I was looking at some articles on good governance and came across a quote by N. R. Narayana Murthy, where he writes as Chairman of the Board and Chief Mentor of Infosys. He says, “The primary purpose of corporate leadership is to create wealth, legally and ethically. This translates to bringing a high level of satisfaction to 5 constituencies – customers, employees, investors, vendors and society at large. The raison d’être of every corporate body is to ensure predictability, sustainability and profitability of revenues, year after year.”
There’s a lot packed into that statement. He says the very reason for existence, the raison d’être of every corporate body, is to ensure predictability, sustainability and profitability of revenues year after year consistently. This translates to bringing a high level of satisfaction to 5 constituencies – customers, employees, investors, vendors and society at large; all of these must be impacted by what you do and it must be impacted to a high level of satisfaction.
Then coming back to his first statement, the primary purpose of corporate leadership is to create wealth. But then he qualifies that statement by saying, both legally and ethically. Those become the rails on which good corporate governance must run.
That’s a change from corporate governance over the years. Probably 10 years back or even less, corporate governance was more hard-nosed; it was dealing with more pragmatic approaches, bottom line profitability – that was all that mattered. Today, more and more, we are seeing that there is a softer approach that is coming in; more soft sciences are being introduced to leadership and there is something that is being asked of employees beyond just bottom-line profit.
Schumpeter writing in the Economist on ‘The Art of Management’; in an article entitled ‘Business has much to learn from the Arts’, talks about how the hard times has for so long been at the core of leadership and management studies. He says “The bias starts at business school where hard things such as numbers and case studies rule. It is reinforced by everyday experiences. Bosses constantly remind their underlings that ‘if you can’t count it, it doesn’t count’. Quarterly results impress the stock market; little else does. More and more soft sciences are coming into leadership and management, bringing a change into this hard-nosed concept of leading.”
Many years ago I was listening to a friend of mine who had done very well in the corporate world, bemoaning the fact that one key ingredient of working in offices was barely touched on in management and business schools. He was talking of the relational skills. He said, “Most people come in with very poor relational skills”, again harking on the soft science part of management.
I was talking to a friend yesterday about the many suicides that were happening in southern part of India, in one particular town. The policeman there, has appealed to some of the people he knew, to come and help in counseling. As he said, “We look after the law; it’s very clear, black and white. But there are aspects that we don’t have any idea about – like how do you talk people out of suicide.” They felt completely inadequate to deal with these things. It made me think about how the softer sciences are coming in; that more and more, the means must justify the end.
I came across an article entitled, “Why Soft Science is the Key to Regaining Leadership in Marketing Knowledge” by Alan Tapp and Tim Hughes, out of the Bristol Business School. They have the same idea behind it, that there is a need for softer science to begin to help understand corporate governance and leadership, as opposed to only hard sciences.
A couple of years back, I was looking over our financial statements. Out of all the skills that I have, financial accounting is my least skillful asset. Yet as I looked at the statements, I felt that something was off. So I got in people who understood this and soon we discovered that we had a major problem with the accounting firm that was doing our returns. They had not been doing it properly for about a year and a half and it took as long for us to rectify it.
Reflecting on it, we intuitively feel that something is not right, something is not adding up. I like to think that in the intuitive world that we live in, God is speaking; that He brings a certain amount of wisdom and understanding far beyond our capabilities to help us work well in the spheres that we have. He is all knowing; He has wisdom. I wonder whether, when we feel these hunches, it could actually be God trying to breakthrough our legal pragmatic hard-nosed world, saying, “I want to bring to your attention something that you need to look at.”
There’s a verse in the Bible that is very comforting to me (2 Chronicles 16:9a). “The eyes of the Lord roam over the whole earth, to encourage those who are devoted to Him wholeheartedly.”
Another verse says (Psalm 121:3), “He will not let your foot slip – He who watches over you will not slumber.”
I for one, would like to yield to this Godly input and influence into my life because I know that in everything I do, there could be more space for more wisdom. Maybe today, God is the soft science that we need to bring into our hard-nosed world of profitability.
Just a thought for you today. Maybe that’s the invitation that you need to make today as you go through the day. Invite Him to be a part of your day at the office.
God Bless You All.
There’s a lot packed into that statement. He says the very reason for existence, the raison d’être of every corporate body, is to ensure predictability, sustainability and profitability of revenues year after year consistently. This translates to bringing a high level of satisfaction to 5 constituencies – customers, employees, investors, vendors and society at large; all of these must be impacted by what you do and it must be impacted to a high level of satisfaction.
Then coming back to his first statement, the primary purpose of corporate leadership is to create wealth. But then he qualifies that statement by saying, both legally and ethically. Those become the rails on which good corporate governance must run.
That’s a change from corporate governance over the years. Probably 10 years back or even less, corporate governance was more hard-nosed; it was dealing with more pragmatic approaches, bottom line profitability – that was all that mattered. Today, more and more, we are seeing that there is a softer approach that is coming in; more soft sciences are being introduced to leadership and there is something that is being asked of employees beyond just bottom-line profit.
Schumpeter writing in the Economist on ‘The Art of Management’; in an article entitled ‘Business has much to learn from the Arts’, talks about how the hard times has for so long been at the core of leadership and management studies. He says “The bias starts at business school where hard things such as numbers and case studies rule. It is reinforced by everyday experiences. Bosses constantly remind their underlings that ‘if you can’t count it, it doesn’t count’. Quarterly results impress the stock market; little else does. More and more soft sciences are coming into leadership and management, bringing a change into this hard-nosed concept of leading.”
Many years ago I was listening to a friend of mine who had done very well in the corporate world, bemoaning the fact that one key ingredient of working in offices was barely touched on in management and business schools. He was talking of the relational skills. He said, “Most people come in with very poor relational skills”, again harking on the soft science part of management.
I was talking to a friend yesterday about the many suicides that were happening in southern part of India, in one particular town. The policeman there, has appealed to some of the people he knew, to come and help in counseling. As he said, “We look after the law; it’s very clear, black and white. But there are aspects that we don’t have any idea about – like how do you talk people out of suicide.” They felt completely inadequate to deal with these things. It made me think about how the softer sciences are coming in; that more and more, the means must justify the end.
I came across an article entitled, “Why Soft Science is the Key to Regaining Leadership in Marketing Knowledge” by Alan Tapp and Tim Hughes, out of the Bristol Business School. They have the same idea behind it, that there is a need for softer science to begin to help understand corporate governance and leadership, as opposed to only hard sciences.
A couple of years back, I was looking over our financial statements. Out of all the skills that I have, financial accounting is my least skillful asset. Yet as I looked at the statements, I felt that something was off. So I got in people who understood this and soon we discovered that we had a major problem with the accounting firm that was doing our returns. They had not been doing it properly for about a year and a half and it took as long for us to rectify it.
Reflecting on it, we intuitively feel that something is not right, something is not adding up. I like to think that in the intuitive world that we live in, God is speaking; that He brings a certain amount of wisdom and understanding far beyond our capabilities to help us work well in the spheres that we have. He is all knowing; He has wisdom. I wonder whether, when we feel these hunches, it could actually be God trying to breakthrough our legal pragmatic hard-nosed world, saying, “I want to bring to your attention something that you need to look at.”
There’s a verse in the Bible that is very comforting to me (2 Chronicles 16:9a). “The eyes of the Lord roam over the whole earth, to encourage those who are devoted to Him wholeheartedly.”
Another verse says (Psalm 121:3), “He will not let your foot slip – He who watches over you will not slumber.”
I for one, would like to yield to this Godly input and influence into my life because I know that in everything I do, there could be more space for more wisdom. Maybe today, God is the soft science that we need to bring into our hard-nosed world of profitability.
Just a thought for you today. Maybe that’s the invitation that you need to make today as you go through the day. Invite Him to be a part of your day at the office.
God Bless You All.
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