WHY VALUES

CONTENTS INTRODUCTION

HUMAN VALUES: WHAT ARE THEY?

WHY VALUES?

VALUES Vs. SKILLS

CAN VALUES BE TAUGHT:

- TELCO

- IPCL

- BILWARA

OBJECTIVES OF VALUE BASED WORKSHOP

TRADITIONAL METHODS OF MIND PURIFICATION

MODERN METHODS OF MIND PURIFICATION

IMPLICATIONS OF WORKSHOP

LIMITATIONS OF WORKSHOP

CONCLUSION

INTRODUCTION

Man in a manager, man in the worker is primarily a spiritual and mental being, or in other words a soul and a mind, and only instrumentally a vital and a physical being or a mere life and a body. In a similar way, the long term viability and progress or the sustainable all round development of a nation depend not so much on its material, ecological or technological resources but primarily on its human resources having ample potential energies spiritual and psychological resources of our people.

Fortunately, in India we have the immense potential of our insight, and culture for motivating, managing and leading of our abundant human resources. Values and ideas in our ethos and culture are based on and evolved form the deepest truth of Man, Life and Nature, i.e., on holistic approach.

WHAT ARE VALUES?

Human and ethical values constitute the wealth of character. Values express dharma or divine nature as understood in the East, particularly in the Indian ethos and insight, and the ideas of integrity as understood in the west.

Moreover, values provide a common language for aligning a companys leadership and its people.

HUMAN VALUES: WHAT ARE THEY?

Philosophical ideas on value enquiry were directed towards finding the nature, meaning and purpose of human existence. In the present century search for a theory of values has become a separate branch of modern philosophy and has been called axiology

In the Indian tradition absolute values are related to the absolute reality whose nature is described as Sat, Chit and Anand. Attainment of a state of eternal bliss by the realization of identity of the individual self with the universal Self of this absolute reality is the highest and ultimate object of human striving.

Closely related to this absolutist perception is the theistic view which may be called a sub-group of the idealistic-normative approach. It is based on a metaphysical belief system which accepts the reality of a divine cosmic order and faith in the authority of a creator God who is also the upholder of all values. The basis of all ethical, social and other human values is sought in the enduring truths, either revealed or obtained through super conscious insights of sages, contained in the sacred religious literature.

Many leaders of the Indian renaissance, e.g. Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo, Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi, were inspired by the absolutist-theistic value system and used it as the basis for their efforts towards the spiritual, social and political rejuvenation of the Indian society.

This is perhaps because of the need to highlight the universal humanistic aspects of this value approach, as against the merely speculative, mystical, or life-denying ascetic aspects. In the modern interpretation of theistic value approach the authors have shown its relevance and significance to the managers and other professionals. Another reason for the use of adjective human before these values may be to distinguish this value approach from the modern, so-called scientific, approach to human phenomena and associated values.

Interpreted in its narrow sense this scientific approach robs man of the dignity of his divine association, his spiritual nature and reduces him to a biological organism of a random collection of atoms. It denies any meaning and purpose to life and rejects all considerations of faith, belief, feeling and intuitive religious perceptions. This mechanistic, deterministic interpretation makes man merely a malleable automaton, to be programmed to meet the demands of the existing socio-technological order, through manipulation of his lower order needs and desires.

The factors influencing a pure mind are discussed in terms of higher and lower self, disidentification and re-identification with the latter and the former respectively the guna, karma, samskaras, nishkam karma and other theories.

WHY VALUES?

Our effectiveness at work is tied to exercising intrinsic human values i.e., moral and ethical values. These human values support established business values such as service, communication, innovation, creativity, excellence, credibility and co-ordination. The human values help self- development. Managerial functions such as direction, control, supervision and communication, integration and co-ordination are much easier. These values help good interpersonal interactions. They reduce conflicts and disputes. They are the part and parcel of achieving accelerated process improvement, customer, workers and citizen satisfaction. They enhance reputation and goodwill of the organization.

We seek fulfillment, happiness and success. It is a combination of inner and outer achievement. Inner fulfillment is related to our spiritual, mental, emotional and physical enrichment. The outer achievement is related to achieving set goals, using one's talent and experience for the benefit of others (employees, customers, clients and public). Self- development is the development of the whole being.

VALUES Vs. SKILLS

To 'become' we need values. To 'do' we need skills.

'Becoming ' (needing values) must preceed 'doing' (needing skills) in value- oriented management. Values act as base of skills.

Values are the means of perfection. Skills must have sound system of values as the base. Otherwise one can manipulate skills e.g. communication. Skills may be misused for manipulating men, money and materials if management ignores values.

Values are internal; dealing with internal development of a person, purifying mind and heart. The person becomes good in thought, in speech, in action, job or work. Skills only make a person proficient. Values are the means of perfection of personality.

The field of values is governed by union, holism and relatedness. The area ruled by skills is division, fragmentation and separation.

Values bring about excellence and universal good i.e. soft-ware aspect. Skills see us through mechanics of management i.e., hard- ware aspect. Both means and ends must have values.

Skills are not enduring due to fatigue. Values are enduring.

Skills change with passage of time. Policy is flexible. Principles and values are not. We have permanent fundamental values.

CAN VALUES BE TAUGHT?The question of interest to us is can human values can be taught to modern managers in any systematic way and, if so, to what effectiveness? This is clearly depicted from the following three companies which have taken the step of educating their employees about the values and its relevance in the society as well as the company.

TELCO

The author Sarosh J. Ghandy shares his thoughts and his experience on the value system prevailing in the TELCO. He starts with the most important value of the organization which is the trust and the belief which the Tata leaders have held in their men. They believe the best can be achieved only through this mode. Here the author presents an encounter where J. R. D. Tata confers full trust on Mr. Charles Perin, a geological surveyer. J. R. D. Tata entrusted full responsibility of site selection of steel plant on Mr. Perin. This was the trust J. R. D. Tata held on Mr. Perin thus reflecting the value system of the organization.

And thus the leaders at Tata allow their men to act on their own and thus providing them immense opportunities to become leaders and thus give scope to their creative impulses.

One of the values that Tata's have inculcated among their men is that of environmental protection. They have constantly adopted villages for the purpose and thus staying with the commitment of social responsibility.

Tata's also encouraged workshops to help their men search for their own values as well as help them augment their knowledge about the value system of Tatas. Thus the values of the organization and the values of the individuals were homogenized. After the program the employees were surveyed and the values were ranked according to the significance the employee attach to them.

Those values were:

1. Growth

2. Commitment to productivity

3. Development of personnel

4. Corporate ethics

5. Customer affection

6. Environment development

And thus it can be said that world class modernization, high sales turnover is supported by a strong value system. Therefore rightly said in the words of Robert D. Hass of Levi Strauss,"Values provide a common language for aligning a company's leadership and its people."

INDIAN PETROLEUM CORPORATION LTD.

A large number of business & industrial enterprises, in India & abroad tend to disregard the importance of ethical & moral values which effects the quality of work life in an organization.

The educated & cultured person appears to have accepted & quite often redefine it as success. In todays world cheating is considered a necessary condition for winning. Result- Orientation' is often used as a justification for unethical & amoral practices.

Human happiness is one of the ultimate objectives for which a business exists. Although economies in the world have achieved material progress during the last hundred years, but still are unable to achieve this target of human happiness i.e why business schools in U.S have started educating BUSINESS ETHICS a subject.

Irrespective of religious diversity, there exist a remarkable degree of agreement about values like Honesty, Integrity, Comparison, Tolerance & Selflessness. People at various levels within the organization derive inspiration at the workplace if they perceive such qualities in their leaders.

IPCL, which came into being in 1969 is today the established leader in the field of petrochemicals in the country, with its workforce of about 12,000. IPCL believed that people are central to the organization & had given rise to philosophy where the development of people becomes an end in itself. This philosophy has led to include employee as a whole & not confine ourselves to the development of management power only.

IPCL therefore has been exercising subordinate self interest to organizational interest. In IPCL a diagnostic survey was conducted by professional institutions in the field, such as Tata Management Training Centre, Administrative Staff College of India and Human & Natural Resources research society , covering all levels of employees.

After the survey IPCL has arranged one workshop for employees on Value System and Mind Stilling Program. Middle and Senior management personnel in six groups attended this programme. For each of the six groups the programme was conducted in the three modules of three half days each. This made a total of fifty four half days. The content included - theories of leadership, motivation and team- building, developed for a Indian setting and based on the values ingrained in the Indian psyche. Practical mind- stilling exercise also formed a part of the programme.

However afterwards when the response was collected it was seen that this workshop proved to be effective for the participants.

BILWARA

Bilwaras value-system efforts began in 1980, when the author MR.L.N. Jhunjhunwala was introduced to this subject by a monk of the famous Ramakrishna mission. Mr. Jhunjhunwala had spoken to Ramakrishna about the disturbing trends in industry today; he narrated that today the atmosphere was such that honesty could not co-exist with industrial & business prosperity. He has also given examples of lot of people who had reached the peak of prosperity through wrong ways.

The monk has narrated the story of Jamshedji & Swami Vivekananda, that once J.R.D. TATA & Swami Vivekananda was together travelling on ship from India to Japan. J.R.D. Tata talked to his companion about the necessity of science & technology in India & his ambition for creating a big research institute in Bangalore. He wanted Swamiji to implement this vision in order to build up our backward country. But Swamiji told that he could not join him, but influenced him to go ahead & complete his vision. Which brings Mr. Jhunjhunwala the light of inspired value system & character of Tata Empire, which is still surviving.

With few meetings with monk, the author has experienced instances of house of Ambalal Sarabhai & house of Birlas.

Also, Swami Buddhananda tried to explain that businessman was not an exception to the law of truth & that the prosperity of the span of house depends on the Tapasya of the founder & the team which creates the organization.

In 1983, the first corporate experiment on INDIAN INSIGHTS FOR VALUES seminar was organized in the forest of Siriska in the atmosphere similar to that of hermitage.

Details about the Workshop

( The workshop was a full-fledged residential course.

( The workshop lasted for two nights & three days with 7 hours of expositions & discussions in 3 sessions each day followed by intensive practice sessions.

( The workshop was attended by Bilwaras top ten people, including Mr. L.N. Jhunjhunwala & his three family members.

( Everybody was spellbound by the end of seminar & found themselves better human beings than what they had stated. In this way the seminar continued, 3-4 times in a year & non- residential courses for four years till the end of 1986.

( The second session was taken very lightly by three profit center heads. whereas the third session was ignored by the profit center heads. But there was atleast 3 out of ten who were serious about it.

The three profit center heads hint that all these talks of INDIAN INSIGHTS FOR VALUES were for those who could not deliver the goods. They have no relevance to corporate life. The programme did not seem to be valued by the company.

At this, the workshop was resumed from 1987 onwards where other colleagues were asked to initiate the particular subject. The workshop was based on three pillars of Indian ethos doctrine of karma, the theory of samskars and the dynamism of guna system. This is how the efforts continued on limited scale. This has helped in the last two years. Their centers of operation are now much more profitable. All this had happened for the best.

In a nutshell it can be said that the values & dedication automatically brings skill & raises employees efforts & improve their behavior.

OBJECTIVES OF VALUE BASED WORKSHOP

The objective of the workshops is to enhance in course participants the sensitivity to and sustenance of the value-system, which Chakraborty has distilled from what he calls The Indian ethos, based on studies of Buddhist, Vedantic and Yogic literature together with Indian epics and Pauranic literature. It is claimed that Indian values are found in the deep-structure of the Indian psyche, as reflected in these sources.

The basic idea is purification of the mind, partly through a mind-stilling technique, and partly through practice of nourishing noble thoughts (e.g. compassion, friendliness, humbleness), and rejecting wicked ones (e.g. greed, jealousy, arrogance). Such practice will reveal the divine, or A higher self, within the individual and she/he will be able to perceive the same in others.

TRADITIONAL METHODS OF MIND PURIFICATION

The concept of Self-management is based on nurturing human values to assure perfect coordination of head (mind), heart (emotions) and hands (actions, i.e., and expression of your thoughts and emotions). In this way you enjoy health (body/mind), harmony and happiness in your life and work. So in order to achieve this we have to pay equal attention to all the aspects of human personality and consider him as a whole or complete being, having practically unlimited potential energy and power to develop himself and acquire perfection so that he can enjoy all round internal and external harmony and progress. This is called hostile approach in self management and management of any enterprise.

There are two levels of human consciousness:

1) Lower consciousness operating through our five senses in contact with the external world. This is called Lower mind also. It is extravert.

2) Higher consciousness or higher mind which is the door to get the vision of the spirit or our consciousness. This is also called the Inner mind. We are in touch of this inner mind only in silence.

This higher consciousness or the inner mind is the right instrument or medium to have the experience of the soul, the portion of the Divine, which enables one to lead a much better life, much more qualitatively superior life. This will give a greater happiness when it is translated in the form of running an organisation or in other field one is engaged in.

METHODS OF MIND PURIFICATION

FOUR TRADITIONAL METHODS OF MIND PURIFICATION-

1) Janna Yoga :- ( Path of knowledge)

For Intellectual Being know thyself

Discrimination enables to distinguish lower self from higher self and find out (rediscover) our Real Nature God reveal thyself in my heart and actions.

2) Raja Yoga :- (Path of Mind Control)

For Mental Being

It operates with the Mind, aims at performing of mind control. Then enter into concentration and trance or samadhi.

3) Bhakti Yoga :- (Path of Devotion)

For Emotional Man

Self surrender to the Lord and emotionally one can reach the goal of pure consciousness or Divinity. For e.g. Patanjalis Yoga.

4) Karma Yoga :- ( Path of Action)

For man of action

Selfless action purifies our mind/intellect. Pure mind can concentrate, contemplate and meditate to approach perfection or divinity, i.e. pure consciousness.

Pure Mind-Values emerge effectively only from a purified mind i.e. from the inner mind or higher consciousness. And Pure Mind is the origin of the all values.

Value Orientation-

Center for Managerial Effectiveness

Managerial Effectiveness-

Managerial Effectiveness is based on holistic value based management which can solve many problems harassing economy in all countries. Such management offers human welfare, nature welfare, nature welfare, the quality of life and the quality of work.

MODERN METHODS OF MIND PURIFICATION

Business need not be regarded evil, tainted and unethical. Business is sacred. It is a matter of attitude, approach and level of management consciousness. The right approach towards management can only be carried out when decisions are made with pure and purified mind. Here we study few methods of mind purification

BRAIN STILLING:

The western management resorts to brain- storming to solve managerial problems. The Indian insight advocates a better alternative in the form of brain- stilling. For rational and enduring decisions, silent mind is much more effective medium to get sound and lasting solution to all management problems.

A perfect calmness is necessary. It indicates absence of any thought flow in the mind. Preferably manager should have a small room of silence attached to his office where he may retire from busy life to meditate in silence over the burning problems in case of need.

By the method, the manager and the employees come into contact with the inner mind or higher consciousness for arriving at proper solutions to their problems.

STEPPING BACK (FOR A WHILE)

This is an another method to solve problems by remaining quiet and calling on the inner consciousness for getting an answer. Peacefulness is the only way out here to solve all problems. Once we enter into inner consciousness, we know what true behaviour would be, what true solution to a problem is, what true action is.

Stepping back form a situation for a while enables to control and even master the situation.

SELF DYNAMISING MEDIATION

A dynamic meditation is meditation of transformation of lower consciousness into higher consciousness. Hence we call it transforming meditation.

We may meditate to open ourselves to the Divine Force to receive its guidance to discover the points to be transformed, to trace the weaknesses and to trace out the line of progress.

IMPLICATIONS OF THE WORKSHOPThe goal is that in a management setting these practices will have :

Repercussions on business life

More specifically in respect of the individual

Improved cooperation

Non-attachment to the selfish rewards of the work

Increased creativity

Service to the customer

Improved quality

Creating an ethico-moral soundness

Cultivating self-discipline and self-restraint, and

Enhancing generosity

LIMITATIONS OF THE WORKSHOP

The responses/data which constitute the plans of action, however, have certain built in limitations :

1. We can only make inferences from the immediate time at the end of the workshop.

2. We can only study the managers' responses to, and expectations of human values, not how they are reflected in their behaviour.

3. We do not know whether there has occured any changes in the managers' attitudes towards human values, as we don't have data from them prior to the workshop.

4. We do not know how honest their attitudes are due to perceived group pressure from peers, super/subordinates, from the course leader, desire to give a good (or bad) impression or other possible factors.

5. The answers are given spontaneously without forewarning and therefore may not be well thought out ideas.

The analysis of the plans of action meant to understand the intentions of the participants, and make inferences from their statements the extent to which these workshops have influenced human values in managers.

CONCLUSIONChakraborty's innovative approach to value education for practising managers is impressive. He has culled out selected psycho-spiritual values from the traditional wisdom literature of India, suitably reinterpreted them and woven them together to form a coherent theory of human values. This theory is then utilised to explain the problems and tensions of both personal and work life of modern professionals and to indicate the way for a better quality of life. That this approach finds deep resonance in the hearts and minds of Indian managers is evident from our observations of the course participants' enthusiastic, and at times deeply moving, articulations at the conclusion of the workshops.

"At the beginning of section II we raised the question whether human values can be taught and with what degree of effectiveness". Judging from the course participant's responses, Chakraborty's approach seems to have met with mostly deep appreciation. Such response undoubtably provides a fertile soil for reexamining and developing one's human values. To that extent it is evident that the workshops have been effective in influencing the human values of the course participants. However, it is difficult to reach any conclusion as to what extent the course objectives have been interiorised by the course participants and the general learning effects of the workshops in the daily lives of the participants. What are the effects in the managers' work and family lives, and do their decisions reflect an increased awareness of human values? Neither can we draw any conclusions about the duration of the effects, i.e. whether it will last for a day or week and then vanish, or if the effects are stable and enduring.

It is also evident from the responses and the stated objectives of the course that the main focus is on the self; self-awareness, self-analysis and self-development. It is consistent with the view that the individual is the cornerstone of all changes and transformations at the organizational as well as the societal levels. While the necessity of this self-development as a precondition for the value transformation in society may not be in doubt, the emphasis on it may convey the message that it is also sufficient for all the value problems of today's living. At the organizational level the difficulty may be posed in terms of two distinct, though related, categories of intra-personal and inter-personal values. The latter are of vital significance to managers' organizational role of a team leader, a change agent or a member of a work group. A heightened sensitivity to personal virtues, which is very effective at the intra-personal level, in itself may not be sufficient for values needed for effectiveness at the inter-personal level. Additional emphasis on humanistic values like human warmth, friendliness, acceptance of the other person as she/he is, trusts, empathy etc., may help bring about a better value balance. As indicated in our study, the emphasis on the inter- and intra-personal levels, as also the extent to which other approaches to human values should be emphasized, may have to be adjusted depending on the type of organization that is approached.

The manager significantly affects, and is affected by, the value culture of the society, through the mediating agency of organizations and other social institutions. Proper appreciation of this value dynamics requires understanding, and interiorisation, of the operation of human values at the societal and ecological levels of our categorization. It is not clear as to what extent values at these levels can be developed and nourished through the present structure and approach of the human value workshops. An evaluation of the impact of the workshops, including long-term effects and effects on different levels of human values, may help clarify the position and lead to suggestions for expansions and alterations in the course contents as well as the methodology of the workshops.

Janna

Yoga

Yoga

2. Raja

Yoga

3. Bhakti

Yoga

Value Orientation

Pure Mind

Four traditional methods of mind purification

In a still mind intuition blossoms, values emerge

4. Karma

Yoga

Managerial Effectiveness