What should make a toilet cleaner or a truck driver or an office assistant wake up every morning & look forward to the day ahead?
What makes a receptionist in a specific company perky and warm, and in the other cold & bored?
Is there more to business than just profits?
Is there a spiritual side to the business, something that makes the mundane meaningful …something that is transmitted like energy by workers on a swanky shop-floor, something that cries out aloud and asks why we are the way we are?
There’s enough in good companies that talks about what we want to do, what we want to achieve. There must be a compelling reason why we want to do what we want to do.
“I never wanted to be a businessman, I just wanted to changed the world” remarked Richard Branson, CEO, Virgin Group .
So how many businesses spell out exactly how they want to change the world. Most even do not make a pretense of trying to make a difference. So when you read the mission & vision statements (and strategy workshop summaries) of most companies, one fails to see a single inspiring statement, a statement that lays out the purpose that gives the employees a sense of a heroic journey that the company has envisaged.
Often it is difficult to read mission/vision statements with a straight face.
So how do you expect to pick yourself up , when you walk into your office on Monday morning after a lovely weekend. How do you plug yourself to the company’s energy and play? How do you connect emotionally to your workplace?
One of the difficulty with this intangible ‘the Spirit of Business’ is how to describe it. And once we have described it, how do we measure it . How do we know how far we have progressed on ‘Changing the World’ platform.
How do we measure the intangible, the one that really matters. And how do we create conditions that support the ‘Spirit of Business’.
One interesting way, in which this is being done by a country called Bhutan. For those who don’t know much about it , it is a small Buddhist monarchy with two mighty Asian neighbours- India & China; almost like a small peaceful village in the middle of two large metropolis cities.
While its two mighty neighbours add trillions to their GDPs, Bhutan has taken a different path. When asked about the Gross National Product of Bhutan, the Dragon King of the kingdom, changed the paradigm and coined Gross National Happiness.
In a simple yet profound Buddhist way he outlined that the purpose of his nation was to create happy citizens. And the goal of his government was to answer a fundamental question- How do we create a habitat of happiness ? How do we create conditions that support the growth of Gross National Happiness?
The GNP aimed to work on increasing things that really mattered to average citizens- the quality of our education, the health of our children, the strength of our marriages, our wisdom, our courage etc.
In order to make it tangible Bhutan broke the GNH into four themes or pillars. The four pillars of GNH include socio-economic development, preservation of cultural values, conservation of the natural environment and establishment of good governance.
These themes were further broken down into fairly tangible GNH indicators : standard of living; health of population; education; vitality and diversity of ecosystem; cultural vitality and diversity, use and balance of time; good governance; community vitality and emotional well being. For example, one indicator to measure diversity of ecosystem is to measure the percentage of forest cover. Only 16% of Bhutan's land is arable, so there is pressure to fell trees and sell timber. But the law requires that the proportion of tree cover must not be less than 65%. At present about 72% of Bhutan is forest.
The GNH concept has lead to an amazing transformation of the country. In a recent development the Dragon King has devolved his power to his subjects. From an absolute monarchy , Bhutan became a constitutional monarchy. The king gave the power to his parliament to sack him (by passing a vote of no confidence). Frankly speaking it is quite difficult to find parallels where an autocrat/monarch has done something similar of his own accord.
Today, more cannabis grows on Bhutan’s soil than grass, but in a kingdom with high GNH nobody smokes marijuana. Instead they feed it to their animals, often the pig, since marijuana is the most popular food for pigs. Incidentally, the pigs do fly in Bhutan.
It is about time we looked at the Gross Employee Happiness as an indicator of company’s success, its sustainability, its culture and vitality. It is also a great way to look at performance . 64% of the world’s GDP is Service Businesses. Happy employees make a profitable service business.
So Intangibles matter. Purpose resonates. And the ‘Spirit of the Company’ needs to be resuscitated.
Comments