The Hindu Business Line : Outlining the corporate dharma

Corporates must be good examples of ethical leadership in all that they do. Every corporate must have a top management team which is working not just for money, but also to ensure that values are not flouted, stressed management guru M. B. Athreya.

Delivering a lecture at a seminar on ‘values for good governance’, organised by Tattvaloka, a socio-religious monthly, brought out by the Sri Sharada Peetham, Sringeri, he said that value-based management is the key to long-term success for any corporate.

“In industry today, we find that unless threatened by competition – domestic or global – many companies do not improve or innovate continuously. The Indian talent is under utilised. We must promote industriousness,” he said.

Each company must ask itself ‘Am I best in class in the world in my area? Am I on the cutting edge of global knowledge in this field?’ The Chairman of the company alone should not do this — every employee of the organisation, each in his function, must ask himself these questions, he said.

When the dharma of the Government is to encourage competition, the dharma of competitors is to innovate, to invest in research and development, take risks and come up, he declared. Referring to the teachings of our Vedic masters and ancient wisdom, “which are still relevant,” Athreya said that corporates must focus on values and leadership development to succeed in the long run.

Fairness to stakeholders

For example, he said, vysya dharma talks about how corporates should behave during different cycles. Though vysya dharma primarily talks about profit making, it is against excess profits.

It says: ‘pay taxes. Don’t take the Raja’s money, but give the Raja the money to build an army to defend the country. And, during periods of drought, floods or epidemics feed the population. Don’t discharge the workers. Keep t

Vysya dharma encompasses all the current principles of efficiency, profitability, cycles as well as social responsibility, that is be fair to all the stakeholders, he pointed out. The future of India is more in the hands of industrialists than in the hands of the Government.

The role of Government will much more be on alleviation of poverty, rural development and some part of infrastructure development.

He said India has an additional problem even when compared to China, let alone the West. “We have, by past incompetence and lack of values magnified our inherited problems of population and land-man ratio. If there is anyone in this world who has to be more innovative and more efficient, it is we. We have to catch up first, come to zero-base and then improve more positively,” Athreya declared.

His prescription to be a good corporate is — follow sresta dharma (best practices) and samathva (equitability), attach importance to customer values, shareholder values, employee values, societal values and leadership values.

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