Off-Spin

“Why don’t employees in my company rise above the monetary gains to selves?”

“What is the missing link between “professionalism” and “emotional being” that we are?”

These and many questions haunt many a leaders nowadays.

Since time immemorial, humans have existed in communities. These communities transformed depending on thrival-instincts and survival extincts. These communities took different shape, size, localizations and thrived on varied occupancy around basic food, shelter, clothing, social interactions.

From ancient times of everyday food gathering to food preservation for long term to “subsistence” to barter systems to “mudra” systems to monetary systems, the skill levels kept changing and expanding. During each change, the social purpose also kept changing in terms of “time devoted for social interactions”, ” geographical reach of social interactions”, “physical presence during social interactions”, “physical space of social interactions”, “blending economic purpose during social interactions”, “forms of entertainment”, …So on and forth.

When movement of people was limited from one location to another (for economic purpose),  the cultural fabric was more common and “shared” during pursuing economic purpose. But today’s corporations built for economic purpose provide occupation to individuals who come from disparate geographical and hence different social background. Hence Leadership teams have difficulty specifying the “social purpose related cultural specs” as deriving compatibility of several social context is extremely complex. But not providing a strong sense of “social purpose” (here read social purpose as inter-personal amongst employees) despite spending huge amount of time together (approx 60-70% of time spent @work) is fatal.

Modern day Management theorizes the “knowledge gain” along with “economic gain”. Modern Management places heavy emphasis on “cut throat”competition inside of the company and also on the outside…sort of drawing a battlefield. It also has its origins in the word "strategy" which found its origination in military.

But in almost all the religions they have imbibed, cultivated, ordered the word “compassion” or “empathy” resonating strongly in everyday life even while pursuing economic purpose.

In Jewish it’s “Rahmanah”, In Christianity the Gospels propagate compassionate conduct,  In Arabic it’s “Rahmah”,  In Buddhism it is “Karuna”,  in Jaininsm the word “ahimsa” is expanded to co-operate and co-exist empathetically. In All these religions, God has been given the stature of the Father or Mother of Compassion and then the followers are asked to follow the footsteps of Father or Mother. In Hindus, Lakshmi-Saraswati-Durga are the constant deities for attainment. here Durga personifies Power or empowerment and empathy as discovered by Devdutta Patnaik. In fact, even in some of ancient Greek Philosophies that have profound inquiries into existence, the virtues of empathy figure frequently and in a pronounced manner.

Corporate Inc’s Internal Social Purpose should be to encourage appreciation, empowerment, empathy which can be nourished and cherished and thereafter translated in external interactions. A Corporate Workplace devoid of these basic emotions can’t invoke emotional loyalties in its employees. This has to be designed in a committed manner and cultivated in an enterprise. Corporate needs to invest in inquiry, thinking, reasoning, engaging employees into discovering “way of life” in corporate workplaces beyond economic goals….imbibing ancient timeless and ageless multi-religion wisdom for solving conflicts, or kleshas of Asmita-avidya-raag-dvesh-abhinivesh.

Else the Country called Company will be populated with citizens carrying negative spins or animal spins.
Happy “So”-cial “Be”-ing. So Be.