysis/rationality and
emotions sets up a gap in our values." A growing number of autonomous management
institutes have consciously veered in the direction of IIM.
In Mumbai, the SP Jain Institute of Management & Research (SPlIMR) has
established a reputation for value-based education, emphasizing adoption of values,
social sensitivity, team spirit, student participation in administration, and a monthlong social project with the underprivileged. The Srihgeri Sharada Institute of
Management in New Delhi and the Symbiosis Centre for Management and Human
Resource Development (SCMHRD) in Pune, unabashed advocates of Vedantic
thought, aim at synthesizing holistic Indian concepts with modern management
techniques.
Says Dr MB Athreya, adviser to the Sringeri Institute: "Our graduates will have the
intellectual equipment to be competent decision-makers as well as congruent leaders
pursuing shreshta dharma (responsibility of the elite) for atmano mokshartam
(realizing one's self)." The implication is that the application of Indian philosophical
and spiritual concepts has the potential to become the Indian industry's USP; our
indigenous secret potion, promising an Asterix-like invincibility and indomitability.
SCMHRD agenda includes helping students discover their powerful creative selves
through yoga, pranayam, vipassana, SSY meditation, and various team-oriented
activities. In his book Indian Wisdom for Management, Swami Someshwarananda
writes that the main character of Indian culture is synthesis. It is an ability to reconcile
contradictions, a movement from opposing choices to converging ones. Indian
thought can thus reconcile contradictions and conflicts inherent in the materialistic,
capitalistic business model of our times: the conflict between trade unions and
management, between colleagues for top jobs, between companies for market shares,
between industry and environment, and above all, within the individual, for whom
success is increasingly extracted at the cost of peace of mind and happiness.
__________________________________________________________________ 27

_____________________________________________________________________
Swami Someshwarananda pinpoints three primary concepts. One is the dual mantra,
Ahm Brahmasmi and Tat Tvam Asi. The second is advaita or non-dualityin other
words, the holistic principle mentioned earlier. The third is the emphasis on subjective
factors such as vision, foresight, courage, determination rather than on tangible
objective factors such as money and material goods.
The focus shifts from the external to the internal; the motive from profit to service and
personal growth; the means from capital and natural resources to human ones. Says
Swami Someshwarananda: "From profit we must make the objective people-oriented.
I recommend to all my clients that they take two to three minutes off each morning to
chant a mantra: 'I work for the people, I work for the nation'." He concludes: "If we
can make goodness effective, it will show better dividends."
Suresh Pandit cites the case of Standard Electricals Ltd., manufacturers of circuit
breakers and electrical switch gears in Jalandhar. He taught them the value of shifting
from shakti (adversarial) mode to bhakti (nurturing) mode in dealing with the
employees. When the implementation of these concepts produced record production
levels, Pandit suggested that in the remaining two months of the financial year, they
try to make up for the shortfall in the projected production and profit levels.
Having budgeted for Rs 28 crore sales and RS 1.8 crore profit for 1994-95, they had
made only RS 20 crore sale and RS 50 lakh profit. After obtaining the workers'
permission and commitment to the project, they secured an impressive RS 4 crore sale
and a profit of RS 50 lakh in the next two months. Pandit feels that IM which "doesn't
work with multinationals", produces good results in the less literate and more
traditional segments of society.
"People reach out to these concepts like the parched earth receiving rain."
Management institutes implementing IM principles have been remarkably successful.
SPJIMR is listed as one of the 10 best management schools in the country, while
SCMHRD had over 9,500 aspirants for 90 seats in 1997 and attracted 112 campus
corporate recruiters. The ironies are rich. While the more conventional disciplines
from primary school to the liberal arts remain dissociated from the ethos of the land, a
__________________________________________________________________ 28

_____________________________________________________________________
'mercenary' subject like business management has, in its pursuit of materialism, come
face-to-face with the rarefied zone of spirituality.
Introduced by Americans to establish and entrench their business practices such as
individuality and competition, management studies are now veering to their opposites:
teamwork, cooperation and even service. The time seems peculiarly rife for a
resurgence in eastern thought. One reason, of course, is the proven success of the
Japanese model of management based on Buddhism and Shintoism, which reflects
Indian ideas. When the Japanese proved that holistic principles such as TQM and
Kaizan made brilliant business sense, the whole world sat up to take note.
So did we. Says Anil Sachdev, Eicher MD: "We realized after talking to the Japanese
that the change has to be brought about within oneself." And this movement within
can be perfected by our culture. Says Rishi Prabhakar, founder of the RSVK: The
sages of the past have given us the best possible tradition and knowledge... This
would not be found at Harvard Business School."
What has given a crucial impetus to the implementation of IM is that the business
imperatives of globalization and the quickening pace of obsolescence call for a fluid,
horizontal, de-structured organization which eastern thinking with its emphasis on
internal resources facilitates. The root of IM is the Vedantic concept of oneness. The
universe, and all in it, is one interconnected indivisible whole.
From this understanding radiate all the concepts associated with Indian thought such
as: the whole affects the part and vice versa. Just as a human being is a composite of
body, mind and soul, so too, the employee, the company and society are seen as one
unit. "Can an employee grow at the cost of the company or the company at the cost of
society?" asks Swami Someshwarananda.
Holistic thinking reconciles contradictions. Emotions and intellect are no longer at
war, but seen as crucial halves of the whole. Says Dr Chakraborty: "Holism is
synthesis, the union of analytical intellect and emotion, the united mind with the allenveloping vision." "Management has to be a function of brain, heart and guts," says
Dr Manesh Shrikant, honorary dean of SPJIMR.
__________________________________________________________________ 29

_____________________________________________________________________
For Dr Chakraborty, the crucial Indian concept is that of antardrisbti, which he
describes as a penetration to the heart of the matter. But such limpid clarity of mind
calls for two qualities: stillness and purity, in other words, antarmukhita (drawing the
senses within) and antarshuddbi, (inner purification). It is this state of mind he hopes
to cultivate in his Center for Human Values.
A basic Indian concept, Swami Someshwarananda says, is that of self-sustenance, the
establishment of systems that will run by themselves, needing little or no outside help
or supervision. He cites the instances of Lijjat Papad, the Udipi hotels with their
lightning speed and efficiency, and the local grocer to highlight Indian practices such
as flexibility, role rotation and individual empowerment.
"Indians are fantastic," enthuses the swami, "all they need is self-confidence." Dr
Chakraborty sees IM as allowing the cultivation of noble emotions and human values
such as gratitude, humility, contentment, transparency, truthfulness and forgiveness.
Thus Indian Management focuses on transformation of the individual as the source of
all external transformation, unlike the western model which advocates transformation
of the environment as the means to individual transformation.
Parallels and parables are drawn from the Jataka, the Puranas, Panchatantra and
Mahabharata,
the
ancient
Indian
literary
texts
and
epics.
Says
Swami
Someshwarananda to illustrate the need for individuality: "We do not care to know the
names of the 100 Kauravas (one of the two feuding families in Mahabharata) because
they were copies of Duryodhan, while each of the Pandavas was unique. Make
yourself a Pandava."
He has also derived such Indian ideas as the Arjun model of management, the
Namaskar, the Eklavya, Pancha Bhuta, Shiva-Shakti and Krishna models. With its
emphasis on values and the welfare of the whole, IM has the potential to reconcile
prosperity and productivity with social equity, social need, peace and harmony.
It can synthesize the private initiative of capitalism with the social justice of
communism. And it alone can restrain business from generating greed, consumerism
__________________________________________________________________ 30

_____________________________________________________________________
and environmental degradation. It is the Indian vision brought to life, dreamed by all
sages and philosophers from Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo to S.
Radhakrishnan, and likely to be realized, strangely enough, by the Indian corporate
world.
__________________________________________________________________ 31

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Case Study
INFORMATION ON THE COMPANY
The Mumbai Suburban Railway network caters to 6.3 million commuters everyday. It
has the highest passenger density in the World, ahead of even Tokyo and Seoul.
Almost half of the total daily passengers using the entire Indian Railway System are
from Mumbai Suburban Railway system alone.
Mumbai Suburban Railway system, in spite of heavy demands on it, has provided an
efficient and reliable service. However, the pressure
continues
and today it has
reached alarming
proportions. Overcrowding has grown to such an extent that 5,000 passengers are
traveling per 9-car train during peak hours, as against the rated carrying capacity of
1,710. This has resulted in, what is known as, super dense crush load of 14-16
standing passengers per square metre of floor space.
Given the geographical spread of the population and location of business areas, the
rail network
will continue to be the principal mode of mass transport in Mumbai.
To enable the Mumbai Suburban Railway to meet the demands of the ever-growing
passenger traffic , Ministry of Railways and the Government of Maharashtra joined
hands to face the challenge.
The cost of the Rail Component of the project is to be shared equally by Ministry of
Railways and Government of Maharashtra.
The Corporation is not only executing the projects identified so far, but also involved
in the further planning and development of Mumbai Suburban Rail system for
improved rail services in close coordination with Indian Railways and Government of
Maharashtra. The geographical jurisdiction of MRVC is from Churchgate to Dahanu
Road on Western Railway and from CSTM to Kasara, Karjat/ Khopoli and Panvel on
Central Railway.
Apart from execution of Railway projects in Mumbai, the main functions of MRVC
are :
Develop coordinated plans and implement the rail infrastructure projects.
Integrate urban development plan for Mumbai with rail capacity and propose
investments.
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Undertake commercial development of Railway land and air space in Mumbai
area.
Coordinate and facilitate improvements of track drainage and removal of
encroachments and trespassers.
Coordinate with organizations operating the train services and responsible for
protection of Railway's right of way and urban development for purposeful resolution
of allied issues and problems.
The Suburban Railway system in Mumbai is perhaps the most complex, densely
loaded and intensively utilised system in the world. Spread over 302 route Kms, it
operates on 1500 Volt DC power supply from overhead catenary. The suburban
services are run by electric multiple units (EMUs). 184 rakes (train sets) of 9-car and
12-car composition are utilised to run 2067 train services to carry 6.3 million
passengers per day.
Two zonal Railways, the Western Railway (WR) and the Central Railway (CR),
operate the Mumbai Suburban Railway system.
Two corridors (one local and other through) on Western Railway run northwards from
Churchgate terminus parallel to the west coast up to Virar (60 Kms).
Two corridors (one local and other through) on Central Railway run from Chhatrapati
Shivaji Terminus (CST) to Kalyan (54 Kms),from where it bifurcates into KalyanKasara (67 Kms) in the north-east and Kalyan-Karjat-Khapoli (61 Kms) in south-east.
The 5th corridor on Central Railway runs as the Harbour line starting from CST to
Raoli Junction (11 Kms) from where the line splits. One line goes north west to join
WR at Bandra and goes up to Andheri (11 Kms) and the other goes eastward to
terminate at Panvel (39 Kms) via New-Mumbai.
At present, the fast corridors on Central Railway as well as Western Railway are
shared for long distance (Main line) and Freight trains.
__________________________________________________________________ 33

_____________________________________________________________________
MUTP Projects
Rail projects were identified through the project preparatory studies with the objective
of:
Bringing down the over crowding in peak hour peak direction 9-car train to
3000 passengers as against existing around 5000.
Segregate the suburban train operation from the main line passenger
and freight services.

Completion over a time frame of eight to ten years.
Total cost Rs.5618 crores (1998-99 prices)
MUTP (Rail Component) bifurcated in two phases (Phase I and Phase II)for the
purpose of World Bank funding.
Phase I
Phase I includes Works to be completed in next 5 years.
Cost Rs.3125.20 crores (Dec 2001 prices)

MUTP Phase I (Rail Component)
Capacity Augmentation Works

Cost in Crores of Rupees
Quadrupling of Borivali-Virar section
509.0
Provision of 5th line Western Railway
59.0
Kurla Thane Additional pair of lines 166.0

Extension of Harbour line to Goregaon
59.0
System Improvement Works:

Optimisation of Western Railway
50.1
Optimisation of Central Railway
99.5
Optimisation of Harbour line 19.7

DC to AC Conversion
380.4
__________________________________________________________________ 34

_____________________________________________________________________
Other Works:
Resettlement & Rehabilitation
290.0
EMU procurement & manufacture
1359.2
Maintenance facilities for EMUs
64.3
Stabling lines for EMUs

Track Machines
48.5
31.3
Institutional strengthening & studies 48.2

Grand Total Phase I
3125.2
PHYSICAL SCOPE OF MUTP Phase I
Addition of 93 track Kms - existing 790 Kms
101 new 9-car rakes
Resettlement & Rehabilitation of 14,479 Project affected households
Lengthening of all platforms (excluding harbour line) to handle 12 car rakes
Respacing of signals to achieve 3 minutes headway on all the lines
DC to AC conversion in all suburban section except Thane CSTM which will
be taken up in Phase I
| TOP |
Phase II
Phase II includes Works to be completed in next 5 years.
Cost Rs. 5745 crores ( at 2005 prices)

MUTP Phase II (Rail Component)
Capacity Augmentation Works

Cost in Crores of Rupees
Kurla-CSTM 5th & 6th Lines 430.0
Thane Kalyan additional pair of lines
Borivali Mumbai Central 6th line
180.0
350.0
Bandra Kurla East West link 360.0

Extension of Harbour Line upto Goregaon
70.0
System Improvement Works:

__________________________________________________________________ 35

_____________________________________________________________________
S&T Upgrade to improve headway 700.0
DC to AC Conversion 220.0
Station Improvement and Trespassing Control Scheme
80.0
Other Works:
Resettlement & Rehabilitation
160.0
EMU procurement & manufacture
2880.0
Maintenance facilities for EMUs
200.0
Stabling lines for EMUs
65.0
Institutional strengthening & studies 50.0

Grand Total Phase II 5745
PHYSICAL SCOPE OF MUTP Phase II
Addition of 122 track Kms - existing 790 Kms and 93 Kms added in MUTP
Phase I
131 new 9-car rakes
DC to AC conversion in Thane CSTM section (172 Track km) , completing
the DC-AC conversion on Mumbai Suburban.
Resettlement & Rehabilitation of 4,000 Project affected households
Lengthening of all platforms (excluding harbour line) to handle 12 car rakes
Signalling and telecommunication system upgradation for improved headway
and reliability
| TOP |
__________________________________________________________________ 36

_____________________________________________________________________
Benefits to Passengers
Benefits to Commuters on completion of Project
Reduction in journey time and waiting time
Improved punctuality of trains
Easier entry and exit at stations
Improvements in new trains
Better riding
Better ventilation and air circulation
Better lighting
Larger windows
Announcement and display system in trains
Phase I Benefits
Reduced overcrowding:
Bring down the passengers per 9 coach train to 3600 as against the
existing 5000.
12 car trains to replace 9 car trains
Increase in frequency by about 20%
Increase in carrying capacity by 35%
Extension of suburban trains to Dahanu Road.
Phase II Benefits
Further reduction in overcrowding.
Bring down the passengers per 9 coach train to 2700 as against 3600
on completion of MUTP Phase I.
To completely segregate the suburban train operations from the main line
services.
To reduce headway to around 2.5 minutes, i.e. 24 suburban trains of 12-car per
hour per corridor in the peak hour peak direction.
To establish connectivity between Western & Central Railways at Bandra and
Kurla.
__________________________________________________________________ 37

_____________________________________________________________________
Funding
The MUTP (Rail Component) is being funded with Public Public Participation, i.e.,
Budgetary support from Government of Maharashtra and Ministry of Railways. It is
also being funded by loan from the World Bank.
World Bank Funds
1613 Cr.
Ministry of Railways 756 Cr.

Government of Maharashtra 756 Cr.
Total 3125 Cr.
Surcharge has been levied on commuters with effect from 15th September 2003 for
repayment of the World Bank loan.
In addition, MRVC plans to raise revenue from commercial development of railway
land and air space for financing future projects.
Scheme for funding Phase II is under consideration.
GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION OF APPLICATION OF PLANS
__________________________________________________________________ 38

_____________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________ 39

_____________________________________________________________________
OTHER
BOOKS
INFLUENCING
H.R.M.
MANAGEMENT
In the more recent history of industrialism the emergence
of employee motivation as a key management concern is
an indicator of the extent of this loss. The management
commentators who have focused attention
on personal achievement and selfactualisation
in work as basic human needs
are also pointing to the absence of such
broadly satisfying aspects in many
perhaps mostareas of employment.
In many situations of development,
accelerated economic growth and rapid social
change add a level of complexity to this
general managerial dilemma. This may be
seen in the disparity between the attitudes
and behaviour expected of employees in the
workplace and those which are normal in
their non-work environments.
In general, work behaviour is clearly
conditioned by a variety of socially
sanctioned attitudes that might be regarded
as the product of particular cultures. An
understanding of this impact of culture on
work may be seen as a necessary step to
understanding the way work is managed in
particular organisational and social
environments. In the particular context of
development, this often means that the
culture of work organisations is at variance
with the broader cultures influential in
employees lives. As one Filipino
__________________________________________________________________ 40

_____________________________________________________________________
commentator on management practices has
put it, we have cut our teeth on structural
and systematic concepts from the West, yet
beneath the Western veneer these have
constructed we are, deep within, Asian in
our values and feelings (Ortigas 1994:6). For
scholars and managers seeking to
understand work behaviour in situations of
accelerated economic and social
development this dichotomy is deeply
significant. The issue can be illustrated by
reference to the implications it has for the
motivation of employees.
The general problem of motivation is that
the variety of individual employees aims
will translate into varying degrees of
commitment to the goals of the organisations
in which they are employed. Since many of
these personal aims are the product of
cultural mores, an understanding of the
impact of social culture on work is also
required if we are to appreciate the task of
management in maximising the
contributions of individuals to
organisational goals. So cultural impacts on
work may also be seen as having twin
sources. The first is in the community at large
and is seen in the attitudes people bring to
work. The second is in the work organisation
itself, where culture is a product of rules and
Labour
and
Management
in
Development
Journal,
Volume 2, Number 3 6
Asia Pacific Press 2001
__________________________________________________________________ 41

_____________________________________________________________________
Management and culture under development Michael
Hess
control mechanisms but also of the vertical
and horizontal interactions between
members of the organisation.
In developed market economies
acculturation to work is strong. With social
attitudes generally supportive of work
organisation it may become quite difficult
to separate social from work culture or to
identify any discrete impacts of culture on
work. Nonetheless, cultural stereotypes are
regularly produced by management
commentators in explanation of social and
organisational behaviour. So, of Europeans
they tell us that
the Belgians [are] inclined to be pragmatic,
the Danes to be indulgent, the English
conservative, the French elitist, the
Germans orderly, the Greeks patriarchal,
the Irish loquacious, the Italians
dependent, the Dutch reserved, the
Portuguese resilient, the Spanish fatalistic
[and so on] (Hickson 1993:250).
Americans are seen to be ambitious
individualists for whom market and intraorganisational
competition is second nature
(DuBrin 1989:26166; Alston 1985:69100).
The white settler societies of Australia and
New Zealand, on the other hand, have been
characterised as less dedicated to work and
more to leisure with a particular penchant
for the long weekend. By contrast, Japanese
culture is seen to have achieved a rare
__________________________________________________________________ 42

_____________________________________________________________________
symbiosis between individual need and
organisational demand in which primacy is
given to group loyalty and personal
relationships, with generalists rather than
specialists being favoured as managers
(Robbins 1993:326-6,340; Nanto 1988:7) and
continuous training and improvement being
both an organisational and a personal aim
(Hanada and Yoshikawa 1991:378).
The most influential model for
conceptualising the role of culture within
management discourse has been that
established by Hofstedes seminal study of
attitudes of IBM employees in 40 countries
(1980). Hofstede identified four key
dimensions of national culture impacting on
attitudes to work organisation. These were
power-distance, uncertainty avoidance,
individualism and masculinityfemininity.
His analysis was broadened by a subsequent
study involving respondents from 53
countries (Hofstede 1993). While Japan,
Singapore and Taiwan were included, along
with the settler societies of North America
and Australasia, the nations covered were
industrialised or European, in various
senses, or both. Nonetheless, the breadth
and depth of these studies have led to their
being widely seen as authoritative.
Hofstedes conclusion was that, in each of
these key dimensions, national culture had
a greater influence on attitudes than gender,
age, occupation or organisational status. A
brief overview of Hofstedes four
__________________________________________________________________ 43

_____________________________________________________________________
dimensions will allow some general
comments on their applicability to work
organisations in nations pursuing
accelerated economic development.
Hofstede saw his power-distance
dimension as being about human
inequality (Hofstede 1980:92), in which
power-distance represents the extent to
which the less powerful people in a culture
accept and expect that power is distributed
unequally (Hofstede 1993:2). His original
argument was that the extent to which
Labour
and
Management
in
Development
Journal,
Hess
culture legitimises power differentials
between individuals impacts on actions and
structures across much of national life
(Hofstede 1980:9293). The results of this in
employment are that, in high powerdistance
cultures, subordinates accept
superiors as different kinds of people (Pugh
1993:88) and employeesexpect managers
to lead, and they become uncomfortable
with the delegation of discretionary
decisions (Adler 1991:151 [REF?]). While in
low power-distance cultures superiors and
subordinates consider each other to be
colleagues and [agree that]inequality in
society should be minimised (Pugh
1993:88).
Once again a particular problem is
__________________________________________________________________ 44

_____________________________________________________________________
evident in those situations in which
employees bring to the workplace a different
set of attitudes to those sanctioned or
assumed in the culture of the work
organisation itself. In terms of human
equality, an obvious arena for such a clash
is in the competing claims of management
and social hierarchy. Market oriented work
organisation tends to endorse differentials
in wealth, status and ability based on
market values. This is, however, by no
means the only way in which societies have
conceptualised hierarchy. Of particular
relevance to nations pursuing accelerated
economic growth are the perceptions of
social status and moral economy brought
to work organisations by employees from
rural areas. A useful illustration of the
potential impact of these is provided in
Scotts work on the nature of peasant social
attitudes in southeast Asian nations. His
conclusion is that, in these situations, values
are derived from economic necessity and
emphasise the safety factors of horizontal
cooperation and vertical patronage, rather
than personal competition and initiative
(Scott 1976).
In the context of developing economies,
Hofstedes second dimension for measuring
cultural impacts on work, uncertainty
avoidance, also has a particular resonance.
This arises from the fact that the innovation
and risk-taking that are an integral part of
market oriented management may not be
__________________________________________________________________ 45

_____________________________________________________________________
reflected in the social attitudes that
employees bring to work. Even in Hofstedes
sample of European and industrialised
Asian nations a considerable variety was
evident with Greece and Japan showing
high uncertainty avoidance and the United
States standing at the opposite end of the
spectrum. The impacts on work behaviour
can be seen in relation to motivational
factors. So,
employees in high uncertainty avoidance
countries tend to consider job security and
life-time employment more important than
holding a very interesting or challenging
job (Adler 1991:153).
The truth in many developing countries
is that holding any job is an enormous
achievement in itself and individuals may
well be prepared to accept both low wages
and lack of employment security to gain an
income.
Hofstedes individualism dimension
describes the relationship between the
individual and the collectivity which
prevails in a given society (Hofstede
1980:213). The distinction here is between
individualist and collectivist approaches.
The individualist ethic is highly rightLabour
and Management in Development Journal, Volume 2,
Number 3 8
Hess
consciousknowing full-well where ones
__________________________________________________________________ 46

_____________________________________________________________________
self-interests lie (Chen 1995:2829), whereas
the collectivist approach is characterised by
a tighter social framework with emphasis
on family or clan loyalty (Pugh 1993:89). In
the former, the ideal type of person is a
leader, while in the latter she/he is a good
member of the group. In management terms,
an individualist culture requires explicit
control within organisations, whereas a
collectivist culture provides that control via
social pressure so that the organisation itself
may rely on this implicit control to manage
its members (Adler 1991:47).
Given that few developing countries
exhibit the individualism of market oriented
societies, this dimension provides another
potential point of conflict between
organisational culture owing much to
Western ideas and social culture arising
from within a particular national context.
The confucian dynamism (Hofstede and
Bond 1988) observed by foreigners in Asian
nations provides a case in point. So,
however, does the more general observation
that in non-European nations motivation to
succeed at work often derives from family
pride and family needs rather than
individualist motives (Bedi 1991:10).
This dichotomy is also evident in
Hofstedes final dimension masculinity
femininity, with the masculine values
defined in terms of ambition, assertiveness
and strength (Hofstede 1993:3). In such
cultures performance is what
__________________________________________________________________ 47

_____________________________________________________________________
countsmoney and material standards are
importantbig and fast are beautiful (Pugh
1993:89). By contrast in feminine cultures,
men and women are both expected to be
non-competitive, modest, concerned with
relationships and to sympathise with
whatever is small and weak (Hofstede
1993:3) so that it is the quality of life that
matters, people and the environment are
important [and] service provides
motivation (Pugh 1993:89).
A major difficulty with Hofstedes
approach is that it involves a high degree of
generalisation. Characteristics which are
established as dominant in a particular
nation are taken to apply generally. The
failure to take into account non-national
differences elevates normative values to the
point where others become invisible. This
may be particularly damaging for
management in respect of gender
differences, especially where female workers
constitute a large part of the workforce.
Despite these analytical shortcomings,
however, the broad acceptance of the views
represented by Hofstede and his followers
is evidence of how seriously the cultural
stereotype is taken in management
discourse. In practice, many managerial
techniques assume a shared, or at least an
overlapping, set of values between
employees and employers derived from a
common national culture supportive of
work.
__________________________________________________________________ 48

_____________________________________________________________________
The point is that this becomes a particular
issue where the culture of work
organisations represents a marked departure
from the social cultures surrounding them.
This is typically the case in the work
organisations of nations undergoing rapid
economic change where newly introduced
forms of organisation operate within well
established social cultures which have
developed in response to quite different
rationalities (Pinches and Lakha 1987). The
Labour
and
Management
in
Development
Journal,
Hess
difficulties this poses for the creation of a
capable workforce willing to partner capital
in the tasks of economic development are
legion. At its most simplistic, they are seen
in employees poor levels of motivation and
low labour productivity. On the managerial
side, non-market rationalities may be seen
in nepotism, status consciousness and other
forms of what Westerners typically see as
corruption which also undermine the
effectiveness of organisations.
In studies of the British industrial
revolution, the process of cultural change
involved in altering patterns of work
behaviour has been well documented
(Thompson 1991). As has been noted above,
the economic development from feudal to
market oriented production was
__________________________________________________________________ 49

_____________________________________________________________________
accompanied by changes in work culture.
In this process, culture was both a tool of
change and of resistance to it over a period
of centuries (Thompson 1983:1016). A major
difference in the experience of those nations
attempting a contemporary move to market
oriented production is that the speed with
which the process is being pursued leaves
little room for gradual changes in culture.
So there is typically a conflict between
cultural attitudes in society at large and
those required within work organisations.
In one sense the entire evolution of
management thought can be seen as a search
for conceptual frameworks to assist
organisations adaptation to internal and
external contingencies (Wren 1987:390). Yet
the challenge posed by cultural attitudes at
variance with organisational need remains
largely unanswered, and management
theorists continue to bemoan the lack of
substantive cross-cultural theories of work
behaviour and attitudes (Cambell et al.
1993:1) to assist in addressing the practical
problems this causes for management.
Meanwhile, practitioners seeking better
ways of managing employees in situations
of economic development report that there
are often major cultural gaps between the
work organisation and its employees, with
the former being driven by imperatives of
market rationality and managerial control
while the latter seem, to many managers at
least, to be mired in traditional attitudes
__________________________________________________________________ 50

_____________________________________________________________________
which often undermine both managerial
authority and workplace productivity
(McGavin 1996).
Management commentary on culture has
historically been more concerned with
organisational culture understood as the
company way of doing things or its
philosophy, style or spirittransmitted by
a process of socialisation (Blunt 1986:115).
In the last decade, however, a noticeable
change has occurred. One aspect of this is
seen in the unease expressed in relation to
the inherent biases towards a management
viewpoint arising in some of the more
narrowly based studies of organisational
culture. Not only did such studies run the
danger of replicating this bias but they may
also be seen to have contributed to its
perpetuation. The necessity for social
culture to become part of organisational
analysis can be seen in contemporary
arguments for broadening the definition of
culture to specifically include the
operational environment and ambient
society (Allaire and Firsiroto 1994:209).
This social culture, however, may
include a bewildering variety of sub-cultures
depending on the basis of identification,
Labour
and
Management
in
Development
Journal,
Hess
with gender, ethnicity, language, religion,
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_____________________________________________________________________
caste, class, and region playing obvious
roles. It may nonetheless be possible to
identify broader cultural characteristics that
do impinge upon work within a particular
community. One such generalisation noted
above and emphasised by many
commentators from developing countries
concerns the extent of collectivism in nonWestern cultures, which stands in sharp
contrast to much modern management
practice based on an individualism
characteristic of US and other Western
nations but much less powerful outside of
these cultural contexts (Jocano 1990:2; Vente
and Chen 1980).
To illustrate the point, a brief attempt is
made here to identify some of those
culturally engendered attitudes which have
posed problems for the management of
labour in a handful of nations undergoing
processes of rapid economic development.2
While this is unsatisfactory to the extent that
these are complex phenomena which are
here reduced to almost school textbook
simplicity, it does serve the purpose of
indicating in a more concrete manner some
of the perimeters of the impact of social
culture on work in at least a handful of
nations.
Indonesia
Kerukunan (harmony) and nrimo
(submissiveness) are two typically Javanese
concepts, which have been seen as
impacting on work behaviour. While there
__________________________________________________________________ 52

_____________________________________________________________________
are many other cultures within Indonesia,
the influence of attitudes rooted in
traditional Javanese practices seem
particularly determinative of work attitudes
in larger organisations and especially in the
public sector, where Javanese dominance of
political power translates into prominence
at most levels of organisational leadership.
As one non-Javanese Indonesian informant
put it in the Department we all act like
Javanese.
The concept of kerukunan encapsulates
the necessity of acting in a way conducive
to the maintenance of society through unity.
This is not so much a positive striving for
unity as an active avoidance of actions that
will disturb harmonyregardless of the
individuals real feelings. So a proposition
may be rejected by answering yes rather
than no, because such an answer does not
disturb harmony, with the real picture not
being clear until action is required. In the
practical management environment it may
therefore be quite inappropriate for
managers to speak directly. So, when giving
orders or correcting subordinates, managers
may require a more subtle approach; for
instance, reminding the person to
considerwhat if we do it this way...
(Geertz 1961:146).
Nrimo involves accepting everything
without protest. It is not so much a position
of apathy as a rational response that avoids
excessive pain or useless challenge. This has
__________________________________________________________________ 53

_____________________________________________________________________
a considerable ideological history in which
acceptance is seen as an active response
which breaks the diabolic cycle of fear for
the future and regret for the past (Bonneff
1994). For work behaviour, the problems this
poses arise from the view that wealth is
illusory and not worth striving for
(Hardjowiroyo 1983), overlaid with an
Islamic view that hard work is not
efficacious because everything is
Labour
and
Management
in
Development
Journal,
Hess
determined by God. The effects on employee
motivation have been noted as including
lack of assertiveness (Sunyoto 1995:120), low
labour turnover, high levels of cooperation,
little need for achievement, strong need for
social affiliation, and lack of initiative
(Taruna 1987:43). Additional organisational
consequences were said by informants to
include poor workplace communication and
a reliance on personal status rather than
logical argument in decisionmaking
processes.
The Philippines
Pakikisama (togetherness) is a central concept
of Filipino social life, most literally
translated as to accompany or go along
with (Lynch 1964:89), and reflects a desire
for smooth interpersonal relationships. It
results in an avoidance of conflict and in
__________________________________________________________________ 54

_____________________________________________________________________
communication which involves extravagant
praise, metaphor rather than frankness,
smiling and not losing ones temper
(Guthrie 1968:63). Pakikisama has similar
implications to the Javanese attitudes
mentioned above, particularly in respect of
yielding to the will of a leader despite ones
own ideas (Andres 1981:17). It leads to a
constrained conformity in which, while
silence is not consent (Jocano 1990:34), there
are severe limitations placed on the exercise
of individual initiative.
At a more subtle level, the effort to ensure
harmony might result in behaviour which
is incomprehensible outside the Filipino
value system. So, for instance, to laugh when
a fellow worker makes a mistake, far from
showing a lack of sympathy, is actually
helping the person assuage the pain of
embarrassment by putting the mistake in a
humorous context (Jocano 1990:4). On the
other hand, efforts to curb anti-social
attitudes may result in not allowing privacy
and in talking issues through where
someone is out of line (Andres 1981:45). The
latter in particular has been seen as having
positive implications for cooperative
working relations, while the former is seen
in the high regard accorded leaders who are
approachable and are able to win the
confidence of a team through demonstrating
their concern for the welfare of its members
(Jocano 1990:56).
The familiarism and personalism which
__________________________________________________________________ 55

_____________________________________________________________________
affects employees has also been noted as
impacting on the practices of Filipino
managers. Recruitment in particular is
affected so that jobs are advertised but in
the final decisionit could be a friend, the
region-mate, the Kompadreor the family
referral who is given the job (Aganon
1994:31). Similarly, managerial evaluation of
employee performance may appear to have
more to do with personal relationships than
with objective criteria. In fact, in this
cultural setting the distinction familiar in
Western thinking between personal
(subjective) and professional (objective)
judgement is much less clear.
To put it another way, in an individualist
cultural setting, where the aphorism dont
take it personally is a cultural norm, the
Filipino stress on personalised relationships
would make no sense. Here, however, to act
in any other way would make no sense
because personal relationships have priority.
So Filipino commentators seeking to explain
the motives of their compatriots behaviour
have concluded that Filipinos tend to be
personal in all their dealings thus actions
Labour
and
Management
in
Development
Journal,
Hess
and messages are given personal
interpretations which affect business and
working relationships (Gapuz and Lozada
__________________________________________________________________ 56

_____________________________________________________________________
1990:3). This makes criticism of performance
a difficult task as any criticism is likely to be
perceived as a real personal insult (Jocano
1992:22), while a positive evaluation of
performance may well be interpreted in
terms of personal affection rather than
professional judgement (Cruz 1990:51).
The collectivism at the heart of pakikisama
is also seen in concepts of damayan
(involvement) and bayanih an (cooperation)
which bring people together to accomplish
tasks requiring group action. Where
management is able to build on this through
teamwork and competition between teams
it has been seen as having positive effects
on productivity (de Leon 1987:3334).
Equally, however, it may operate to limit the
significance of work in the lives of
individuals who draw their confidence from
their standing in their group of friends or
barkada (Jocano 1990:25) rather than from
their contribution to the objectives of work
organisations.
The social sanction operating in the
Filipino sense of shame, hiya, is also seen as
having a direct limiting effect on the capacity
of managers where collective pressure
makes avoiding personal affronts which
could put a person in a socially unacceptable
position imperative (de Leon 1987:29). This
has been observed as leading to a style of
organisational communication in which
euphemism and double talk are common
(Roces and Roces 1992:40 [1993??]) and
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_____________________________________________________________________
where persuasion is preferred over
argument which may offend personal
sensibilities (Jocano 1992:11). So in a
situation, for instance, in which managers
are called on to provide feedback on
employees performance the type of opinion
expressed publicly may focus primarily on
maintaining self-esteem and inter-personal
relations rather than on organisational
objectives (Roces and Roces 1992:40).
The dynamic nature of culture, however,
ensures that other interpretations are also
possible. One of particular interest in this
context is the attempt to locate religious
significance in the traditional cultural
concepts (Gorospe 1966). Here bayanihan
becomes not only cooperation but also
community spirit. So the reciprocity of utang
na loob, the debt of gratitude (Jocano 1992:3
7) which forges a strong sense of personal
and emotional obligation (Roces and Roces
1992:41 [1993?]; de Leon 1987:29) may be
seen as a negative in Western commentary
and management literature. Gorospe,
however, presents it as a manifestation of
Christian thoughtfulness for others.
Similarly the fatalism of bahala na, again
often seen as having a demotivating effect
on individuals, becomes valuable as a trust
in God.
The consequences of Filipino culture for
work organisation have been summarised
by foreign observers in terms of low levels
of trust, the need for close supervision,
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_____________________________________________________________________
central decisionmaking and the avoidance
of conflict (Richards 1993:362). For Filipino
commentators, however, the factors which
appear so negative to an outsider have
positive value. Jocano, for example, argues
that the implications of cultural familiarism
are simply that work relationships rather
Labour
and
Management
in
Development
Journal,
Hess
than work functions are of primary
importance in the Philippines cultural
setting. He concludes that
[e]ffective management is a function of the
congruence of the modern and
professional management used in the
corporation and the elements of culture in
the environment in which the corporation
operates[while] within the corporation,
effective management is a function of the
fit in the perceptions and expectations
managers and workers have of each other
(Jocano 1990:15).
Thailand
Western commentary on Thai organisational
behaviour has focused firmly on the role of
social status in determining work
relationships and roles (Siffin 1966:240). This
is particularly so in respect of the public
sector, where a lack of bottom up
communication has been noted as limiting
the usefulness of information available to
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managers (Haas 1979:30), while employees
grievances of fester as unarticulated sources
of demotivation (Shor 1962).
More recent work has focused on the role
of seniority in decisionmaking. This is seen
as limiting the extent of accountability
because there is no requirement for decisions
to be logical or open to debate (Redding
1993:223). The decisions of senior officials
are accepted as correct because they are the
decisions of senior officials. Added to this
absolute authority is the fact that work
relationships are more reflective of personal
than of organisational realities so that the
employee and the manager never stand in a
purely professional relationship (Redding
1993:226).
In discussions with Thai managers
several overlapping factors, located in
cultural attitudes, emerge as constraints to
organisational reform. The first is seniority.
Schregle has argued that what actually
happens in Asian work organisations in
general is that family style relationships are
reproduced with the manager in the role of
parent and the employees in the role of
children (Schregle 1982:131). While not
wishing to retreat to this level of
reductionism it certainly seems true that in
Thai work organisations, as informants put
it, docility is more prized than ability and
submission to power is highly valued for
the achievement of career advancement,
while innovation involves fear of reprisal.
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A second factor is that the legitimacy of
organisational authority is strengthened by
strong national sentiment regarding
monarchical forms of governance (Sutton
1962:9). Informants explain this in terms of
the high regard in which Thais hold their
current monarch and the historical status of
monarchy in having successfully protected
Thais from the costs of political insecurity
so evident in neighbouring nations. One
result evident in Thai commentary is that
submission to authority is seen as a prized
personal characteristic (Ruktham 1981:23).
This may be reinforced by a Buddhist
religious attitude in which organisational
superiors, like the King himself, are seen as
beings who have reached a higher level of
consciousness through the process of life
and re-birth (Vachirakajorn 1988:89).
At one level this legitimises the creation
of highly centralised organisational
structures which impede information flow
and stifle initiative (Haas 1979:31). One
Labour
and
Management
in
Development
Journal,
Hess
result, from a development standpoint, is
that district officers responsible for the
implementation of development policies
have little real power and must rely on their
personal relationships with senior
headquarters officials to advance the cause
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of their districts (Haas 1979:46). So the
development imperatives of
decentralisation face an additional hurdle in
the cultural imperatives towards centralised
hierarchical control.
The organisational results of these
approaches to authority are said to include
the fact that lower status employees cannot
communicate effectively with their
superiors because of the distance between
them, while the senior bureaucrats officiate
like feudal landlords whose rights to
exercise authority need not be related to
performance or subject to accountability
(Ruktham 1981:104). On one side of the work
relations equation this might result in
managers being unwilling to openly criticise
employees because of the breach of the
personal relationship this would entail
(Ruktham 1981:120). On the other hand,
employees are seen as fearful of expressing
non-conformity and therefore reluctant to
make their views known (Pugh 1993:93). The
implications in terms of communication,
including performance evaluation and
feedback, are obvious and captured by one
Thai managers inquiry, what
communication?.
A third constraint, often remarked by
foreign observers, is nepotism. Rukthams
example of the university management in
which a new chancellors friends were
gradually appointed to all senior positions
may not seem remarkable to academics
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internationally. What may seem more
remarkable is his observation that this trend
extended to scholarly criticism with the
relationship of an author or seminar
presenter to the chancellor becoming a factor
in the scrutiny to which the work was
subjected (Ruktham 1981:15). Perhaps, as
those who adopt Hofstedes approach have
argued, in a feminine society in which the
personal relationship is always more
important than the organisational objective,
this is inevitable (Schermerhorn et al. 1997).
Haas has a more pragmatic interpretation
of Thai bureaucratic nepotism, arguing that
reciprocity cannot be guaranteed with
strangers and that favouritism ensures a
positive return only when the parties are
brought within the same organisational
environment (Haas 1979:29).
Papua New Guinea
In Papua New Guinea (PNG), a nation of
enormous ethnic diversity with literally
hundreds of languages and cultures, those
social concepts which are common seem to
gain increased strength, especially in urban
areas where the subtleties of local culture
may be less significant. Wantok is one of
these. It refers literally to those who speak
the same language. It is used throughout
Melanesia to identify the primary loyalty of
the individual to clan, language group and
region. In terms of work attitudes there are
many implications of this cultural
orientation. Its positive aspect may be seen
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in a PNG scholars definition of it as mutual
support and co-operation within mutually
acceptable rules of social and economic
behaviour (Warakai 1989:45). Foreign
observers, on the other hand, have seen
Labour
and
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in
Development
Journal,
Hess
wantokism as involving invidious
responsibilities, noting particularly the
plight of employed Papua New Guineans
who are obliged to give their time and
resources to unemployed relatives as a major
disincentive to work at all (Monsell-Davis
1993:8).
Wantokism has also been seen as
operating within organisations with
detrimental impacts on decisionmaking,
control and communication. Amongst the
behaviours reported by informants are the
tendency to favour wantoks in appointments
and promotions and the strength of informal
work groups based around regionalism
which have been seen as limiting managerial
control. For workers organisations this latter
phenomenon has been an effective counterbalance
to employer authority in
organisations in which workers are largely
from the same region. For managers,
however, it can be a nightmare, with several
reporting the need to develop forms of
communication which take the reality of
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such informal work groups into account.
These mechanisms range from having work
group leaders who represent a given group
for purposes of communicating with
managers to having separate
communication with each of several regional
groupings within an organisations
workforce.
In respect of favouritism, tambus
(literally in-laws) may be even more
problematic than wantoks. In Papua New
Guinea, tambus are not just the in-laws as
Europeans might say. Marriage is a major
means of bringing clans into harmony and
of establishing economic and political links.
A Melanesians tambus have an importance
as partners and allies for life. Furthermore,
the respect paid them is traditionally seen
as ensuring the numbers and health of
children, essential to the economic well
being of the community and particularly its
older members, whose physical well-being
is often dependent upon the next generation
of labour. The obligation to employ their
tambus and show them the traditional
respect creates a conflict of interest for
managers which is rarely resolved by
subordinating this customary order of
necessity to the demands of organisational
objectives (Ramoi 1986:88).
The continued viability of subsistence
economic activity and the strength of the
social relations that go with it are beyond
the scope of this paper but clearly they cause
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a variety of problems for the management
of Melanesian employees in the form of
disincentives to work, poor motivation in
work and low levels of organisational
commitment. The bottom line for many
employees in this situation is not the need
to satisfy a manager but the certainty that
they can always go back home to the village
or receive food and shelter from their urban
kin (Levine and Levine 1979:34).
Region-wide factors
Two possible general factors emerge from
informants and the literature as cultural
concepts impacting on work behaviour in
all of the nations mentioned above. They
revolve around the role of personal status
and the attitudes to time which employees
bring into the workplace from their cultural
environments.
Labour
and
Management
in
Development
Journal,
Hess
In each of the countries mentioned above
it is notable that the normative concepts of
personal status are quite different and often
opposed to those influential in the market
oriented democracies of the West. In the
Indonesian case it was noted that personal
status was a determinative factor in
decisionmaking to the extent that the merit
of a viewpoint was considered less
important than the status of the individual
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_____________________________________________________________________
expressing it. Similarly, in Thailand,
seniority was seen as a vital ingredient in
determining workplace behaviour. The
implications for management are not merely
to be found in the lack of the individualist
ethic upon which so much Western
management theory is predicated. It must
also be recognised that some of the cultural
underpinnings of non-Western behavioural
norms are positively anti-individualist. This
may be seen in both the Indonesian
orientation to the primacy of social harmony
and in the Thai assertion of submissiveness
as a socially desirable characteristic.
The point here is that management theory
and practice which presumes an
individualistic market orientation will tend
to locate the dynamics of the work
relationships in organisational or
occupational status. In the many situations
of development this may provide an
inadequate understanding because
relationships between individuals and the
manner in which they are able to interact in
the workplace are likely to be strongly
influenced by their relative social status
derived from non-work environments. As
mentioned above, this may this pose a
barrier to effective communication within a
work organisation. It may also mean that the
social or personal relationship supersedes
the professional or organisational
relationship in both work and broader social
environments. In the case of the Philippines
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this is notable in the tendency to personalise
relationships to the extent that neutral
communication and objective judgement
become quite difficult. In the more clannish
social environment of Papua New Guinea
the blood, marriage or regional relationship
of individuals is similarly likely to supersede
more transient considerations such as an
employment relationship.
The point here is that, where
organisational practices assume an
individualist rationality in a context in
which social cultures are ardently
collectivist, pathologies are likely to emerge
in both managerial and employee behaviour.
Perhaps the greatest cultural gap,
however, between market-oriented
organisations and employees from nonmarket
cultures is seen in attitudes to time.
In Papua New Guinea this is captured in the
term maski, which, depending on the
speakers inflection, can connote it doesnt
matter, I dont care, or leave it until later.
It doesnt take much though to realise what
a deeply non-market or even anti-market
concept this is. Marxs identification of the
commodification and exact control of time
as central to the development of capitalism
has served to focus scholarly attention on
time as a vital factor in work organisation
(Blyton et al. 1989:3). Just how important it
is can be seen from the role the struggle over
working time has played in the historical
relations between management and
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employees internationally (Roediger and
Foner 1989; Nyland 1989). Time is also, of
Labour
and
Management
in
Development
Journal,
Hess
course, a deeply cultural construct. The fact
that the basic unit of time in Madagascan
society is 30 minutes and that this is the
customary length of time it takes to cook rice
is no coincidence (Thompson 1991:58).
In each of those cultures dealt with so
briefly above, time has traditionally had a
social rather than a market value. This, like
so many other traditional values, is subject
to rapid change, especially in newly
industrialised and urbanised environments.
Beneath pragmatic accommodation to harsh
realities, however, there may remain a set of
attitudes that run counter to the needs of
market driven economic activity. The
possibility of this may be seen in as basic an
area as language.
In Indonesian, for example, there is much
less linguistic certainty about time than there
is in English. The English distinction
between possible and probable is simply
not available. Time in Filipino culture is
conceived as a succession of moments with
no starting or end point (Andres 1981:125).
In either case, whether something is done
now or later is a matter of relatively minor
consequence. Nor is there urgency about the
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completion of a piece of work. So Filipinos
describe their own work efforts as ningain
coganlike a grass fire, starting out full of
vigour but dying down abruptly leaving the
work unfinished (Schwenk 1989:17).
Similarly, in Melanesia, concepts such as
work time and work attendance have no
equivalent in traditional society (McGavin
1991:222) and absenteeism attracts none of
the opprobrium associated with it in market
oriented cultures. So taim bilong wok (work
time) remains quite different from taim
bilong yumi (our own time), and throughout
the region Pacific time is far from the exact
commodity assumed in market oriented
work organisation.
Conclusion
The ambivalent impact of social culture on
work organisation has been noted at several
points in this article. It is clear that severe
work attitude constraints are experienced by
organisations located in social environments
from which employees and managers alike
bring non-market rationalities into the
workplace. While there is no shortage of
commentary pointing this out, the question
of what to do about it remains.
On the one hand culture can clearly be a
vehicle for expressing resistance to change.
In the Philippines, for instance, cultural
factors have been reported as strengthening
informal work group consciousness in
resistance to managerial initiatives. Torres
study of Quezon City garment workers
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found that work played a subordinate role
as a means to the ends of personal life, and
employees expressed anti-management
sentiments using core cultural concepts
arising from familial and communalistic
values (Torres 1988:140). A similar culture
of resistance was shown in Abuevas survey
of middle-ranking public servants, in which
the majority did not see work time as
different from personal time and admitted
to filling in time sheets dishonestly with no
indication that this was seen as wrong
(Abueva 1970:14849). More direct forms of
resistance based on culturally accepted
notions are evident in Papua New Guinea,
where workers organisations were formed
specifically on the basis of groupings of
wantoks and employees from the same region
(Hess 1992:63).
Labour
and
Management
in
Development
Journal,
Hess
On the other hand, Filipino
commentators such as Jocano have called on
managers to make use of culture in
motivating and organising employees. This
may sound attractive to managers and it has
certainly been a lucrative source of
consultancies as one of the longest running
management fads. For serious commentary,
however, it misses the point. The point is that
the extent to which social culture is available
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for manipulation may be quite limited.
Precisely because culture is not a
personalised product it is difficult to see how
it can be used in this way. While culturally
conditioned concepts can be used in the
language of management (or marketing!), it
is difficult to identify scholarly commentary
reporting broad success in using social
culture to further organisational objectives
except where those objectives already
accorded with cultural mores.
The key to this puzzle may lie in the
realisation that far from being irrational
and therefore easily changed or
manipulated, the cultural norms which pose
constraints to Western style management
also have a pragmatic face. So, for instance,
the nepotism of Thai managers who favour
acquaintances is very practical simply
because strangers are less likely to return a
favour. Similarly, the favouring of wantoks
or relatives in Papua New Guinea has a
strong economically rational basis in the fact
that they provide an individuals only real
social security net. Until work environments
offer similar levels of benefit it is unlikely
that behaviour based on the need to
maintain those relationships which have
historically been effective will lessen. In
short, work organisations in situations of
development often face serious
competition as sources of both material and
social status. Low wages, poor employment
security and negligible job-related social
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security mean that this is likely to continue
to be the case.
For practitioners and scholars the
question remains one of how management
practices so thoroughly rooted in the cultural
exigencies of the market oriented
democracies actually operate when they are
transposed into situations of development.
One possibility is for managers to regard
culture as farmers may regard the weather.
In this metaphor culture can be regarded as
vital to the way in which the enterprise is
conducted and as constantly present but
variable in impact. It can thus be accepted
as a constraint which managers need to take
into account but over which they have as
little power as the farmer has over climatic
conditions. Within this framework
managers in situations of development in
particular would be seen as needing to orient
their practices as much to local cultural
conditions as possible within an awareness
that those conditions are products of
powerful forces which a work organisation
cannot change and ought not challenge.
Notes
1 Recent innovative work includes Sievers
(1994) and Fox (1994).
2 The factors chosen for comment here are
those identified over the last five years by
approximately 200 participants in
management courses at the National Centre
for Development Studies, Australian
National University, as representing major
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(and for management detrimental) impacts
Labour
and
Management
in
Development
Journal,
Hess
on work behaviour in their organisations.
These course participants have been middle
and senior level managers of public sector
organisations in a variety of nations pursuing
goals of economic development. They are
treated in this paper as informants but
cannot be individually identified. Where
possible, their anecdotal evidence, gathered
in open-ended group discussions and
individual interviews, has been
supplemented by reference to authoritative
commentary.
__________________________________________________________________ 74

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