|
Media enquiries
should be directed to: (Please use this contact for media
enquiries only ).
Dr. Pragnya Ram
Group Executive President
Corporate Communications
Aditya Birla Management Corporation Private Limited
Aditya Birla Centre
1st Floor, 'C' Wing
S.K. Ahire Marg
Worli
Mumbai 400 030.
telephone:
91-22-6652 5000 /
2499 5000
fax:
91-22-6652 5741/ 42
email: pragnya.ram@adityabirla.com
|
|
 |
 |
|
|
| media
> press reports |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Kumar
Mangalam Birla
Chairman, Aditya Birla Group
The Economic Times
8 September 2008
Why
has thought leadership become so important
at this juncture in history? Every ideology
and every system has fallen short, in some
way or the other. While capitalism has brought
growth and higher standards of living, it
has also resulted in periodic instability
and often increased inequalities. Socialism
brought about greater equality and economic
security, but lagged greatly in increasing
the size of the pie. Authoritarian states
have collapsed, but democracy has also not
delivered results, at least quickly enough.
So we have to live with huge contradictions:
the worst of both worlds.
Thought leaders and thought leadership can
broadly be segmented into five categories.
The first kind of thought leaders, are those
whose thoughts inspire, stoke passion, trigger
a process of self-inquiry among the listeners.
For instance, Rabindranath Tagore’s dream
of an India: “Where the mind is without
fear and the head is held high, where knowledge
is free; Where the world has not been broken
up into fragments by narrow domestic walls”.
Or Churchill who famously said: “Never
give in — never, never, never, never,
in nothing great or small, large or petty,
never give in except to convictions of honour
and good sense. Never yield to force: never
yield to the apparently overwhelming might
of the enemy”.
And the finest text on thought leadership
— the Bhagavad Gita. The Gita contains
nuggets of knowledge that are invaluable to
everyday living, living more fruitfully and
optimally. It is much more about philosophy
than religion and is universal in its applicability,
across religions, cultures and countries.
It explains vividly the concept of the mind
and the intellect. How one needs to sharpen
the intellect to control the mind. Or, how
one’s attitude determines one’s
altitude, how the past is history, the future
is a mystery, the present is a gift, use it
optimally by keeping the mind from drifting
constantly into the past and the future.
The second kind of thought leadership is when
through one’s own analysis and experience,
a leader forms a framework of thinking to
analyse a situation or to effectively sort
data. Many years after it was first expounded,
Maslow’s theory of the hierarchy of needs,
continues to be an invaluable mental framework
for understanding human behaviour and human
motives. Porter’s theory of the five
forces is perhaps one of the best methods
to analyse the attractiveness of an industry
and its key value drivers.
Third, are thought leaders who are proponents
of an ideology that is contrarian to current
thinking. The most striking example, Mahatma
Gandhi, who countered the forces of violence
with totally non conventional ‘weapons’
— pacifism, moral suasion, fasting.
A recent example is C.K. Prahalad’s bottom
of the pyramid concept that explains how to
stop thinking of the poor as victims or as
a burden and start recognising them as resilient
and creative entrepreneurs and value conscious
consumers.
 |
Fourth,
are thought leaders who through innovations,
create product or services that meet the needs
of a consumer class, very often catering to
needs that are unarticulated, but help improve
productivity and effectiveness. As part of
our quality and TQM process every year, we
receive suggestions from shop floor workers
that are amazingly innovative. It is gratifying
to see that some of these suggestions result
in crores of savings on an annual recurring
basis, without requiring major investments.
I believe the worker who has gone beyond the
call of duty to find solutions to practical
problems in his area of work, is in every
way a thought leader.
And fifth, is that thought leadership that
is put to use for altruistic purposes. An
example that fascinates me is the Jaipur foot
organisation which makes artificial limbs
for the disabled. It has transformed the lives
of millions by providing artificial limbs
at an incredibly low cost.
Having etched this background, I offer a few
initial deductions. First, thought leadership
is not necessarily a result of education,
an example of that is G.D. Birla, my great
grandfather who, with little formal education
himself, was a great educationist and the
founder of BITS, Pilani. Another example is
that of Dhirubhai Ambani. Second, it is not
restricted to a few fields of work or walks
of life or to any section of society. It is
universal and sector agnostic.
That takes us to the moot question, “does
management education foster thought leadership?”
I believe that management education and management
educators can facilitate thought leadership
in a number of ways. The most significant
manner is by the way they conceptualise and
think about management education itself and
the way they prepare their students, through
their curriculum, assignments, projects, question
papers, methods of evaluation and above all
through the insights they bring into the classroom.
Also, management educators must believe that
management impacts and applies to every area
wherever resources are used and therefore,
it goes well beyond corporates and industry,
and thought leadership across all areas of
work. As Professor Donald Haider of Kellogg’s
Business School says, “the universe of
hospitals and universities, opera and orchestra
companies, family service agencies and religious
organisations, soup kitchens, environmental
advocacies and civil rights organisations”
are all a crucial part of our economic, social
and civic life. In a situation like this,
it is incomprehensible to see management or
management education restricted to corporates
and industries alone.
 |
Management
education usually focuses on building a professional
— a brand manager, an investment banker,
a financial analyst, or a market researcher.
But a thought leader is not just a professional.
She is a person who is aware of the context
in which she works, is sensitive to society’s
concerns, deeply cares about the well-being
of all and has an intensely personal point
of view about what can and needs to be done.
It is the powerful combination of the professional
and the person that stimulates thought leadership.
You rarely see a thought leader without a
deeply human core. Management education represents
a unique opportunity in the life of an individual
to develop points of view that shape the professional
and can potentially shape the type of individual
she is.
However, my own strong belief is that management
education cannot by itself create thought
leaders. Management education can play a role
to an extent and no further. It provides information,
ensures a minimum development of understanding,
ensures a whole lot of mental gymnastics.
But converting that information, refining
it to knowledge and then intuition, is left
entirely to the student.
Going further, to be a thought leader is entirely
left to the initiative and drive of the seeker,
the student. Thought leadership requires passion,
commitment to a cause, the conviction in one’s
beliefs. It requires the ability to train
oneself to become an outstanding leader —
through understanding one’s strengths
and honing them, and one’s weaknesses
and working on them relentlessly. It calls
for discipline, and most times for personal
sacrifice. It calls for focus, patience. To
get to be the best in class, you need to work
at it. Daily. Consistently. Passionately.
It entails an attempt to achieve personal
mastery. It requires a good human being. Very
importantly, it requires facing and letting
go of one’s fears and self-limiting beliefs.
As Lord Chesterfield said, “it is not
possible to discover new oceans, unless one
is willing to lose sight of the shore”.
All of this calls for personal conviction,
stretching beyond imagination, a strong personal
desire to make a difference.
Can this be taught through management education?
I believe it can’t.
 |
But
there is a crying need for thought leadership
— be it the fields of polity, bureaucracy,
industry, NGOs, media, what have you. It is
upon us as a country to work collaboratively
and create the social environment and infrastructure
to foster thought leadership. It’s time
to take charge of one’s own destiny as
a country.
Whilst several western economies have begun
to age, we in India, have a demographic advantage.
From now up until 2050, we will have the largest
number of young working people in the world.
Can this resource become an advantage for
India, if it is bereft of thought leaders?
I believe it cannot.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
