by Dr. Cecil Clements (7th August 2012)
I came across on the Internet, a kind of a compendium that 99 OP Jindal Engineering and Management scholars had put together in 2007. They had asked their scholars (these are people who have got the engineering scholarship) “Visualize yourself on your 50th birthday. What would you want your critical stakeholders (they could be your colleagues, your spouse, your children or any person who you consider critical) to say about you?
The brightest brains of India, getting nurtured and groomed across 30 engineering and management institutes in the country, responded back to this question with their own distinct style. I was reading through some of the essays and they were quite interesting. All of them carried a common thread of purpose and that was to do their nation proud and to achieve something, which would benefit the world at large.
As I scanned through these 99 short articles, one caught my attention. It was by Kapil Modi, a second year student of IIM, Ahmedabad. He quotes Abraham Lincoln, “And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” And this is what he said, “I would like my colleagues to say about me, that here is a guy for whom the means mattered more than the ends. He would never compromise on his integrity and honesty, even in most adverse situations. He does not like to take unethical short cuts in life.”
As I read that, I thought that here was a youngster, a second year IIM Ahmedabad, looking at his future and putting down a major statement like this, saying, “For me, on my 50th birthday, I want people to look back and say about Kapil Modi that I was a person for whom the means mattered more than the ends, that I didn’t take any unethical shortcuts in life, even in the most adverse situations and that I was known for my integrity and honesty.”
More and more, I think, we are beginning to see that means do mean something; that it cannot be that the ends justify the means. Companies are beginning to realize that there are ethical standards; there are responsibilities to society that must govern their ends.
I found this company SSTL (Shree Surgovind Tradelink Limited) and they say, “Ethical business practices are an unpronounced rule. They stand at the forefront of all other business values. We understand that any ethical business conduct depends upon core values of trust, respect, honesty, integrity, responsibility, fairness and accountability. Every employee at SSTL is encouraged and expected to adhere to this principle in his professional interactions without personal influences.” They end by saying, “For us, the means matter more than the ends.”
Harsha Bhogle, a famous cricket commentator known for his commentary all across the world, is lesser known for the fact that he is an alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad. He was called to his alma mater to give a talk on excellence. In it, he talks about the destination and the journey. He says, “The journey is important; that we cannot at any point just be caught up with the destination and allow everything that we do to be fuelled only by the thoughts of the destination. Two things will happen if we put the destination before the journey.
I came across on the Internet, a kind of a compendium that 99 OP Jindal Engineering and Management scholars had put together in 2007. They had asked their scholars (these are people who have got the engineering scholarship) “Visualize yourself on your 50th birthday. What would you want your critical stakeholders (they could be your colleagues, your spouse, your children or any person who you consider critical) to say about you?
The brightest brains of India, getting nurtured and groomed across 30 engineering and management institutes in the country, responded back to this question with their own distinct style. I was reading through some of the essays and they were quite interesting. All of them carried a common thread of purpose and that was to do their nation proud and to achieve something, which would benefit the world at large.
As I scanned through these 99 short articles, one caught my attention. It was by Kapil Modi, a second year student of IIM, Ahmedabad. He quotes Abraham Lincoln, “And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” And this is what he said, “I would like my colleagues to say about me, that here is a guy for whom the means mattered more than the ends. He would never compromise on his integrity and honesty, even in most adverse situations. He does not like to take unethical short cuts in life.”
As I read that, I thought that here was a youngster, a second year IIM Ahmedabad, looking at his future and putting down a major statement like this, saying, “For me, on my 50th birthday, I want people to look back and say about Kapil Modi that I was a person for whom the means mattered more than the ends, that I didn’t take any unethical shortcuts in life, even in the most adverse situations and that I was known for my integrity and honesty.”
More and more, I think, we are beginning to see that means do mean something; that it cannot be that the ends justify the means. Companies are beginning to realize that there are ethical standards; there are responsibilities to society that must govern their ends.
I found this company SSTL (Shree Surgovind Tradelink Limited) and they say, “Ethical business practices are an unpronounced rule. They stand at the forefront of all other business values. We understand that any ethical business conduct depends upon core values of trust, respect, honesty, integrity, responsibility, fairness and accountability. Every employee at SSTL is encouraged and expected to adhere to this principle in his professional interactions without personal influences.” They end by saying, “For us, the means matter more than the ends.”
Harsha Bhogle, a famous cricket commentator known for his commentary all across the world, is lesser known for the fact that he is an alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad. He was called to his alma mater to give a talk on excellence. In it, he talks about the destination and the journey. He says, “The journey is important; that we cannot at any point just be caught up with the destination and allow everything that we do to be fuelled only by the thoughts of the destination. Two things will happen if we put the destination before the journey.
- It can choke you. As you begin to look at that destination and it doesn’t seem to be happening, it can immobilize you, it can choke you. It is then very difficult to come out of it.
- Put the destination before the journey and it will create the temptation to do whatever it takes to win. The key word here is ‘whatever’.
He goes on to give an illustration of Yuvraj Singh on a particular tour, when the Indian team management had asked Sandy Gordon, an Australian psychologist to travel with them and help the team deal with some of the psychological situations that they faced. Yuvraj Singh was reported to have told Sandy Gordon that his goal was to score centuries and he was getting choked by that because every time he didn’t score a century, the next time there was more pressure on him. And Sandy Gordon told him that since he was coming in at #6, he should change his goal from scoring a century, to saying “I will be not out at the end of the innings.” And this transformed Yuvraj Singh and he began to score runs. As I look at it, I see that his goal was larger than himself. It didn’t have to do with himself. It had to do with a nobler goal, a nobler aspiration. If he remained not out at the end of the innings, it would help the team and at the same time, by being not out, he was also scoring runs. The goal became bolder and greater beyond him.
As I look at means and ends, I think that there is a case for both. It’s not an either/or situation – it’s not we either have the means or we have the ends, that the ends must be sacrificed in order of the means. I think it is a both/and situation, that we can have both the means and the end; although at no time must the means be abandoned for the end. I think there needs to be a healthy tension that must envelop the way we look at our life, at our journey and at our destination. I think the means provide that healthy, almost dissonance (if I may use that musical term) or the resolution that must come at the end of a musical cadence that will give us the feeling of ‘Ah, that is settled!’. But before that resolution comes, there’s just a bit of dissonance as musical notes are held in tension before they all resolve. That’s what the means does – it creates a healthy tension for us as we look forward to the goals.
We need to have such a clear understanding as we look at our lives, about how we are going to look at the means, what are the key thoughts and ideas that will shape our means to achieve our ends. I think it’s important for us to put those things down and say, “With these in place, I will try to get to the end.” That’s why I like both, what the students had said about integrity and SSTL said about trust, respect, honesty, integrity, responsibility, fairness and accountability. All of these things are so important for you and I to be able to say, “That’s going to be part of the means in getting to the end. I’m not going to abdicate those things.”
It would be so different. A couple of weeks back, we read in the newspapers about the young girl whose modesty was outraged in Guwahati and how a cameraman was filming it all the time. I couldn’t help but think – how do we get news? Don’t the means mean anything? Is that the most important thing, that we can continue to film something like this just so we can make sensational news the next day? I wondered how it would look if the next day we had read in the newspaper, a statement saying that we are sorry that there is no photograph to add to this news item because our cameraman put down his camera and jumped in to help this particular girl from having her modesty outraged and was able to motivate the rest of the crowd to help him as well. I think that would be newsworthy news.
But for that, we need to be able to get our means right. We need to be able to know that there are certain lines that we will not cross. It will take effort, it will take courage. But as somebody once said, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”
Our Holy Book says in 2 Timothy 4:7, “At the end of the day to be able to say, ‘I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race and I have remained faithful.’”
That’s something that I would like to say at the end of my time or when we meet our Almighty God, to be able to hear from Him, ‘Well done!” But for that, the means must be very important to each one of us as well.
Let me pray with you. Almighty God, touch us, inspire us today, show us those means that we need to put into our lives so that we can live lives that count, that are significant; that at the end of our earthly journey, we would be able to have people say about us that we lived well, that integrity and honesty were hallmarks of our lives, that we never compromised on ethical values. Lord, help each one of us on this call, to be able to find those things that we need to put into our lives, so that at the end of our lives we would hear from You, “Well done!” I pray that as a blessing and as an inspiration over each one on this call, in the name of Jesus. Amen.
As I look at means and ends, I think that there is a case for both. It’s not an either/or situation – it’s not we either have the means or we have the ends, that the ends must be sacrificed in order of the means. I think it is a both/and situation, that we can have both the means and the end; although at no time must the means be abandoned for the end. I think there needs to be a healthy tension that must envelop the way we look at our life, at our journey and at our destination. I think the means provide that healthy, almost dissonance (if I may use that musical term) or the resolution that must come at the end of a musical cadence that will give us the feeling of ‘Ah, that is settled!’. But before that resolution comes, there’s just a bit of dissonance as musical notes are held in tension before they all resolve. That’s what the means does – it creates a healthy tension for us as we look forward to the goals.
We need to have such a clear understanding as we look at our lives, about how we are going to look at the means, what are the key thoughts and ideas that will shape our means to achieve our ends. I think it’s important for us to put those things down and say, “With these in place, I will try to get to the end.” That’s why I like both, what the students had said about integrity and SSTL said about trust, respect, honesty, integrity, responsibility, fairness and accountability. All of these things are so important for you and I to be able to say, “That’s going to be part of the means in getting to the end. I’m not going to abdicate those things.”
It would be so different. A couple of weeks back, we read in the newspapers about the young girl whose modesty was outraged in Guwahati and how a cameraman was filming it all the time. I couldn’t help but think – how do we get news? Don’t the means mean anything? Is that the most important thing, that we can continue to film something like this just so we can make sensational news the next day? I wondered how it would look if the next day we had read in the newspaper, a statement saying that we are sorry that there is no photograph to add to this news item because our cameraman put down his camera and jumped in to help this particular girl from having her modesty outraged and was able to motivate the rest of the crowd to help him as well. I think that would be newsworthy news.
But for that, we need to be able to get our means right. We need to be able to know that there are certain lines that we will not cross. It will take effort, it will take courage. But as somebody once said, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”
Our Holy Book says in 2 Timothy 4:7, “At the end of the day to be able to say, ‘I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race and I have remained faithful.’”
That’s something that I would like to say at the end of my time or when we meet our Almighty God, to be able to hear from Him, ‘Well done!” But for that, the means must be very important to each one of us as well.
Let me pray with you. Almighty God, touch us, inspire us today, show us those means that we need to put into our lives so that we can live lives that count, that are significant; that at the end of our earthly journey, we would be able to have people say about us that we lived well, that integrity and honesty were hallmarks of our lives, that we never compromised on ethical values. Lord, help each one of us on this call, to be able to find those things that we need to put into our lives, so that at the end of our lives we would hear from You, “Well done!” I pray that as a blessing and as an inspiration over each one on this call, in the name of Jesus. Amen.
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