Managing ‘Change’ in a Corporate and the 4 Ps Model for Change Engineering.

 

Managing ‘Change’ in a Corporate

and the 4 Ps Model for Change Engineering.

A corporate is a legal entity like a person and possesses certain characteristics exemplified in its work culture & traditions which are carries forward for a long time. Business environment changes over time, due to external and macro factors calling for internal adjustments in existing  practices of a corporate in order to remain ‘competitive’ and ‘relevant’ in the market environment. These internal changes are related to policy, pattern (organizational structure), people and processes. Since the ‘people factor’ is the most vulnerable and delicate variable factor in any organization – it needs judicious planning and execution of any change that the corporate intends to imbibe.

This paper tried to study as to how a multinational corporation can successfully bring in change in its style of functioning i.e. how ‘change is engineered’ and the key issues it faces while doing so. The paper is being prepared in the context of actual observations done by the author in a corporate in the United Arab Emirates. 

 

Key Words: Work Culture, Transformation, Change Agents, Corporate Personality,                            Organisational Development, Change Engineering, Change Model          

                         

Introduction: The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus had made a profound statement, “Change is the only constant” -- which remained true even today, more so for a corporate entity. A large company or corporate has to keep a close watch on its working practices and work cultures as it continues to grow. In fact the work culture of a corporate defines not only its character and image in public domain, but also determines its edge over competitors and a healthy growth prospect into the future. If a corporate suffers from internal issues such as lack of cohesion between different functional departments, lack of co-ordination and break in communication flow, conflicts beyond acceptable levels, lack of team spirit, rigid top management, improper or no human resource plan, no succession plan, no clarity on corporate goals, no accountability and the list can go on – then such a corporate actually ruins itself from inside. Unless some diagnosis is done and treatment of the key issues is not brought in, it would result in a self-decay or a slow death. Gradually the corporate would become ineffective in its efforts or would fail to utilize its resources to full extent. The external factors or the macro business environment always remains dynamic and ever changing. Unless a corporate adjusts itself internally it would face stiff challenges to operate in the face of such external environmental changes. This internal adjustment from time to time is termed as “change management”. Change management necessarily takes care of the functional issues and does not touch the fundamental ethos of a corporate (if such a philosophy already exists in the corporate say from its founding fathers with a defined Vision) unless those primary stakeholders decide to build up a fresh set of mission and vision. The changes that are sought to be brought in generally revolve around the operational aspects and cultural aspects which directly affect the overall character of the corporate. Also, certain changes are of regular nature which take place at regular intervals as operational adjustments. The ‘change’ that is discussed here is about a totalitarian change in a corporate -- encompassing all aspects of its “personality” in order to make it more viable as a business entity.  (Excerpts from the paper). Publisher: Bharti Publications, New Delhi.  

Entrepreneurship in Assam : The Case of Tholgiri

 

Entrepreneurship in Assam : The Case of Tholgiri

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” – Peter Drucker

The last decade has seen a huge decline in job opportunities for the educated young people in India. Assam has been no different. While it is not easy to get accurate data on unemployment, according to Govt. published reports like Periodic Labour Force Survey reports, Economic Survey, NSSO etc. (Deka D., IJCRT-ISSN-2320-2882), the unemployment rate for graduate  males (rural + urban) increased from 11.3% in 2017-18 to 13.7% in 2018-19. For the same period, the unemployment rates for female graduates (rural + urban ) increases from 21.6% in 2017-18 to 27.6% in 2018-19, giving an overall average of 20.65% as educated unemployed youth who are graduates. Among the females the educated unemployment rate is much higher compared to the males. An interesting point to note is that even for young women who have completed post graduation the unemployment rate has been 16.9% as per last published reports in  2018-19. The Neo Covid-19 pandemic had played havoc, which posed increasing pressure on the nation’s wealth with economic activities coming down to a bare minimum due to country wide lock down situation – the effects are still there to see.   

A positive sight seen during these troubled times and thereafter was that many of the youth in Assam, had taken up entrepreneurship as individuals and small groups, trying different ventures. Some of them have seen success and others failed mainly due to lack of experience or guidance. These young entrepreneurs could take a look at Tholgiri – an ideal business model for ethnic produce founded by a professional journalist turned entrepreneur Manoram Gogoi, supported by his wife Monalisa Saikia in Guwahati.      

                                                                             Assamese sweet cuisine

Tholgiri  was founded in December, 2018 as a unique idea after a personal incident with Manoram when he had experienced a Thali (plate) full of local breakfast items for just Rs.10/- served at certain Gupta Hotel at a boat ferry point in Jorhat connecting to Majuli island in the river Brahmaputra. Thus Tholgiri (master of the soil) was born with a tagline in Assamese meaning ‘Proud being an Assamese’. It followed almost all aspects in marketing in copybook style from resource planning, production, supply chain management, front end sales outlet, packaging, branding, trained manpower, communication et all. The backward integration has been done by adopting villages in the hinterland and select rural households across Assam and other North eastern states – particularly focusing on women and youth who were skilled but unemployed.  

                                          Manoram Gogoi                                           A typical Assamese lunch Thali

The products in Tholgiri’s own outlet come in smartly designed and packaging having an “ethnic chic” look. Today in just over four years of existence many of its products have found niche export markets. It also runs a 100% ethnic restaurant in its only premise in Guwahati city offering a large variety of recipes, some not even found in the villages these days. This restaurant draws a sizable number of regular guests who look for hygienic and authentic variety in ethnic cuisine.

Tholgiri offers a range in product lines viz. rice (Gogoi loves to inform that there existed over 3000 varieties of rice in Assam out of which around 1000 have survived the onslaught of genetically modified crops), organic disposable crockery, edible oil, pickle, jiggery, breakfast cereal, spies, bamboo based ornaments, handicrafts, incense sticks, ethnic wears, tea  (including Falab, which had originated among the Singpho tribe of Arunachal Pradesh, where Scottish gentleman Robert Bruce had picked it up and commercialized as Assam tea and Maniram Dewan thereafter had become the first Indian tea planter and one of the first entrepreneurs in Eastern India).

Tholgiri thus presents a unique model in marketing of ethnic produce as well as offers a lesson in understanding Assamese culture and prides of Assam. 

     

 

Social Entrepreneurship and a Meaningful Change

World has witnessed quite a many catastrophes since World War-I. The great plague, the civil wars, the invasions, epidemics, industrial disasters et al. Our secondary school text books carry many stories of inspiration from olden times, telling us how Lord Baden Powel or a Florence Nightingale had started the Boy Scouts or the Nursing profession during such adverse conditions. Since those times until present breed of such brave stalwarts -- all of whom brought in ideas to implement for creating socially beneficial enterprises. These entrepreneurs came from various backgrounds and at times without any formal discipline of study, which make their efforts even more fascinating. Many of them had stumbled upon something adverse in their lives which made them change their whole mindset or rather approach to living itself. From Lord Powel with Boy Scout to Muhammad Yunus with Grameen Bank are all such social entrepreneurs who went away from normative boundaries in thoughts and ideas while initiating their enterprises for good of the people. An idea that is seeded in a small town could branch out to a whole world benefitting multitudes of common people who sustain life at the bottom rungs of societies across the globe. Primary objective of social enterprise is not profit unlike other business enterprises. This is in essence social entrepreneurship.

The Background: Since the 1^st World War it has been observed that countries across the globe have still not found a perfect system to maintain equality between its people – in both economic and social perspectives. A perfect society is like a mirage as if inequality and difference including denied basic rights to citizens is an accepted norm. One can only say that only the rate of such inequalities vary from country to country, while they remain in some form or another. This is true for authoritarian, dictatorship, monarchy, communist, democratic: all forms of government systems that exist in both socialist and capitalist philosophies.  Past decades have seen many social entrepreneurs taking result oriented action in various fields and their dedicated efforts have brought in significant changes in such inequalities. Though one cannot expect the whole world to achieve objectives in equality, work of the social entrepreneurs every now and then emerges in our societies contributing towards that ideal state. There still remains the relentless spirit of hope for particularly the downtrodden masses.

As a Formal Discipline of Economic Studies: Social Entrepreneurship is not a core area of study while Entrepreneurship has always been a well-defined area within economic theories since Joseph Alois Schumpeter (Austrian political economist)’s significant work in 1911. Only as late as in the year 2006, Chris Steyaert (Switzerland) and Daniel Hjorth (Sweden) for the first time focused on research on ‘Social’ entrepreneurship in a number of collected works written & edited by them along with other socio-economic scholars. Since then many have been studying this subject with reference to its impact on social and economic change. However even today it is not considered to be a strictly formatted discipline within studies in economics.

Interestingly while Social ‘Entrepreneur’ is a relatively new thinking, the ‘practice’ of ‘Social ‘Entrepreneurship’ has always been there since the times of Florence Nightingale or even much before in various forms.

Current Context: Each adversity brings in some new opportunity with it. The current turmoil the world has been going through with the breakout of a full-fledged Corona Virus pandemic since the last part of year 2019 has resulted in many startup social entrepreneurs as well, who defied all sorts of adverse conditions to give birth to their ideas. Many of them plunged in as a response to the crisis situation in India and their work was related to the basic needs of people, particularly in health and medical support services sectors.

Meaningful Change: The whole aspect of this study was whether Social Entrepreneurs have brought in some change in the area or society they worked in. This means positive change in the people in terms of their economic and social status or even the society’s outlook on such efforts. A positive shift in status was considered as ‘meaningful change’.

Indian Scenario: In India the most common scenario in Not-for-Profit outfits are that they are majorly seen as ‘Government funded’ non-governmental organisations (NGOs). In some cases government might not directly fund these orgaisations but they enable them with various infrastructural support systems. In recent years with the increase of CSR (corporate social responsibility) activities by private corporates (as part of their Marketing Communication strategy or otherwise) we have notice many successful social upliftment projects by leading corporate houses as well. From a legal angle, the latest amendments were made in April-2021 in the Companies Act, 2013 post the Covid-19 outbreak. As per these new rules Government of India made it compulsory for companies with minimum Rs.1000 Crores turnover to spent 2% of the average net profit as CSR contribution.

The Social Entrepreneurs are however not to be seen as the traditional NGOs since their ideation and approach are very different from those of the NGOs. There remains an inherent motivation to bring in social change in these social entrepreneurs who are moved by a kind of philanthropic zeal. In fact earlier such initiatives were seen as projects by persons with certain ideals who also possessed entrepreneurship skills. Today gradually social entrepreneurs have gained importance due to increase in awareness on their work bringing in visible positive changes in society.  

Here we shall try to bring in certain examples of ‘change’ brought in by some social entrepreneurs in Indian context. These leading examples came out of their routine lives to give shape to their ideas.

Harish Hande & SELCO:

Hailing from Karnataka in South India, Harish Hande had spent his childhood in Orissa, a state in East of India. He did graduation in Energy Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT),

Kharagpur. He was a keen student with an entrepreneur’s mind set from younger days. During his Masters and PhD in Massachusetts Institute of Technology on the same study area, this vision of harnessing solar energy for basic energy needs took shape. After working out on the operational plan upon his return to India, SELCO (Solar Electric Light Company) was launched in 1995. During that time lakhs of India’s poor families particularly in the rural hinterland were without electricity, which accounted for about 57% of the total population. Also these people were largely depended on fossil fuel to burn and use, while India was already emitting billions of tons of toxic carbon dioxide into the environment every year. The other problem was inconsistency of power supply in mostly semi urban and rural regions due to frequent load shedding. 

Harish’s idea was to provide power on demand to these people at an affordable price as well as address the serious environment issue – trying to address two problem with single project. In the initial phase Harish went from village to village to introduce and sell his solar light sets and his primary target were the bi-cycle and TV repair shops, which were commonly found in rural areas. With these lights the shops could open for longer hours into the night which increased their volume of business as well. These first cases of success led to a snowball effect through word-of-mouth and more and more villages kept accepting the new idea to light up their homes. SELCO provided routine after sales service through trained technicians trained by Harish for upkeep of the equipment – that way generating employment to local youth as an additional benefit. It also used to do demonstrations from house-to-house to show how easy it was to maintain the set by the users. As for the cost effectiveness - since most users were earning very less to afford outright purchase of the sets – SELCO tied up with regional rural banks and credit co-operatives to enable villagers to go for payments in instalments. Though there was enough hard work done in the first phase of launch, once the idea caught on with the villagers SELCO did not have much difficulty in reaching the breakeven point from where it started getting good revenue sustenance and reinvestment. In about seven years SELCO installed over nearly 95,000 solar systems with over 400,000 people directly benefiting. There are tens of thousands who have been benefited indirectly from this project. Today SELCO is an enterprise with over Rs.100 Crores turnover and has since diversified into other sectors in its value chain viz. Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, Food Processing and Rural Craftworks.

SELCO under the leadership of Harish Hande received international acclaims for his sustainable vision as a social entrepreneur by several countries and organisations. Among the major awards received by him are Ramon Magsaysay Award, Ashden Award for Sustainable Energy (multiple times), Doctorate of Humane Letters by University of Massachusetts and Ashoka Fellowship. 

Urvashi Sahni and SHEF:

Urvashi was a brilliant student from childhood who was married off at a very early age in a typical patriarchal decision that was common in Indian lower & middle class, particularly the Hindi belt of India. Urvashi was very observant and conscious what went around her in the society and always had a zeal for taking up life’s challenges by standing up to face it. By the time she was 23, she already had two daughters who too were not welcome in a male oriented society. However with her strong determination she was not only able to complete her graduation in first division, she completed her masters in Philosophy with distinction of being at the top of the class. During these times, also due to the shock of losing her young cousin sister in a mysterious fire tragedy, she had determined to work for the women and girls including the marginalised ones in society. She had realised well that education was the only power which could bring change into the lives of women by lifting their status in society which dehumanized girls in various ways snatching away their rights. She had founded Suraksha (protection) a women’s rights organization, the first such organization in Lucknow and the first women’s counseling cell in Uttar Pradesh the highest populated state in North India. She has started another organization DIDI (meaning ‘elder Sister’ in Hindi) – a social enterprise for sustainable livelihood of women. She was conferred National Youth Award in 1987 for her such initiatives by the Government of India. Her most known initiative however has been the Study Hall Education Foundation (SHEF) which epitomizes her life work in providing access to education for millions of underprivileged children – most of whom are girls.

Her brilliant idea of creating Digital Study Hall (DSH) to impart education in poor and remote rural schools. Starting her experiment with 35 schools in Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal and 10 schools in Bangladesh as well. The idea is to create lessons in video formats by qualified teachers and to provide these recordings to these DSH centres, where these are played to students by a trained local teacher who could act as the mediator and could stop the play of any lesson too explain difficult points to students. This way Urvashi could minimize the cost of teaching as well as she could give access to lessons by some of the best teachers to these underprivileged students. During year 2001  Government of India launched an ambitious education extension initiative names Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (Universal Education Programme). Around that time according to UNICEF reports there were 100 million children in India still out of school, many of whom were drop outs. Government’s own records had admitted that drop out rate for boys up to grade five were 40.67 %, which was even higher for girls. The government had cited among reasons for this as lack of facility, lack of qualified teachers, cost of schooling, unavailability of text books in rural areas. Also reported that from 2007 to 2008, over 88,000 class rooms and over 130,000 qualified teachers were required to make basic education reach out to all. In another report “Comparative Study of emerging economies by Quality of Education” by Associated chambers of Commerce & Industry of India with data from UNESCO , IMF and World Economic Forum had placed India at 6th position with a poor 3.3 marks among 7 nations.   

Urvashi Sahni’s Study Hall Education Foundation (SHEF) achieved great success as a social entrepreneurship programme reaching out to lives of underprivileged people in an unprecedented manner with Digital Study hall initiative. Each such study hall was provided with

a TV and a video player set, which the trained mediators could use very easily across centres. These centres impacted over 100000 teachers and 5 million children most of whom were girls from marginalised communities. Later on this module was adopted by Pakistan to extend their education initiatives in rural Pakistan as well. 

From her youth Urvashi has been fighting for gender equality which always remained her priority in life. She knew from her personal experience how education was the powerful force to crush such gender barriers. Her relentless work for over 35 years with SHEF brought her many accolades and recognition – both nationally and internationally.

Urvashi Sahni had received her PhD in Education from UC Berkeley. She is a non-resident fellow at the Center for universal Education, Brookings Institution, USA and is an Ashoka fellow. In 2017 she was named Social Entrepreneur of the Year India by the Schwab-Jubilant Bhartiya Foundation and had joined their international fellowship of social entrepreneurs. She was a co-founder of Catalyst 2030 a global network to expedite the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) through innovation. She has been featured in many international magazines like Time Magazine, NBC News, Sydney Morning Herald, Toronto Star in addition to national news media in India. She has been consulted by various state governments for advice on primary and secondary education from time to time. Urvashi stands tall and remarkable both as a social entrepreneur as well as a social activist in recent times, bringing in meaningful change at grass root levels of our society. 

Anshu Gupta and Goonj:

Born in Meerat in Uttar Pradesh, Anshu Gupta had seen life’s pain early in life. Eldest of four children Anshu’s father was in Military Engineering Service (MES). When Anshu was just 14 his father suffered a massive heart attack due to which he along with his mother had to get into household management. This in fact thought Anshu, how a middle class family manages to optimise their resources. At the end of 12th Standard due to an almost fatal road accident left Anshu an invalid and had to stay on bed for a year. This time on bed was spent on introspecting and extensive reading. He also contributed to household expenses by writing articles in Hindi newspapers. Thereafter, against the advice of doctors he appeared in school leaving exams walking in pain against the advice of doctors, as he did not want to get pitied by using a crutch.

Eventually he completed a masters in Delhi and double majors in Mass Communication and Journalism. As a graduate student he took part in relief operations in Uttar Kashi after the devastating earth quake in 1991, when he saw from firsthand experience the perils of rural India. It was at this time germination of Goonj (echo) idea was taking shape in his mind. For sometime he got into a government job and then switched to a job in a large manufacturing multi national company. During this time in 1997, he once saw written on the back of a Rickshaw (tri-cycled carriage pulled by someone) “Meant for Unclaimed corpses” in Khooni Darwaza area of old Delhi. By speaking with the Rickshaw puller he came to know that many on the streets die such deaths during cold winters of Delhi from lack of warm clothes. He immediately donated his surplus clothes among pavement dwellers. After this incident he left his MNC job and started Goonj (echo) – an idea he had in him since 1991. His simple idea was to collect surplus clothes from urban areas and to distribute to homeless poor ones. He slowly partnered with number of grass root level social organizations and made a strong network and logistics for the purpose. The good quality clothes were distributed while recycling the poor quality ones. However Anshu believed that the recipients should not be deprived of their dignity while receiving these free clothes. Hence he started a concept calling it Clothes for Work – in which villagers had to work for the community in some way to receive free clothes for their families. With the cost for clothes take care of, the villagers could spent their meager earnings into other productive needs. Thereafter Goonj started another novel concept named - Not a piece of cloth, in which low cost sanitary pads created from recycled clothes and provided to rural women who otherwise could not afford it. S2S was another initiative by Goonj where students in urban schools shared their school material with the rural school students. Goonj has played major roles during rehabilitation operations after devastations from natural disasters like flood, cyclone, earthquake etc. As time passed, Goonj made a mark in newsrooms across the world for unique sustainable business model with the objective of charity at the forefront. Soon in addition to partnering over 400 grass root level NGOs, Goonj received support from major organizations like National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Ramon Magsaysay Foundation, Deutsche bank, Ashoka Foundation, Schwab Foundation all of whom got into supporting Goonj’s cause.

Goonj presently undertakes disaster relief, humanitarian aid and community development in 23 states across India and its operations have increased with ongoing Covid19 pandemic. Naming it Rahat-Covid (Covid Relief) Goonj has undertaken activities like: support to frontline workers, food kits, support to people on quarantine, face masks and cloth sanitary pads, support to farmers, support to forgotten communities like AIDS patients, sex workers, people with determination and the like.

Anshu Gupta so far received Ashoka Fellowship, Schwab Fellowship, Social Entrepreneur of the Year award from Schwab Foundation, Ramon Magsaysay Award among others. In 2012 Forbes magazine listed Anshu Gupta as one of India’s most powerful rural entrepreneur as well. As per World Economic Forum’s report (where Schwab is a sister concern) Goonj is a ‘Game changing Innovation’ and has distributed more than 8,800 tones of ration and essential items, provided over 362,000 free meals, sourced 225,000 kilograms of vegetables from farmers, reached out to 380,000 families in distress (about 1.5 million people), produced more than 800,000 face masks and 1.2 million sanitary pads.

Anshu and Goonj has shown a new beacon of light in ‘charity with dignity’ within social entrepreneurship by building a bridge between the urban rich and the rural impoverished communities with far reaching positive consequences.

Santosh Parulekar and Pipal Tree:

Santosh Parulekar was a successful careerist with Vistaar in the USA. In 2004 while on an assignment to India to examine the business model of one of the equity funding applicant microfinance institutions fate took a different turn. Upon examining the MFI he discovered that the finance which was to create livelihood for youth in rural areas they were actually doing business of lending money. For instance in Rae Bareilly, where now Santosh has one of his training centres, he found out that the money given to people had no clue that is was to buy buffaloes. The MFI was actually lending money and earning interest from it instead of creating livelihood. This discovery motivated him to do something worthwhile for the rural youth particularly the women in the villages. He discussed the idea with two of his friends, Shailendra Ghaste of IDFC Capital and Vikram Reddy of KMC Construction in Andhra Pradesh. Thus Parulekar’s idea took shape in the form of Pipal Tree Foundation a non-profit organisation.

The idea was to create sustainable livelihood for poor youth and women in rural India. To reach this objective his plan was to provide training, create employment and to provide financial and other assistance for them to start on their own small businesses.

Santosh also observed that large number of farmers suicides took place in the past years due to crop failure, low income from agriculture, heavy debt burden etc. Also the rural population is double than that of the urban, which creates additional pressure on livelihood with low incomes in rural households. This created serious distress in rural India with widening of the gap between rich and poor. In addition, there have been clashes over land, water and other local issues between the haves and have-nots, adding to the overall economic stress situation.  

Santosh saw that the heavy reliance on the farm sector alone would not help the situation of unemployment in the rural areas. He held that if a Self-Sustaining Model is created which do not rely on donations or grants it would eventually reduce the severity of the problem significantly in the future. This could be done through training the rural youth and women in non-farm and agri-allied sectors and to employ them in these sectors to reduce pressure on core agricultural sector through earning of regular salary incomes.  

YOUTH EMPLOYMENT PROGRAM OBJECTIVE: Pipal Tree Foundation (PTF) has already taken the initiative and established 18 training centers spread across 8 states of India which are Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Telangana, Jharkhand and Maharashtra for skill development in youths benefiting underprivileged youth in India. PTF intends to establish 19 more training centers across these India over next three years. PTF aims at provides skill enhancement training to youth through these training centers. The training would include:  Regular skill based training classes, site visits, workshops, etc.  Classes by executives and( counseling by employers.  Also for work experience hands-on-training at site. All trained youth

are provided jobs in the relevant skills. Also major part of this training would be On the Job training to ensure the sustainable livelihood for youth. The target beneficiaries under this project are the under privileged youth (18-35 years) from proposed location who are either class 10th or class 12th passed or even school dropout after 7th std. Majority of them are from BPL families.

WOMEN EMPOWERMENT PROGRAM OBJECTIVE: Pipal Tree Foundation (PTF) has already taken the initiative and established 18 training centers spread across 8 states of India which are Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Telangana, Jharkhand and Maharashtra for skill development in women benefiting underprivileged women in India. PTF intends to establish 19 more training centers across these India over next three years. PTF aims at provides skill enhancement training to women through these training centers. The training would include:  Regular skill based training( classes, site visits, workshops, etc.  Classes by executives and( counseling by employers.  Also for work experience( hands on training at Retail Stores. All trained women are provided jobs in the relevant skills. The target beneficiaries under this project are the under privileged women (18-35 years) from proposed location who are either class 10th or class 12th passed.

PROGRAM OBJECTIVE:  The project aim is to help rural women in villages to generate additional income by way of Agriculture allied activities. Keeping this objective in mind various initiatives are identifies which meet the following objectives – 1. Should help generate additional income of at least INR 60,000 each year for the beneficiary, 2. Should have low gestation time i.e. should be able to give additional income within 6 months for start of the project, 3. Should be simple, suitable to the territory and implementable with available resources in the area.

Honey Bee Keeping:

This program aims at improving livelihood of rural household by way of providing skill training to rural men and women in Honey bee Keeping and Honey Production. Due to large amount of Agri-allied activities in India there are ample amount of local Self – employment opportunities available in this domain. The intention is to provide training in Honey bee-keeping, provide initial set up of honey bee hives and tools to beneficiaries to start their own production units. It also provides adequate on field support by way of market linkages to ensure income to these beneficiaries. The intention is help provide regular additional source of income to families of farmers.

Food Processing:

In this initiative first and foremost important criteria is the availability of raw material in the area and availability of market to sell the final produce at reasonable margin. One example of such initiative we are doing in West Bengal and Telangana is Neem seeds processing. Due to large availability of Neem in the area, it was decided to work on the initiative to procure local available raw material, process it to make marketable products and create market linkages to sell them in the market. Women in local area are trained on making oil and cake from the Neem

seeds. Then they are provided with the initial machinery and raw material. Pipal Tree takes care of market linkages for the final produce and ensures that women earn at least INR 5000 to 6000 per month for this activity after provisioning for the raw material and other cost. Eventually the model could be made sustainable from market linkages on the final produce.

Santosh Parulekar worked to create job opportunities for the unemployed youth in rural India. He started ‘Pipal Tree’, a company that aims to impart formal training to the youth and provides them with reputable jobs in companies across the country. Operating since 2007, Pipal Tree has trained over 1,500 workers and had intended to open training centres pan India in the coming five years to empower about 60,000 under privileged youth and women across the country through skill development training in selected market driven courses. This plan got a setback due to unprecedented situation in the country from Covida19 pandemic.  

Pipal Tree is affiliated to National Skill Development Council (NSDC). Among various awards received are Sankalp Award from Intellecap, UK India Skill Forum Award, Jeevika Award from Government of Bihar as Best Training Provider. Santosh Parulekar is an active member of a working group formed under the Ministry of Labour as well.

These few pioneering examples have been cited here to draw a conclusion as to how social entrepreneurs can bring in meaningful positive transformation in our societies. There are many such individuals and groups who are pursuing different objectives with their entrepreneurship zeal.

When keenly observed we find the following common ingredients present in each such social entrepreneur contributing to social change:

Rarity: Unique attention in observation of things around and finding gaps in society

Resilience: Indomitable mental strength to overcome any obstacle in the path

Road Map: A clear objective and a road map in mind.

Resource Mobilization: Identification of available resources which leads to finding right                       solutions to plug the gaps in society.

Raring to go: A high built-in spirit to go ahead, many times alone with others joining in as a project takes shape.

References:

-        Yunus, Muhammad, Building Social Business: The new kind of capitalism that serves humanity’s most pressing needs (2010),PublicAffairs/1586488244(ISBN13:9781586488246)

-        Shukla, Madhukar, Social Entrepreneurship In India: Quarter Idealism and Pound of Pragmatism (2020),Sage Publications India (P) Ltd./ISBN13:9789353882372

-        https://www.selcofoundation.org

-        https://www.studyhallfoundation.org

-        https://www.goonj.org

-        https://www.pipaltreefoundation.com

-        https://www.ashoka.org

-        Annual Report 2020-21 of Pipal Tree Foundation.

-        Annual Report 2019-20 of Pipal Tree Foundation.

-        Annual Report 2019-20 of Selco Foundation

-        Annual Report 2019-20 of Study Hall Foundation

A Life Lived to the Brim!

               Not just longevity -- but a life lived to the brim !

She has lived everything – from the revolution of 1942 to India becoming independent nation in 1947, from the great earthquake of 1950 to the Chinese aggression of 1962, from the emergency proclamation of 1975 to India coming on board the internet as a public domain in 1995, from India becoming a full-fledged nuclear state in 1998 to the great pandemic forcing her to wear the mask as a new normal in 2020 – she has seen and lived it all. My mother. As of just passed 16^th August during the state’s lockdown period she has completed all of her 94 - living in each decade and most of all, adapting to each of the changing times on her own, without requiring much of change management (from a management perspective). 

Life is not about how we can stretch it to a fag end, rather how it should be lived. That ‘living’ itself gives the secret elusive idea to us – as to how to endure each twist and turn along the path and make the journey long enough while living in it with full consciousness and contentment – up till the moment one has to say goodbye.

Since my days of innocence I have been like an avid observer of how she was able to cope up with pressure situations and almost singularly finding out solutions that would allow herself and the family to survive and move on -- that too without compromising on her pride nor prejudice with a steel like strong mind, unbent. A rare quality as it appears to me whenever I look back on her journey of last decades of my conscious mind. Today, as was always, I feel her strong determination to reach her goals for herself and for her progeny. With the family scattered far and wide, from West of Europe to South of Africa and around India – the way she gets concerned for every member of the fraternity on daily basis is something the other younger generations cannot think of doing in this age of ‘socially’ distancing from each other. Even today she would not go to sleep -- a routine clockwork at that like all her other errands, without making a call to each of her six children every day! Isn’t that amazing just to think? Managing time to its optimum utilization is something any manager could learn from this living case scenario, not to mention about the importance of keeping-in-touch factor in a brand’s life with its patrons and stakeholders.

In an age when due to factors relating mostly to the devils of urbanization and extreme industrialization, people of today are into all kinds mental degradation with Alzheimer being the most common contender among the aged. Every time I hear my mother of nine decades, narrating stories from the long gone past with photographic memory to the last details on ‘each episode’ with names of people and places along with precise dates of events that took place -- is nothing short of a world wonder according to me. In fact we term her each episode as ‘long playing record’ – ironically I would perhaps need to define to our generation Z about a ‘record disc’, which itself has become obsolete decades ago! Whenever I call her at nights being away from native land, the way she shares information from the country’s political arena to the latest happening around the Assamese literary circle in a precise manner, does full justice to the family name I had given her as North East Newsletter long time ago. This might ring a bell among our customer care & information dissemination professionals! Not to forget the way she listens to the postman, the beggar boy or the local Masjid Imam -- their stories of dismay with full attention shared over a cup of tea, recording every dot in precise detail for further action in her capacity. This should be enough to a human resource professional in understanding the boons of the listening art.   

If anyone inquires today about her secret to longevity, nay a fully conscious life of resolve, I would proclaim that it is nothing but her determination to stick to certain basics and actions taken in clockwork precision. I need not search google or call up a life coach or go and ask a guru  for lessons on the art of living. It’s all evident right in front of me with all that I needed to know – how to attain not just a long life but how to live it to the brim! Just wondering whether I could draw a parallel with the life of a vibrant corporate. Then I ask myself, why not?

If a corporate is all about a living entity with a defined vision to be reached through ethical means utilizing all its resources at hand – my mother Jahanara Hazarika albeit is a living embodiment of such a life! 

Touching a Chord!

 Touching a Chord!

 “Resonance” appears to be a simple word in English vocabulary. But in terms of essence and application it encompasses a very vast universe in human existence specially as an “emotive being”!

This is a difficult topic to write home about, however I will try and touch upon a few vivid examples where ‘resonance’ is the essential element in certain facets of our lives.

One of my old friends had posed an inquiry as to whether melody of a song in a particular language when resembles one in another language can it be called inspiration? Let me let loose my trail of thoughts from this trigger!

When music is said to be an ‘Universal Language’ it actually does not mean the language part, much less so; rather it is the tune or the way it is being rendered by a musician. In ‘Sangeet Ratnakar’ by the 13^th century musicologist Sarangadeva – who has extensively written on north Indian as well as south Indian style of classical music, said in his texts, “Geetang Vadyang tatha Nrityang trayang Sangeetamuchyate” to define that Sangeet or Music (the nearest English word in meaning) has three elements together viz. the singing, the instrument at play and dance. While accepting this definition even beyond the ‘classical’ genre one would notice that there is a basic element at work in all three, which is “vibration” – only that it is not any sort of vibration but an organized and structured one.

                                                        Resonance Illustrated in Physics Class

In physics classes during school years we had learnt about sound and resonance. The simplest explanation of resonance is that when something vibrates and makes or forces another object to vibrate  in the same frequency – it is called resonance. From this physical science approach we can easily say that all three elements in “Sangeet” – the singing, the playing of instrument and the dance create certain vibration which reverberates specific part in a listener. As we get attracted to particular music – not withstanding the lyrics in it, though it enhances the “feel” factor through meaning in words understood through the brain -- it is essentially the “soothing” effect of the music that attracts us. This happens through resonance. The vibrations in certain organized frequencies in the music makes something inside us to ‘resonate’. Now what is this something inside us? Before coming to it, let me say something more about the elements in music. There are two things which effect us, either singularly or together: the tune (which is sung by a voice or played by an instrument) and the rhythm or the beat – be it a percussion instrument or be it an electronically crated beat. Both these tune and the beat together create certain frequency in vibration which in a way takes us into an “attraction” just like a magnetic field created around us. In extreme levels it takes us into a trance like state of being!

                                                                            The Sitar -- an Indian Instrument

In the history of human civilization music always remained an integral part due to such magnetism that it creates, almost like an addiction. Different socio cultural regions get affected by either the tune or the beat or both. We observe that in most African and aboriginal music the rhythmic “beat” gets more importance. Whereas other cultures such as Middle eastern or Indian subcontinent the tune or way of playing or singing a tune might get more importance. However it also would depend as to what genre of music we are talking about – classical, folk, light classical such as Ghazal or a Mridangam (a percussion drum) recital for that matter. As far as the ‘sur’ (in Hindi and some other Indian languages) or ‘swar’ (in Sanskrit) or ‘note’ (in English) is concerned, it vibrates with certain frequency. There are several ‘swar’ or ‘notes’ in Indian as well as Western style music. Each of these musical note has a fixed frequency, for instance Sa: 240 Hertz, Re: 270 Hertz, Ga: 300 Hertz and so on in pure or “shudh” form. In the same way, for Do, Re, Me, Fa etc in Western style too has certain fixed frequencies. These frequencies when sung or played in certain organized order, they create an effect through resonance which is felt inside of us. Something inside our physical body gets affected by this vibration.

                                                          The Indian Santoor adapted from the Iranian Santoor

In my take, it is the “heart” (and could not be the brain) in human body which primarily gets this soothing feel. Which is why in different mood a person remains, gets attracted by a song or tune befitting to his mood at that point in time. The heart feels the music due to the resonance affected on it. One might have noticed how in a musical recital, particularly in Indian classical music performances, an external ambience is created in the concert hall through good smelling incense and soft lighting etc. to “create” a mood for the occasion. This is purposely done so that the audience’s heart gets tunes towards the recital and becomes more receptive for a maximizing effect through ‘resonance’.

My conviction that it is the heart and NOT the brain which reverberates and feels a melody is because even in worship of God through different means specially where music gets used as a tool sought to build a telepathic relation of some sort with the Creator by the created, it is through the heart and not the mind or the brain in our human body. The whole phenomenon of Bhaktivaad (reaching out to the Supernatural Being though devotion, attachment, faith or love) in God Realisation music gets an uppermost importance as a medium. Also many a times we observe that such devotional singing is done in groups, where resonance in fact gets better effected in the whole group as if all members in the commune becomes like one voice trying to reach out to the Eternal Being!

This is exemplified by various types of musical worship techniques. In addition to the Indian styles of Bhakti singing such as Bhajan (common style in Hindi), Borgeet (a style developed by Vaishnavite saint Sankardeva in Assam), Shabad Kirtan (developed by Bhai Mardana, one of the earliest follower of Guru Nanak Dev). In Christianity particularly the Catholic sect uses music as one of the means to reach out to the Almighty. Psalms and hymns in choir singing are done in Catholic churches in congregation. Early period of Christianity however did not have any record of such singing which is why other Christian groups calling themselves restorative churches completely forbid  use of music in their Churches while some others do it only with human vocals without musical instruments. In Islam too there is no specific text in the Qur’an forbidding music as such, but due to the belief’s stress in maintaining a form of worship which is ‘complete submission’ to God without use of any sort of medium including music -- which is taken as a distraction from concentration in worship rather than being a helpful medium – the purists do not use it. However a branch from within Islam called Sufism takes the musical route which manifests in the Swirling Dervish in the middle east or the Zikir (a wrecked form from Dhikr in Arabic meaning “remembrance” – a devotional act in Islam). Similarly in Judaism Klezmer is lavishly sung in synagogues which find its origin from early Biblical era. Klezmer are full of melodious singing in group and are largely influenced by Romanian music. In orthodox Buddhism there is no place for music as it is seen as an earthly thing creating ‘moh’ or attachment to worldly existence rather than a search for pure state of Buddha. However in later periods the Buddhists started integrating “chants” – a form of musical deliberation for memorizing religious texts which many a times includes dance as well. This much would be enough to understand an intrinsic relation of various faiths which use ‘resonance’ as the primary tool to reach out to the Supernatural Being.   

                                                                                             The Swirling Dervish 

On a more earthly affair, a melodious song also effects a romantic or a broken heart very easily due to the resonance that effects it in that state of romance or sadness in the heart. It is often noticed that when a person falls in love he or she is easily attracted by soft melodious songs during that phase of being in love or yearning for love!

The melody in music is often built with ‘komal swar’ or flattened notes (in western style) which lend a lilting effect to the overall tune of a song. In the Indian style, music has been so over-encompassing that in the classical traditions the Ragas (particular combination of notes sung at specific times in a day or night for maximum resonance effect) are personified in imagination as some sort of spiritual personas as Raga (male) and Ragini (female)!

With this backdrop of a musical canvas I will now try to answer my friend’s query. If the melody of a song resembles another (irrespective of the language of the lyrics) it could be an inspired creation where the main tune is taken but twisted entirely to differentiate from the origin. Many of our musicians from ages have been doing it, which we call ‘inspiration’. As for some others who do exact copy of the origin in all its nuances, we must call is ‘perspiration’!