Business as a solution to Social Problems

Contemporary world has been confronting with many social problems that people, government and business societies are concerned about. Many serious problems are arising that have come down heavily on the people. Problems like: climate change, deforestation, poor nutrition, access to water, pollution etc. have created major threat to livelihood of people. The problems are supposed to increase even more when endeavor of governments to address these problems have been making only an incremental improvement and primarily the reason for this being scarcity of resources.  In this connection when government (which has been referred to as the solver of societal problems) has been facing with resource crunch, the onus lies on the business which is the real creator of resources in the form of profit. 

Business can create resources when they meet the need, at a profit.  Business at the present time possess humongous power availed to them via resources possession. The accumulation of vast resources generated from profit enables them to mobilize energy and resources to solve the societal problems.

Societal problems and Business:

When we generally talk about business in relation to the societal problems, two differing views appear. The traditional thought identifies business as a creator of societal problems. Meaning that business creates profit at the expense of the society. Profit is excessive when: pollution is massive, labor exploitation is prevailing etc. This is the view that is commonly prevalent which partly is also because of the fact that companies have been neglecting the society in which they operate.

However the modern thought opines exactly the opposite and finds a cordial linkage between business and societal problems. For example a business causing less pollution means that the system is efficient, resources wastages is minimum etc. which automatically leads to more profit and vice-versa. As companies focus on long run of business, the notion of business as solver of societal problems is getting more practiced. This philosophy has been more popularized by socially responsible investors.

Role of CSR in addressing Social problems:

CSR in not a new buzz world in business world. The term originated in a club Rome in 1970s among a group of scholars, thinkers, executives that took talk of laying the future of sustainable development.  Though there isn’t any widely accepted definition of CSR, it can be defined as a self-regulatory mechanism, voluntary rather than mandatory, whereby business ensures compliance with the law of land, ethical standards, and international values. As such, besides embracing the responsibilities for the business actions, CSR attempt to address social issues by going beyond the interest of the firm and the law of the land. Though CSR has often been referred to as a voluntary initiative, recent change has been in the direction to make it mandatory also. For e.g.: Company Act  2013 of India makes CSR a mandatory obligation on the part of the company with  at least INC 5 crore net profit or INC 1,000 crore turnover or INC 500 crore net worth, to pay 2 % of their average net profit of three year on CSR activities on each financial year. The importance of CSR reporting is increasing which are driven by regulatory bodies and stock exchanges around the world.

In case of Nepal, there is absence of dedicated policy that guides CSR activities. Proper enforcement of existing laws will promotes basis for voluntary CSR activities. For instance Environment Protection Act 1997 forbids individuals and enterprises from polluting the environment that might have an adverse effect on the environment or public life. Similarly other acts like, Consumer Protection Act 1998, Black Marketing and Punishment Act, Drugs Act, Corruption Prevention Act, etc. promotes fair practices in business and society.

For companies wanting to be socially responsible, CSR standardization measure like ISO 26000 can give a good reference. ISO 26000 though is a voluntary measure, specifies key principles as roots of socially responsible behavior which are: accountability, transparency, ethical behavior, respect for rule of law etc. Similarly another accepted framework is Triple bottom line which identifies three Ps: people, planet and profit as three pillars of sustainability. As such concern of society, economy and environment must be addressed. Also OECD guideline to multinational companies, UN Global compact etc. are also very popular.

Futuristic Approach to CSR

Though CSR initiatives have been effective in addressing social problems (at least in incremental way) the more sustainable approach to CSR approach would be “Creation of Shared Value” which means addressing of a social issue with a business model. The notion of creating social value is to create product offerings that meet social needs. Harvard Professor and strategist Michael Porter in one of the Ted talks, identifies this model as “high form of capitalism that aims on addressing social problems in effective way”. For e.g.: Invention of drip irrigation technology saves water and fertilizer by allowing water to go drip slowly to the roots of plants, Nestle initiative to become a nutrient company rather than being a food company (that may make people victim of obesity), etc. marks the movement of a company towards this approach of creation of share value.

In another way, this approach enables companies to change the conventional approach of the society of business as creator of social problems. The advantages of this would flow in manifold volume which might be, reduces business risk, greater acceptability of brand, garner customer appreciation, brand enforcement, reduce conflicts etc. which in totality helps it to be a leader in the industry.

As such business resources when deployed effectively can play an instrumental role in solving social problems that are too large for government and I/NGOs. 

Why Small Countries are Economically Viable in Globalized world ?

From amongst the large number of small countries, some are developed while many others are still struggling to prosper. The small countries that have developed have followed a specific path that has allowed them to attain a competitive advantage with respect to the other countries. We maynot exactly attribute a particular reason for the underdevelopment of a particular country but we can clearly pinpoint why a particular country has developed over a particular period of time.

For small countries, the case may be different than that of the bigger countries. The concept of “small of beautiful” applies when we take reference of small countries that have prospered a lot in short period of time. 

Let us study the reason that pushed small countries hard enough to prosper in a short span of time.

1.             Openness to trade:

Small countries are generally found to be open to the trade. They are less hesitant to enter to the international business. The reason behind this is that, small countries develop themselves competitively in some niche products or services that have been ignored by the larger nations. Eg: Singapore, Hong Kong, Switzerland etc.

2.             Social Cohesion:

A good example of social cohesion is demonstrated by small countries. Small countries are characterized by less/no problems amongst the ethnic communities, more social harmony, equal and easier to run the country. Hence a better government because of the political stability resulting from the social cohesion.

3.             More adaptive and responsive to changes:

Smaller countries are generally found to be more adaptive than the larger countries. Because of the vulnerability factor, they keep themselves updated of the major changes that are going to take place in the global business or politics. They tend to have better developed sensing mechanism in terms of what is happening in the rest of the world. As such they develop a proactive mechanism to adjust to the changes of the volatile business and political world.

4.             Stable political system and clear economic goals:

If we study the characteristics of the small countries we find that they possess well developed political system that promotes stability and favors economic growth. For a country like Singapore, it has a political system that favors political stability and has clearly identified economic policies that favors rapid development. E.g.: Singapore political system that favors single party rule.

5.             Export oriented:

Because of the relative smaller size of the national consumption (relative to total income), small economies tend naturally to be more export oriented that the larger economies.

6.             Prioritized focus:

The focus of small countries is limited to certain priorities like: education (thus more skilled labor force), innovation(thus more investment and employment), export promotion, competitiveness etc. Most of the time they are not engaged in the issues of international politics, politics over oil, support for democracy etc., that bigger nation find themselves.

7.             Preferential economic advantage:

Many international policies and regulations related to international trade favor small nations. The arrangements are such that small countries are less exposed to trade quotas and other restrictions as they don’t produce in large quantities.

8.             Optimum utilization of resources:

Similarly economic efficacies are found more in small countries. Because of the scare resources, small countries specialize in the maximum utilization of the resources. For example we can see how Japan is proactive to the natural calamities and disasters in spite of having scarce resources.

One important discussion that must be introduced while describing about the development phenomena of some countries is: On what cost factor those countries are developing ? For example for those countries which haven't prospered , we must recognize that their concerns of political freedom ahead of economic liberalization has put a cap on the pace of development.We can relate this to bigger countries like India also. Democracy, poverty, humanitarian values, etc have caused those nation states to focus their resources and energy in diverse sectors , which is, at the expense of the industrialization. Countries based on democracy have to balance their activities between long-term growth needs and short-term social benefits. For example Qatar escapes itself from this phenomena and thus its emphasis on economic freedom before political freedom has served well in the areas of attaining systematic growth. Hence small countries have been prospering mostly because of the value they put on economic development in contrast to political freedom.

But again the question is, Is it really justifiable to attain development at the cost of the social justice and freedom of its people ?


(P.S: This write-up is based on my learnings from MOOC courses and personal research)

Keeping Unethical Practices at bay

Reasoning of ethics as grey and white area has been an escaping reason for many people and companies to justify their unethical practices.  However, Of lately, Ethics has been identified as one of the important aspect for a business. The increasing concerns regarding ethics and moral values promoted by organization like: World Forum For Ethics in Business, Ethics Resource Center , LRN etc. have grasped the attention of the major companies of the world. 

Pic credits: undp.org

To keep unethical practices at bay, we should move forward with following practices:

1) Assessment of cultural base of employees and organization
making an assessment of the cultural background of all the employees in an organization. This helps the company in identification and development of organizations culture. It also enables the company to understand the base of ethical/unethical practices in an organization and thus the tendency of unethical practices not being reported.

2) Designing of desired(ethically sound) corporate culture
The assessment of cultural background and its findings will assist the company to come forward with the desired corporate culture and change some aspects of the existing corporate culture. This need a conscious overhauling of the company's fundamental values and practices, the general practices in the industry, government policies etc. 

3) Implementation of Plans
Generation of detailed plan of implementation is required to fulfill the gap between the ideal corporate culture desired for and the reality. The integration should be a gradual and stepwise process to implement the desired level of ethical practices in an organization. The company must stand in terms of what it preaches and what it practices.

4) Promotion of ethical leadership
This is also another key aspect for ensuring promotion and practices of ethical practices at workplace. Imagine the quality of ethical practices in an organization in which has sound guidelines for ethical practices but the leader is corrupt and thus unethical. As such, the top level authorities should be conscious regarding their practices as they will influence a large chunk of subordinates who follow them. Besides organization should also educate employees to go beyond complying laws and to adopt principled behavior in workplace, ethically justified practices and sound decision making, which thus promote ethical corporate culture in the long term.  

5) Employees engagement in Ethical practices
Employee engagement in activities regarding the promotion of ethical practices should be done. Leadership must generate trust from employees regarding the company's corporate culture. There must be a two way discussions regarding the company corporate culture and why it should be practices by the employees. Everyone should understand why the corporate culture matters to them and feel inspired to implement them.  Engaging employees about company's expectations regarding appropriate conduct at workplace, companies can motivate them for ethical and profitable practice at the same time.

6) Systematic and responsive reporting mechanism
Creation of trustworthy reporting system is another most important part of implementing ethical practices in an organization. The management must develop system that makes the employee comfortable to raise issues about ethics, with their supervisors. A clear and responsive system for reporting of the unethical practices, handling of the grievance/reporting, investigation of raised issues, should be done. Similarly employees must confident that management will be respectful to towards the employees making complaints.


References:
Ethics.org
Hbr.org
World Forum For Ethics in Business

Being Unethical: Is it a gradual process ?

Picture Credits: Wikipedia

Ethics is often referred to as a grey area, especially when we talk about it in correlation with business. However those who are adamant that ethics should be integral part of business opine that ethics though is an abstract concept, should be put forth as Blank and White area. Most of the time people are aware about what is ethical and what is not. However what is that very thing which drive people away from being ethical? Let’s analyses.

Reference Cases:

1) After I enter into my MBA class, it is implied that cell phones should be kept silent or switched off. This was strictly followed during some of the earlier classes. However, after some days, we started using cellphones within class for messaging, using email and internet etc. Since this act wasn't being interrupted by faculty members, there was more lax. And finally some of us started even receiving calls in classes.

2) Our hostel mess serves single banana per meal. But as I am fond of it, I am keen to get some extra bananas. But this is not possible in ethical way. So I started to take one right in the beginning(and have it) and another right after lunch saying that I didn't take it previously. And what next, I even tried getting more when the mess servers are busy.

What generalization we can develop from these two simple real life cases is that "being unethical is a gradual process and if unethical behavior is not checked/interrupted, we tend to become more unethical".

Why is it so? 

A person who commits small unethical act will be motivated when he/she performs that task. This will bring on him/her a sense of achievement or accomplishment because of being able to disobey the law. It will also enhance on you a feeling that you won't get caught and it's easier for you to master such unethical practices.  It will make the doer comfortable about that, and before you know, it snowballs into something vehemently large. This tendency of committing one unethical task after another will lead to a vicious cycle of being unethical and we become a total corrupt.

Though I assume that whether you commit a small degree of unethical activity or a huge degree of unethical activity, the jurisdiction is the same: you end up doing something unethical. However, it is the society that defines whether an activity is ethical is or not, based on the perception of the larger size of the population. So sometimes society may forgive small degree of unethical practices as being a normal act. But we should be conscious of whether or not that lax has been promoting our society to be more unethical.

Many of the business scandal that were followed in recent history follow the same trend. They being from something small and finally end up with something really uncontrollable unethical practices. While they manage to cheat something small in one round, they might be willing to cheat a bit more in another round and most likely a really a big in the upcoming rounds. And this is because of the organization's behavior of  not paying attention to the small issues signaling that it is willing to tolerate a level of questionable behavior. For reference:

•  Modoff Ponzi scheme started when he covered relatively small financial losses. Later on, over the period of 15 years, the scam grew in manifold time and finally reaching a galloping figure of $65 billion. 
• The same is in case for World Phone hacking scandal. 
• Collapse of Enron etc

The beginning of most corrupt practices is a lower one. Most of the time we begin with small practices like taking away of office equipment, hiking of transportation expenses, labeling of personal meeting as official visit and son on. And this trend can be identified as a serious problem for the future of the business world. The case is more serious (and interesting) as a recent survey conducted by ethics.org reveals the following findings: 

• About 73 % of surveyed Americans employed full time reported ethical lapses on the    job, 36% said they were distracted by such an incident.
• Young workers, from 18-34, reported substantially higher levels of witnessing ethical lapses and being distracted than middle-aged and older workers.

As such we can observe it vividly that if we do not take proper corrective actions/measures instantly, the future of business world and the society in which we will be jeopardized and our ethical and moral standards will degenerate. 

References:

Ethics.org

Hbr.org

World Forum For Ethics in Business

(for reference about systematic procedure to address unethical practices in an organization, refer to another BlogSpot on ethics) 

Early Phase of Globalization : Phase II

The second phase of globalization covers the period between 1850 AD to 1914 AD. It is marked by the period of extensive internalization of science, commerce, transportation and communication in the middle of the nineteenth century. As such, this phase is also known as "The Age of Transnational Integration".

We can make a study of second phase of globalization based on following four topics:

1. Marvellous Inventions: 
During the second half of the 19th century, world saw the advent of advancement major technological findings that would largely shape the future of the world. Invention of Train system, Postal system and Steam Engines. All these inventions facilitated the integration of the world in an speedy way. These inventions shaped people expectation regarding the future of the integrated world.

2. Flow of Capital and Goods:
We can also identify this phase as one in which there was a cross-national flow of investment capital. This phase of history was marked by an enhanced colonized system that also aided the globalization of business and economic development of colonies. Great Britain investment in its colonies: America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand would later-on facilitate economic development. Also there was extensive flow of goods in this period: the international voyage of goods from India (Asia) to Great Britain (Europe), Canada to Britain, Australia to Britain, etc.  Similarly other colonies based in Europe exploited the vast resources of Africa, to their benefit. However this vast integration of world economies was changed after first world war, which to some extent disrupted the chains of globalization.

3. Establishment of Global facilitating Institutions: 
The proliferation of social organization in this phase: The Scout(1901), Rotary, The Red Cross(1863), The Salvation Army (1865), Olympic games, Nobel prize etc would later prove as a facilitating mechanism for the integration of the whole world.  Also it was visualised that the world would need a global language for regulating and enhancing future global trade. Developed in Poland by Zamenhof', the language was called Esperanto(1887) , which though did not develop enormously, was overtaken by English as language of globalization.  

4. Promotion of notion of Free Competition and Global Integration:
Organizations like Olympic games(1896), FIFA (1904)  developed a common platform to bring together global population together,  and compete for the better international relations among nations. This helped to promote the feeling of competition while also favoring co-operation and harmony among the global population. As such, the basic lifeline of Globalization, i.e free competition, was popularised in second phase. Also they promoted humanitarian ideals and belief in the value of knowledge.

Hence we can conclude that second phase laid down those rudimentary framework which paved way for rapid and massive form of globalization in the third phase.

Sources:
Wikipedia
University of Texas @ Austin
The World is Flat 

Humility: A key to Successful Leadership

For any person wanting to be a role-model of success, the traits needed cannot be quantified precisely. The set-of-traits that has been significant for the success of a person may not be significant to the other person. So, how can we conclude to those major set of traits that can be universal for everyone to follow?

Well in that case, the traits that might be useful for a person to be successful might not be totally be applicable to others. A great leader is one who has the ability to visualize a dream and  brings that concept to life by organising a team equipped with best of capabilities and resources. The ability to find promising new ideas and the ability to implement them is what distinguishes a successful leader from the rest.

Humility is must for Successful Leaders. (Pic from Google.) 

However people who become successful to enjoy such a stardom of success, to some extent, display some common visible traits. The universal characteristics of famous leaders are: Honesty, Proper communication, Sense of humor, Confidence, Commitment, Positive attitude, Creativity, Inspiring ability, and most prominent to all of these is Humility.Before exploring about why I find humility as key for a successful leader; a competitive advantage, lets go to the backdrop.

Looking at the present leaders of giant companies who have origins in India, we can get greatest of hint. What is the factor that has been guiding indian originated successful leaders like: Indra Nooyi ( Pepsi Co), Satya Nandela ( Microsoft ), Neetin Nohria (HBS), and Rajeev Suri ( Nokia ) to accede to the global post ? Beside having a common nation of origination, these people share another common thing .The common trait that brought all these hard workers to limelight is humility, which at present time is considered as a key aspect of successful leadership.


Humility and its significance:

By being humble in workplace, you not only respect the presence of your contemporaries in workplace, but also create an congenial ambience to learn and share. Being humble doesn't necessarily mean that humility and aggressiveness can't go hand-in-hand. But however, humility when combined with positive intent helps you to stand out as an inspirational figurehead in your organization. Humble people create a great leaders because:

• They are self-aware about themselves and their immediate surroundings,
• They are ever-learning and are conscious of their career growth,  
• Are ready to acknowledge the mistakes they commit , correct them, and learn from them, and 
• Focus on self-introspection as key to self-improvement
• Influence their successors to be adept more than themselves by guiding them behind the scene. 
• People with humility possess good empathy skills which helps them to excel in team works, getting works done in volatile and uncertain world. 
• Are not hesitant to help others. Thus, they have large network of friendly people; an advantage considered  vital in contemporary business world.   

What makes people of India origination Humble ?

Lets take a fable from Geeta to explore how Hinduism practice in Indian subcontinent is influencing people to be Humble.

During the period of Mahabharat, Arjuna was in dilemma of fighting as-against his own clans and kins. In such period of dilemma, Lord Krishna influenced Arjuna to fight against the evil Kauravas. All such inspirational quotes with humble message are inscribed in Hindu religious books called Geeta, which has shaped the life of many generations thereafter. For Instance: while helping Pandavas to fight against Kauravas, Lord Krishna offered to be Chariot rider of Arjuna (Which of course was to be taken as surprise provided the fact that Lord Krishna was himself incarnation of God, and also an elder cousin of Arjuna). As Arjuna became busy in fighting with the opponents, he used to kick Lord Krishna to give directions to ride the Chariot, which, Lord Krishna obeyed with humility. As such, fable like these still shapes the minds and lives of many practitioners of hinduism in Indian sub-continent.

In countries like India and Nepal, where majority of population follow hinduism, we need to understand that the key aspects of hindu religion that largely shapes the personal and family lives. Hindu culture and religion encourage the practitioners to have strong emphasis in family and social relationship. This tradition that is practiced since a very young age is carried over to the professional life. This "H" factor inspires and enables the people to work effectively in group of people of diverse origination.  When people with humility work together in a group, they display empathy skills that fosters team-work and thus endure the congenial work-environment. They keep themselves apprised about the problems of their co-workers and subordinates and try to address their issues promptly; facilitating improved job retention and morale of the employees. As such people with "H" are always in demand these days.

Work Life Integration over Work life balance

It is difficult for working professionals to strike a balance between their personal and professional life. Also it is true that a person at a point of time plays multiple role and out of which, s/he is expected to execute different responsibilities. A person is one, but his role and responsibilities is many, and that too is to be performed within a limited time frame.  If you are a recent college graduate and have joined profession recently, your priority might be more on the professional sphere of life. You may want to work hard, often late hours for the official work, even in the cost of personal and social life thinking that such activities will help you to secure strong position in the workplace. Perhaps while doing so we tend to ignore that being overworked is a global pastime that has odds against our success. Work fatigue makes ourselves less effective and efficient. In such a case, you may slowly lose your social capital. Not being able to manage time for personal self, family members and friends, at times becomes frustrating. And most of the times, the inability to balance work and life has direct impact in the working efficiency, often leading to chaos in the personal and the family life. A life where personal life bleeds into professional life and vice-versa.

While much  is discussed about work-life balance in contemporary management arena, we find it difficult to sum-up with methods to attain the same. Professionals involved with management field and working people too find it difficult to do so. While the concept of work-life balance is already there and many management pundits are citing methods for achieving the same, a new development to this thought has developed. More than work-life balance, we need to focus on work-life integration.

The concept of work-life balance implies that work and life are totally different concepts. It means that one’s work and personal life take place within two distinct chunks of time. Meaning that when you are working you should forget your family life, and vice versa. As such, an option to address such a problem can be by working in a more integrated way in the workplace. Moreover, the recent technological development means to life that we are available 24/7. And because almost everyone demand instant connectivity and indulgence, there is literally no boundary or break.  As such, were are left with no option but work-life integration. 

Work-life integration concept has become such emerging issue in contemporary management world that we cannot ignore it. Thus the stress is more in work life integration rather than balance. Balance means that we do it because of compulsion. However, integrate meaning we need and want both things to go hand in hand and for benefit of each other. With the advent of technology, the new world reality may be that work and life get completed integrated in the future, totally irrelevant to present isolated pockets concept. 

Benefits of Work-life integration:

1) Reduces stress level in employees, makes them feel less guilty of not giving time to family while at work and vice-versa. Understanding and practicing work-life integration helps in accepting the facts that interruptions are part of life and needless of who causes them. This will help you in enhancing the greater happiness.
2) Increases productivity as stress free people exert high level of effort to get things done. They realize it early that working is also a part of life and is thus worth cherishing.
3) Improved relationship with peers as a result of peacefulness of mind. Such employees take work as part of life and their peers as part of extended family.
4) Enriched family life can be obtained as we tend to cater to the need of family as-and-when required inspite of the work schedule and working hours.
5) Enhanced team work can be attained when we feel official life as part of our life and treat the co-workers as our friends.
6) It helps us to resonate our empathy skills by being able to understand the unique work-life need of our coworkers, subordinates and seniors.
7) Most importantly, work-life integration enhances flexibility meaning that we don't have no rigid work hours or family hours. This helps us to be flexible with time to attain personal goals of professional goals

Success story with Amica ma'am- Dwarikas Hotel

Perseverance, dedication and determination are basics to success in every business initiatives. Combined to all these there must be another factor which paves the way to success, ie. taking your passion as profession. I had read about these things in various biographies of entrepreneurs and have also experienced somewhat by myself in some aspect of life. However one fine evening, I got to know in person about the experience that a old yet enthusiastic, Ambica Shrestha had to share.

Group photo after the Interaction program

I first came to know Ambica ma’am as a hotel entrepreneur (The Dwarikas 5 star). Getting more in-depth into social life, I also came to know of her as an enthusiastic Rotarian. The wrinkles on her face was the expression of many dreams that came true by her hard work and determination, the infinite lines in her hands expressing of her old age were the representation of many more years of hard work and reflection of perseverance. As a strong old mountain she stood in front of us, with a gentle smile and in an enthusiastic tone to share what life had taught her and what she had to teach us, youths of the present.

The story began when husband of Ambica ma’am started being worried about the old wooden monuments and carvings. He had an immense love and care for the old tradition and art of the country. Slowly the passion of collecting such old wooden carvings began which would in future be one of the most successful hotel chain in the country.

It seems like an easy task at the end of the day when a person has achieved a great deal of success. However nobody understands the process and the condition that the person has to go through to achieve such a stardom of success. Getting back to past, Ambica mam says” Living in joint family was not easy then, especially when you wanted to do something different from the rest of the society”. Shrestha family then shifted from their ancestral home to Battisputali where they made a house with few rooms. One fine evening a foreign researcher came to Ambica ma’am and asked her to let the lady reside in her house for some days. After this the foreigner lady did word of mouth advertising to some of her acquaintances and helped Ambica ma’am to realize her dreams.

Getting confronted with the peaceful ambience of the Dwarikas, full of ancient monuments and sculptures, one feels like being in a heaven. Like that of in the palace of the kings of Malla dynasty. As such Dwarikas Hotel is not only a story of success and perseverance, it is also a school of many more generations to come to study about the pride and heritage of the Nepalese generations. At times when Youth like us are focusing on following hot-shot western cultures, Dwarikas remains there as a connecting bridge to the past; to feel the ancient glory of Nepalese and also to realize the tremendous potential hidden within us when we unfold our unique culture and tradition.

Life is the most beautiful lesson. It teaches you various things, confronts you with different aspects of life: ups and down, thick and thin. However, the only thing out of such circumstances is to stand rock-solid as against all adversaries. Perhaps this was also the lesson that Ambica ma’am had to share.  For a single lady it might have been difficult to stand out as a successful person in a society where people take women as a inferior gender. Her vast experience as a leader in much social organization also might have many lifelong lessons to share. However sharing of all these would not have been possible within a short period of time. And this blogger aspires to wait for another chance to meet this beautiful and inspiring lady.

Brush-Up leadership skills : Go Trek

Human behavior including Leadership is one of the most studied yet least understood field of inquiry. One cannot predict the behavior that a personnel is supposed to display at a definite period of time. Leadership development in not an overnight process, nor is it totally academically inclined. An individual must accumulate an array of experiences to enrich leadership acumen in him. However such experiences are of varied nature and may encompass myriad of different culture, context and situations. Among such different activities and circumstances, current leaders often refer to trekking as a unique experience to boost their leadership potentiality.

I would like to call trek as  a  first instinct of leadership. Most of the time trekking is fun, a refreshing one. Usually trekking may span for couple of hours to days long, difficulty ranging according to geography, location, temperature and so on.

During Hike to Chisapani, about 20 km from Kathmandu

While most of the people take days off from offices/colleges and take rest at home, I prefer trekking. In contrast to our common belief, we get much exhilarating experience of feeling refreshed and relaxed as a result of trekking. As such, whenever I get chance to have couple of free friends and a combination of good weather and happy pockets, we mark into it, to enjoy the beauty of life, to embrace the touch of nature, love of friends and learning many things while having endless fun.

In Kalinchowk(3700 m) after trek of 6 hours( 20 km)

So far I encounter following memories of trekking:

1.       Sundarijal-Chisapani-Sundarijal

2.       Sundarijal-Chisapani-Nagarkot

3.       White Gumba

4.       Balthali-Namobuddha

5.       Charikot-Kalinchowk and many small routes

I began to ponder of about trekking when I came to know that Cornell MBA alumni come to trekking to our country Nepal so as to boost leadership traits(Nepal Leadership Trek) . Saving a day off from your business in a hectic schedule in a rustic city not only provides you with lungful of fresh oxygen but many other added advantages. I have listed some of them:

1.       Plan, Plan and Plan:

Where do you want to go, what is the time schedule, who are going together with you, what is the estimated cost, what is the route, where are you staying at the end of the day? etc and so many questions to ponder about !

2.       Organize:

Manage for the optimum time which is suitable to all ( at-least the majority), and Just do it. If you are the leader you have to take the lead: in showing the route, manage of refreshments and breaks in between and so on.

3.       Know and interact with different situations:

Be prepared for the worst thing to happen but don’t expect them. If possible take a first-aid kits with you.  Some friends may not be able to walk so take rest in regular interval. Interact with people of the surroundings.

4.       Rejuvenate yourself:

Going for a hike is letting yourself go beyond and above your comfort zone.  Entertain yourself by playing with the nature, interacting with the people, enjoy the touch of the fresh air, embrace the beautiful environment  and foremost enjoy your companion.

5.       Strengthen relationship with co-workers and friends:

Taking time free from your friend will enable you to enhance and strengthen relationship with your friends and family. While on hike you get a chance to interact with your co-workers. The interactions may be about your official works seeking some suggestion with friends, taking about personal life with close friends, sharing of success and failures, remembering some golden past days  and about future plans. All these will help you rejuvenate relationship with your friends.

6.       Preparing for future/strategic planning:

When people feel exhausted in a daily official work and are head-out of fresh ideas, they mark for a hiking. Hiking not only provides them with free time from the usual setting but also encourages them to think beyond a box. It is often said that creativity is fostered in a new and different circumstances. Hiking will also enhance you to see of the problems in a new way as you free yourself from usual circumstances and surroundings. As such if you are in between horns of dilemma about future course of actions, go for a hike with your companions.

7.       Get plenty of golden memories for future refreshment:

Most of the time you may not get plentiful of time to take yourself off from work and entertain hiking. In such a situation, memories of the previous wonderful time can be enthralling. By going for a hike you can collect some wonderful memories to cherish for a lifetime. In a exhausted daily life of future, you can add energy to self by collecting memories of the hike that you enjoyed with your loved ones.

On the way to Charikot from Kalinchowk

Other benefits might be:

8.       Increased productivity in official work

9.       Increased performance in an individual basis

10.   Abundance of new ideas and opinions

11.   Enhanced team work

12.   Strengthen family relationships

13.   Sharpened leadership skills

Formal vs Informal Authority

Recently in a seminar about Youth and Ethics, Christoph Glaser (trainer) began with a pragmatic example illustrating the significance of formal vs informal authority in a leadership position. He stood tall enough in a confident posture to drag attention of about 60 youths from different walks of life. He accompanied there as a formal authority to conduct the session. However he tried to achieve informal bonding with participants before he could start the session effectively. His conclusion was that in order to be successful in a leadership position, a person should not only possess a formal legitimate authority but more importantly a respectful informal authority.

By formal authority we mean duties and responsibilities that a person in a status accompanies as a result of being in a position. Formal authority provides the person with a limited jurisdiction under his/her arena. Whereby by informal authority we mean a informal respect and recognition that a person gains by the virtue of his/her personality and the long term practices. Such authority is bestowed upon person if only the ideal and principles followed by him compliment with that of vast majority of people.

Well that was some sort of analysis. I was pondering about these things and recently got confronted with a heated dilemmas in Nepalese medical sector. The background is that most of the public institution in Nepal face political appointment of the head of such organization. Under political influence most of incompetent and less competent make it into the helm of those organization. Similarly Dr. Sashi Sharma was appointed as Dean of Institute of Medicine (Tribhuwan University) by the Vice-chancellor of the university. Nepalese medical sector at present is going through different malpractices. It is often said that there is mafias of people who lobby for such political appointment to get their vested interest executed. Providing legality to Proposed Medical college without appropriate infrastructures, appointment of incompetent people in top portfolios, using undue pressures in selection of medical students etc is common. Having a strong opposition to these malpractices, Dr. Govinda KC launched a sit-in protest of fast-unto-death in-front of IOM demanding the immediate removal of Dr. Sharma who is said to have been no. 38th in the merit list for the position of Dean. The cause of Dr. KC was fair enough: to free medical sector from political interventions. After some days of protest, the public support engulfed in such a way that the case become a heated one in Nepalese socio-Political arena. After facing lot of pressure from different sectors and public, the government finally decided to nullify the decision of the TU board to appoint Dr. Sharma as a Dean. (Read here about the case)

My conclusion here is, Dr. Kc advocated for a ethical practice: to free IOM from political intervention. He had a clean image of helping people in need, regardless of country, be it in Uttrakhand natural calamity (India), or in devastating earthquake in Bhuj(India), Burma after cyclone Nargis in 2008, earthquake in 2008 in Haiti and so on, all of which were self-sponsored trips. Over the time period Dr. KC had gained so much of respect and recognition in his profession because of which his informal authority had elevated. And finally he was able to prove it, even if you have informal authority and are supporting something ethical, the chances are high to be in your favor even if the formal authority is against you.

iNSPIRE the Youths: WYFEB

Ethics is often referred to as a grey area, especially when we talk about it in correlation with business. However in interaction with about 60 dynamic youths representing various walks of life it was put forth that ethics though is an abstract concept, should be put forth as Blank and White area.

Though it is often said that ethics is ingrained in DNA of we Nepalese, business fraternity of our country is still progressing in terms of ethics practices and beliefs. We still encounter many cases in which many business organizations follow unethical means to attain their business goals. In such a scenario, World Forum for Ethics in Business satellite conference was organized here in Nepal, and as a part of the same, World Youth Forum for Ethics in Business was also organized on Jan 15 and 16, in Hotel Annapurna. During the event trainer from WFEB instilled on the dynamic participants, the values of ethical leadership and ethical practices in business . It was promising two days with renowned ethical business proponent and trainer Mr. Christoph Glaser and Mrs. Ranjita Kulkarni.

After two days of intensive workshop from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm, I came to summarize following learning and highlights from the conference.

World Youth Forum for Business Ethics in Nepal -Nepal Chapter

1)      Formal and Informal authority

So as to convince bunch of followers, a leader should not only be convinced about formal roles and responsibility but also emphasize in strengthening informal authority. While most of the hard core skills are needed to be successful in getting the job done, soft skills on the contrary will enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of the task being done under your domain. With informal authority comes relevance to trustworthiness, dependability etc. Imaging the status of some politically appointed chairs of institution that have fallen down in informal authority. As such the means to gain respectful informal authority is to act ethical.

2)      Lead with smile :) 

Smile is as natural gift to human beings. It is the most influential way of communicating with others. Most people find it difficult to smile because they are never relaxed and are often haunted by dogma of fear, frustration and restlessness. Be ethical and fair enough in your practices and then you unravel the illustrious origination of smile.

3)      The dynamics of teamwork

Being a team player is not as easy as it seems. In a team there are people from different walks of life who have many learning and experiences. As such when we develop a bonding within a team we come to realize: differences in opinion, differences in learning and so on. People’s level of patience, confidence, trust-worthiness etc varies. Moreover when most of the member in the team is enthusiast and dynamic, getting convinced with a team leader can be difficulty. However if a team player is visually ethical and fair enough in his profession, his/her teamwork will easily accept this/her supremacy in the team.

4)      Ethics as a concrete concept

Throughout the two days conference I was pondering about why they people were talking about a concept which is so abstract and vague to describe.  Your perception of ethics has high chance to be in conflict with that of mine. What might be ethical to you might seem apparently unethical to me. Let’s come to a case: say that a business is operating in a society following all the legal criteria, but still some of the negative repercussions of the business are not guided by the law. As such in such case the debate of ethics can be really conflicting.

However the concluding answer to ethical dilemma was put forth by chairman of WFEB-Nepal chapter, TirthaMan Shakya. He opined of ethics as something which regardless of the legal conditions, when acceptable by the society, will be ethical and promising.

5)      Nepal as origination of Ethical values

Down the lane of thousands of years, Nepal has been origination of ethical beliefs and practices that has been advocated by Hindu saints and yogis, Buddhism preaching’s and practices. This mountain country is the origination of Hinduism and Buddhism principles which advocates for ethics in not only business practices but overall in Human values and principles.

6)      Downside of being unethical

We forge to practice unethically in want of being too rich in a short period of time. But in contrary we don’t notice that along with the pleasures coming from unethical practices, we keep on being victim of different miseries that become fatal in days to come. Tension of being interrogated by police, loosing friends, high blood pressure, frustration etc come as a gift to unethical practices. So the result is you lose your smile and pleasure and thus become poorer than before. Ponder about the importance of wealth that makes you socially out-casted.

7)      Mantra for Sustainable business: Be ethical

With the advancement of the management thoughts and practices, business started to identify the presence of the society in which they were operating. Of late the concept of giving back to the society i.e Corporate Social Responsibility has started being relevant and thus prevalent. The concept of CSR is one way or another, a reflection of the companies to start to adhere to ethical practices. For those companies that tend to curve the rules and want to be successful overnight should understand that being unethical is a momentary business and a way forward to dig your own grave. Think of these businesses: Enron, Union Carbide Corporation (Bhopal disaster) etc

8)      Zero tolerance to unethical practices

The best thing to start to adhere to ethical practices: start to talk.  Talk about what is ethics to you, why the concept of ethics in you is different that of your friends, how we can promote ethical practices and beliefs in us, and so on. It may be difficult to convince those old people about ethical values and beliefs but we can of course try it convincing to Youths. Convince the youth of your age the power of ethical values and practices and by doing so we ensure a path to regain the prosperity and fame of our country very soon.

9)      Foundation of ethical practices: Yoga and Spiritualism

Positivity fosters when we are relaxed. The roots to relaxation are yoga and spiritualism. When soul becomes full of positive vibes, we drift apart from unethical practices. As such all the ill-byproducts coming out from unethical practices disappear and you enjoy the beauty of life.

Way forward:

The most basic thing is keep the ball rolling. WYFEB will keep talking about the ethical practices in the country and how can we strengthen it in days to come. We have realized that not only the future of the country rests on our hand but also we are a driving force of present. As such in days to come we will be strengthening the network of youths who believe that ethical practices can be realized in our lifetime and our beautiful country can attain the status of Peaceful-Prosperous Nepal.  Fate and prosperity of Nepal rests in the hand of us Nepalese.