Corporate Lesson from Indian Mythology

Once one hears the words “Indian Mythology”, one starts thinking on the lines of Indian Gods and various epics and stories around them. Thoughts are furthered into the various lessons one can learn from Indian Mythology, lessons on moral and ethical values, lessons on one’s duties, lessons on sacrifices and lessons on not to fall for worldly pleasures.

However, rarely one derives corporate lessons out of it. Though Indian epic, Mahabharat, has found its place as base for many corporate strategies and tactics but no one has thought of Indian Mythology providing one very important lesson, lesson on organization structure. I feel one can draw very good analogy from the hierarchy of system of Indian Gods with the hierarchy within an organization. Let me state the analogy.

According to Hindu Mythology, three Gods, Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh, are the supreme powers and Lord Indra, not as powerful as the above three, is the King of Gods. Under Indra, there are various Gods such as Varun Dev, Pawan Dev, Agni Dev, Shani Dev, Sun, Moon etc. Then we have various sages, humans and devils and demons. If we see this whole world as an organization, we can think system of Gods to be the management of the world organization. Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh can be thought as the promoters, shareholders or owners of the organization. Indra can be thought of as CEO reporting to them and other Gods as department heads each having resources in the form of air, wind, rain, fire, sunlight etc. So, unless there is havoc created in the organization, the three supreme powers just allow CEO Indra to run the system with his ministers, various Gods (department heads).

What are the lessons?

There are a few especially for owners of the company who try to manage and do everything on their own.

1. Even Gods are not able to do all things on their own and that’s why they have so many Gods with clear roles and responsibilities. There is where organization structure and its importance gets stated.
2. The promoters/owners do not interfere in day to day operations. CEO is allowed to take decision and run the organization with each department head having control of his share of resources and using them judiciously.
3. The three supreme powers (promoters/owners) intervene occasionally when there is imbalance of power and resources in the system, which is brought to their notice either by demons/devils dictating terms (demons/devils can be thought of as competition) or by a whistle-blower (humans by means of prayers/tapasyas/yagyas). The supreme powers restore the balance for the long term and then again handover the control to CEO (Indra). So, the topmost layer is best active in the form of Grievance Management.
4. The other important thing is the supreme powers fix the temporary problem and let the management continue with the operations. They do not keep replacing the management with every issue/grievance. We have been having Lord Indra and other Gods managing earth (organization) since its existence.
5. The three supreme powers do not indulge in any activity to prove his own supremacy over the other two and nor they are offended or have any ego issues if the humans pray to Indra i.e. analogous to employees working as per the directives of CEO.
6. There are various categories of the Gods in Hindu Mythology which can be thought of as analogous to various bands employees are clubbed in with each band/category specifying the power (privileges), employee (God/human) enjoys in that band/category.
7. Some sages obtain/earn the power and position of God by their deeds equivalent to performance and become part of the management which can be seen as analogous to promotion in the organization. All other employees (humans) are encouraged to perform the right deeds (give performance) to rise up. Getting power of God can be seen as acknowledgement by the management of the performance.

It is so commonly seen in India Inc. especially the owner driven companies to spend so much time in worshiping Gods but failing to follow the lessons one can learn from them. India has seen so many small firms to do good and failing miserably when they try to scale up. One of the common reasons has been the owner has not been able to relinquish the control. Owners have been seen to trying to do everything on their own even after scaling up which leads up to the situation of complete chaos and confusion but other members of the management not clear of their roles and responsibilities.

Owners often argue that others are not able to perform as efficiently they do themselves and that they do not find others as competent as they themselves are. But the fact is this has to be the case and that’s why they are owners and others employees. No one doubts that the three supreme powers, Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh, are much more capable than Indra (CEO) but can we think them of doing what Indra does. They have far greater responsibilities. Same has to be the thought process of the owners as well.

P.S.: There is no intention of hurting anyone’s sentiments especially Hindu followers. I have just tried to bring out one important lesion from Indian Mythology for the Indian corporate world. Also, this has no relation to my current or past work place. This is the work of fiction and its resemblance to any person, thing or organization is just the coincidence.

Are these times when cost of debt is more than cost of equity?

Today, again RBI increased repo and reverse repo rates by 50 basis points which takes them to 8% and 7% respectively, which would also mean that banks would now have base rate around and over 10%.

And which would further result in interest rate for a corporate loan of around 15% for corporates having decent credentials. Indian stock market has not been much move lately and one would be happy to make a return of over 10% in Indian equity these days. So are we seeing times when cost of debt is higher than cost of equity? (not in the strictest sense) If these are, then definitely people saying, "RBI policies would result growth paralysis", are probably right.

A true finance student would reply, "No way. If equity returns are falling, doesn't that mean investors are putting less amount of money in equity, which means investors have become more risk averse which should mean cost of equity has increased further up."

Whatever may be the case, the statement about "Growth Paralysis" still holds.

Few things not to do in the Interviews!

I have given 30+ interviews for jobs and admission to B-Schools combined. To say I am expert in screwing interviews would not be a totally exaggerated statement. I can't tell anyone how to clear the interviews successfully but definitely can tell things not to do. I have learnt them the hard way i.e. screwing interviews. I will try to reason each "not to do".

1. Never answer "I sleep". When asked "what do you do in your free time or what's the pass time activity you indulge in?" Never ever answer "I sleep", how honest this answer would be. This would be taken as if you are not interested in the job or you are taking things for granted. Remember, interviewer always wants to be considered important and when you give such answer, you somehow show that you don't care who the interviewer is. Your curiosity might be in knowing where did I do this blunder. I did in the campus interview of IBM. Result: Of course I was thrown out.

2. Never leave yourself out of your dream team. Many times, interviewer asks to form your team and you can have yourself in or out of the team or sometimes you are asked to give top 5 names from the shortlisted candidates. Never leave yourself out. You may feel you should give an unbiased answer to this question and comparing yourself with others would bring bias. But the point is when you can't value or respect yourself, how can you expect others to rate you higher. Interviewer knows what he is asking, he knows answer would always be biased, whether it's towards you or someone else. He, in no way, is going to make selections based on your ratings. So, be confident of your abilities and always include yourself in your dream team. This time for me company was Induslogic later renamed to Globalogic.

Everything seems to be operator driven in India

Indian stock market has grown at more than 10% CAGR in last 15 years or so. This is absolutely great by any standards but how many people investing in stock markets have made money. Few. Reasons we hear: Markets are operator driven in India i.e. few people control the direction, momentum and magnitude of markets in India.

POLITICS in India has always been notorious. It's getting dirtier day by day. Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackrey opposed the attack on Indians in Australia by saying that Shiv Sena will not let Australian cricketers play in IPL in Mumbai. A display of love for the country. Truly patriotic. Although Shiv Sainiks keep harassing people who have flocked in Mumbai from UP, Bihar. Are these people not Indians or does Shiv Sena believe only they have the right to attack Indians?

Whole world is looking at India to act as stimulus for growth. Not many times, a nation is at the focus center of world. What India needs is a sound political support to take India to higher levels of growth. Topics discussed should be which sector to bank upon, how to strengthen the large working force India, how to make the large opportunities India has count. But then, like everything else, even Politics seems to be operator driven!