India's Foreign Policy & the Modi Doctrine

It is unfortunate that many Indians haven't understood their own national foreign policy.

That's also an irony, as perhaps it is one of the very few policies that haz remained consistent since the time of independence.

The Nehruvian thought of non-alignment haz been adhered to, irrespective of the dispensation in power in New Delhi.

Modi haz simply given impetus to it, namely:

A) He's reframed that value-based belief from being equi-distant to equi-proximate with all, to the maximum practical possibility. 

2) He's put that belief into firm action, and so embraced Washington & Moscow, Tehran & Riyadh, and Tel Aviv & Ramallah, making him perhaps the world's first & only person, dead or alive, to have achieved that distinction of hugging leaders from each of the warring-in-cold pairs.

One should note that he's as much at the high table in the North as connected with the Global South.

3) Finally, hiz unique characteristic is that as the first Indian leader to be born post-independence, he haz traveled the world, sans any hangover or inkling of colonial past. In fact, as a true Bhartiya, he haz unabashedly engaged the diaspora and used India's soft power to the brim. He is known to have demanded from hiz hosts the return of stolen from India ancient idols, even as he gifts them unique artifacts from across India, made by our artisans today.

To hiz distinction, he haz remained undefeated & steadfast since May 2014, while all hiz counterparts across the world are seen playing musical chairs. Irrespective of who comes to power and from which party, a Modi-meet is seen to be on every global leader's to-do list. Modi haz been conferred more highest civilian national awards in foreign lands than any other contemporary leader.

It became a great vantage point for India, as, notwithstanding the global pandemic, or the Ukraine war, or instability in the global order, most national capitals consider India as a reliable friend. 

India, under Modi's watch rose on the GDP ranks from #11 to #4 (soon to be #3) with one of the best macroeconomic performances in the world. 

The last G20 summit under Modi's India turned out to be a showpiece for the world, achieving what even the UN had not.

At the G20, a body of the most powerful & wealth controling nations, India managed to bring the otherwise disagreeing America, Russia, and China to converge on a joint communique, including bringing the poor African Union on board.

India haz begun to exert influence & move the global commodity markets.

Its growing military power, financial muscle, and technological prowess are worthy of envy for many.

Whether in the Western or Eastern hemisphere, she is well represented in every major body, including the QUAD & BRICS, both of which are opposing forces. The G20, I2U2, and the G7, to which India is a permanent invitee, are the other names worthy of mention. All these bodies are now suddenly witnessing a vociferous contribution by India.

Not being on the permanent member list at the UN as that bloated body fails to reform, is not India's embarrassment, but the UN's.

Under Modi's leadership, India is expanding its global footprint through various bilateral agreements, including trade in regional currencies. 

It is he who had begun to alter, if not change, the global narrative, and not the ever-volatile Trump. On the contrary, America under Trump is seen isolating itself.

All thiz haz clearly generated great interest about India across the world 

So, what is India's unique serving proposition?

Let's get one thing clear - India haz no enemies, not even Pakistan. She works with whosoever satisfies the security and needs of her people.

India doesn't dominate. In fact, she is famous for being the first responder to the distress call from any corner of the world. While the rich world hoarded vaccines to make a quick buck during the global pandemic, India indulged in vaccine diplomacy by playing the savior for the smallest and the poorest nations of the world.

India sure haz her agenda for peace.

Having said that, she is not naïve. 

India is a forward moving modern nation and simultaneously a wise ancient civilization. History haz taught her well of the wicked ways of the mean world. These memories have been revived under the Modi regime, so, a robust defense program is under implementation. 

India is no longer a soft state; she's a sharp power, writing her own story. 

If anyone haz an alternative agenda for her, then she mitigates and responds accordingly, putting the adversary in its place.

The calibrated Operation Sindoor, is a ripe example. It waz started, courtesy the damn Pakis' who provoked through a cowardly terror act, and so we responded with force, but when the decimated other side halted firing, we too instantly stopped our generous selves from continuing the war. 

Unprovoked, the new government of Maldives postured against India, favoring the Chinese. Knowing that the island economy relies on Indian tourists, Modi gestured Indians to visit Lakshadweep instead. They instantly realized their folly and fell in line. India too reciprocated friendship. 

The same is true with Turkey. They had no business to support the damn Pakis. We resumed relations with them but only after responding in kind, namely supporting their adversary, Armenia, and reporting to the Turks that they bloody well fall within our missile range.

We had already begun normalizing relations with China after they withdrew their troops in October, restoring the status quo. Our leaders, including Rajnath Singh, S. Jaishankar, and Ajit Doval, were in touch with them since the incursions.

The correct way to look at all thiz is that at times, some lose their minds and walk out, but India keeps the door ajar. Upon regaining conscience and scruples, they all reenter our good graces.

Enjoy the ride; you're sitting atop an unshackled wise elephant that marches on.

Bolo Bharat Mata Ki … Jai Ok Please!

 

 

English Vinglish

The language wars in India are so sad. 

Most of us don't realize the gravity of the situation we're dealing with. 

Words are energy pellets. 

Words can be translated but not the connotations they carry. 

The connotations also give rise to both imagination and emotions. If language is the vehicle of expression, the denotation & connotation combined are potent enough to change the conscience & the direction of the travellers in that vehicle. 

The honerable Home Minister Amit Shah recently said, "Language is not just the medium of communication, in it is also the soul of the nation. Our roots, traditions, history and culture, cannot move forward separately from the Indian languages. We must keep our languages alive and also enrich them."

The gap between the thought and speech is an impairment. 

While we can't give up English due to its global spread arising out of the British imperialism in the past, considering that we are an ancient civilization, there needn't be a sense of pride in the language of the oppressor. 

In the Be-Know-Do sequence, let's not forget our Beingness.

We must not turn anti-English, but we can surely attempt to be non-English.  

It means, English can be our language for the sake of easy of transaction, not thought. That still allows us to be as good in English as anyone else in the world. 

Today's zero-summing is hurting us. 

A lot of our ills today are due to the impact of the infamous Macaulay education system. 

It was a system where one was made to feel that English-ness was the only ticket for escaping poverty, no matter how alien the language was to the Indian way of life. 

Post independence, we continued it as a mandatory requirement for higher education, not mindful of the employ-ability for almost all of the population. 

Even today, after 75 years of independence, only around 11% speak English as their first language of choice. 

What's worse is that we look down upon those who don't speak good English and hold in awe those who do, especially if it carries an American accent.

Ironically, in words of none other than Rahul Gandhi, "The escape from poverty in India became more difficult than the escape velocity of Jupiter!"

Interestingly, the Chinese have not just translated but even sinicized a lot of foreign works, including the Gita, Bible, & Koran. 

I believe that if an Indian Muslim student read her religious texts in an official Sanskritized version, i.e., in the vernacular language of her choice, be it Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, etc., she & her faith would be well served.

Currently, she risks being manipulated as she can't understand Arabic, and so is at the mercy of the middlemen. I guess she is somewhat shackled simply because she learns per the translators' vested interests and follows his agenda and not what the text prescribes.

Communication is the key to being upward bound. 

In that, the first rule of effective communication is that your language should be aligned with the language in which your listener is having an internal dialogue. So, if Indians speak in English to an English man, it's all well, good, and understood. Both's proficiency, and cognitive frequency, if matching, adds to the effectiveness. However, we must appreciate the gaps if one is not good in English. 

The distinction that comes to the fore is that between our wealth and wellbeing. 

With English, one can get wealthy a wee bit more easily in India, even when very few speak it, and that is our peculiarity worthy of being ashamed of. 

It doesn't mean others can't be rich. The issue is, some of us are wealthy just because we speak in English. 

When one can't associate with the masses and vice versa because you are somewhat "foreign" to them & they to the you, your psychological well-being is that much compromised. 

Nehru's 'tryst with  destiny' speech, being in English, remained a speech writer’s joy as almost all Indians at the time couldn't understand the one who delivered it, and vice versa. 

Modi is considered as one of the best communicator. 

It is time that we get it that Modi's 'global leader' status is not because he speaks in English. 

It is, because he thinks in "Indian" and therefore as an Indian PM and representative of his country, he can speak his mind with confidence. 

That confidence comes with being at ease with his origin even in the international arena.

In the final reckoning, strength recognizes strength.

Sadly, within India, his speeches in Hindi are well understood by about half of the Indian population!

Dharmic Bharat

Those who seek inspiration from a Western (or the Islamic or Communist) model and use their lens to define Bharat don't understand what this land and its people are all about. 

That includes many Indians who have only been under the influence of the education system as left behind by the erstwhile colonists (including the invaders). Colonists are gone, but coloniality remains. 

They rely on Western ideas of separating faith from state, thereby overlooking the uniqueness of our land, its people, and their idea of their Being.

To make a distinction between Hinduism and Bharat is to discriminate one against the other and do injustice to both.

Hindus and Bharat aren't separate entities. They are not even joined at the hip or soldered together.

In the Indian psyche, Bharat without the Hindus or the Hindus without Bhartiyata can't exist.

The sari-clad imagery of Bharat Mata (Mother-India), which resembles powerful Hindu Goddesses, bears the fact.

In fact, the word Hindu, which is not mentioned in any scriptures, comes from Hindustan, not the other way around. 

The word Hindustan was coined by those who lived outside Bharat to describe the geographic significance of the landmass. Hindustan is the approximate region between Him-paravat (now the Himalayan mountains) & Indu-mahasagar (now the Indian Ocean). That area is what they called Hindustan, and the people living there as the Hindus. 

Those people on the west of ancient Bharat recognized that in the form of faith existing in Hindustan, all and any belief or practice, including none at all, is accepted, i.e., if one is seeking peace, redemption, or salvation. 

The only fundamental here - is that there's none. 

Thus, the narrow singular steadfast concepts of The God, The Holy Book, The Holy Day, etc., do not exist here. There are no claimants, each is a seeker - based on his or her method or understanding. 

It is this philosophy which gave rise to Bhartiata or "Cultural Secularism," one which allowed the Hindus to accept the Jews, fleeing from religious persecution and to shelter them; it allowed for the making of one of the earliest mosques in the world i.e., Cheraman Masjid by a Hindu king for the convenience of his Muslim visitors; it allowed for the Ezharappallikal Churches in the first century within the Brahmin community at Malabar Coast; it allowed for a Hindu king to resettle the Parsis who were displaced from Persia including building a fire temple for them and one in which the king himself or his subjects agreed not to enter as requested by the Parsi immigrants.

All this much before a written Western-influenced constitution found its roots here. 

This ancient, open, and wise "Cultural Secularism" is an integral part of the Hindu psyche and governs the Hindu mindset. The current constitution that governs India, as derived by copying the Western concept of constitution, is somewhat incompatible with India's innate thought. 

In India, a secular government must embrace Dharma and not avoid it. 

In fact, the actual name of the practices of the people of Hindustan is Sanatana Dharma, meaning a timeless principled duty.

This gives the people of the land a collective sense of Beingness that is distinct and unique from the rest of the world.

Consider this: Both the Pakistani and Indian sides have Punjabis, and the Bangladeshi and Indian sides have Bengalis. Although the language and many practices of both may overlap, the Beingness differs, and therefore, the Purpose, too. 

The distinction between "matra bhumi" (or only a piece of land) and "matru bhumi" (the motherland) came to the fore, and so, as demanded by their Islamic leaders, the partitions were inevitable. 

Had they accepted the land with reverence and sacredness, irrespective of their religion, they would have found enough cultural compatibility with those practicing Sanatana Dharma.

Since Dharmic people do not have fundamentals, as in structured "religion," there is no scope for "othering" those whose practices differ. 

One needn't be born a Hindu; one can choose to live as one or even abandon the religious or ritualistic aspects around it. 

Obviously, then, in the conscience of Hindus, concepts such as blasphemy, heresy, apostasy & punishment thereof are alien. Thus, there has never been a conflict between the State and religion, nor have there been "holy wars" here, as in the West. 

How can there be a conflict when it is not even a religion in the word's true meaning? 

If it is anything, it is a way of life - to each their own!

However, the idea of the motherland above everything else is a must and non-negotiable.

Prime Minister Modi's success has been in the simple fact that he has managed to harness that Beingness and given it a solid purpose. He refused to be anyone else but a Dharmic Indian. 

Bharat is innately Dharmic and, therefore, panth nirpeksh, or path neutral. In other words, the pluralism of the polytheistic way of living is fully compatible with the monotheistic religions. The vice versa should also be true.

In essence, a Dharmic Christian, Dharmic Muslim, or Dharmic Atheist can also be rooted in our past and wedded to our collective future of serving the motherland with no conflict. 

Any person can practice any religion or none at all and still be a Hindustani simultaneously.

It is, therefore, possible for all to remain in service of this sacred land and add sweetness, like the example of the 'sugar-in-the-milk' that the wise Parsis have demonstrated after leaving Persia and becoming Indian. 

The maturity of the respective religious shepherds would be in directing their flock to harness the spirit that one's religion can change or be abandoned. Still, the core tenets of one's culture needn't. 

In conclusion, the Indian civilizational culture, values, and ethos, which give this nation its collective mindset and conscience, lie beyond the ambit of any legislation. It is that which truly governs lifestyle at the conscious and unconscious levels, all of which existed for several millennia before the constitution was written.

The prosperity of any minority depends on consciously remaining anchored in ancient India's Civilizational Ethos, which gives it its cultural secularism, and on remaining aligned to an Interdependent common future that is in tandem with service to the motherland. 

No group should claim exclusivity and ask others to accommodate them in a manner that inconveniences most others. 

It then follows from universal commonsense, and applicable worldwide, that the real security of any minority is in the goodwill of the majority, not the law. 

Every group must assimilate; no one should self-isolate themselves.

May the Gods bless Bharat and her Dharma 🙏 

The Marriage Mantra

Roughly 40 plus percentage of all first marriages in the United States are estimated to end in divorce over time. Some persons divorce multiple times. 

By comparison, divorces in India are rare, very rare - about 1%.

It's a worthy ponder - why?

Ours is the only living culture where even Gods and Goddesses get married. The Gods and Goddesses possess unique intrinsic qualities that are indispensable to the other, hence the interdependent relationship.

It is a balance, the very essence of being a complementary couple.

That message serves us in our mortal world - for married couples, for families, and therefore for humanity at large.

Our scriptures contain more stories with interpretive messages than any single person can possibly comprehend. These stories are the essence of our cultural pluralism. That a spouse is for eternity, including in reincarnated lives, is a powerful message emanating from our scriptures.

There isn’t even a word for ‘divorce’ in any of our hundreds of native languages!

To a Bharatiya, marriage is a civilizational duty.

It is a sacrament, where the day and time are chosen as auspicious, the process is ritualistic, presided over by a pundit, and witnessed by divinity itself, symbolized by fire.

There is no such thing as a poor marriage. It can be as grand or as small as one wishes. What matters is that it is attended by close family and blessed by elders. On getting married, in spirit, the couple's respective families are expected to fuse into one.

In the couple’s own cognition, upon marrying, they instantly inherit a cultural heritage and the responsibility to pass on the legacy of civilizational ethos by bearing children.

And so, ours is the only ancient civilization that continues to survive and thrive since thousands of years.

Only those distanced from their own culture are easily seduced by the illusion of absolute individuality, an alien concept in our society. It is they who are ready to abandon our time-tested ideas of family and well-being.

They fail to learn to accept the vagaries of married life, which are nothing more than karmic offerings and outcomes. Not having invested in matured bonding through sacrifice, and having focused only on the dividends of a relationship, marriage inevitably feels like bondage when friction from life's turning wheel shows up.

They then conclude that there is only one life, and that maturity lies in reaching one's potential through efficiency, rather than the more effective long-term ways of a stable family. 

They attempt to make marriage work as a contractual arrangement, and when they discover that human relations are built on adjustment and not linear logic, they try to control their spouse, or simply abdicate responsibility by becoming indifferent to the other's needs.

With time, they separate or divorce.

Perhaps they rationalize that it is better to be miserably lonely than unhappily married.

They have become excessively Western in thought, and underestimate the significance of marriage, without assessing the impact of diluted marriage on Western society itself.

So, while Indian marriages endure, the innately Abrahamic-cultured nations are seen struggling to retain the family structure.

Having said that, the gold, glitter, glitz and glam of rich urban households during wedding season gets all the media attention and gossip traction.

We too are forgetting what marriage in our culture is about.

We have begun to associate a cluster of invented entertaining events with marriage.

No - marriage is not a party.

Marriage is also not just cohabitation. One doesn't just share half the bed; one pawns 100% of their sleep, discards their personal reality, and builds on new possibilities together with the significant other.

Let us not mistake marriage for the tamasha of pre- and post-wedding events.

Let us keep its sanctity intact.

In India, marriage is not the happy ending for a couple in love. It is the beginning of a love story!

Burry That Coloniality

Wherever the British have ruled, they have attempted to reduce the locals & force fit all practices into their binary model, i.e., practices can be classified as religious or secular. Period. 

The reality is that Hinduism is not a religion but a philosophy. It does not come from any single doctrine; it is nonprescriptive.

It is all about the sole, birth, rebirth, consciousness, human nature, and its relationship with nature, including the entire universe. Here, the God & all creations of God are merged, i.e., are one & the same.

The colonizers failed to comprehend that Hinduism does not have the narrow, singular, steadfast concepts of God, the Holy Place, the Holy Book, the Holy Day, etc., that are the essence of monotheistic religions. 

That there is no authority or claimants to methods for salvation among the Hindus and that each is a seeker, based on his or her method or understanding, should have been intriguing to any visitor. 

In the conscience of such Hindus, concepts like blasphemy, heresy, apostasy & punishment thereof are alien. 

This completely perplexed the British. 

In ancient India, there was no conflict between the Hindus & other faiths until other faiths took it upon themselves to "rescue" the Hindus through conversion by inducements or force. 

There was no conflict between the State & the Hindu faith, nor had there been any "holy wars" here, all of which have happened in the West.

It should have left the British wonder-struck. 

But what the mind cannot distinguish, the eye can't see. 

To them, the heathen had to be rescued. 

The colonists, instead of appreciating the plurality in the Hindu faith, saw that there was no standardized practice of worship.

That meant an opportunity to exploit, and they did and how!

They deemed that almost everything outside the four walls of the Hindu temples could be considered secular and subject to law and state meddling. So, worship of God inside the temple is in the domain of the faithful but the prasad, loosely translated as God's graced food offering/blessing, its sale can be contracted by the state to the non faithful, even when it will be consumed only by the faithful. 

Go figure!

Hinduism doesn't begin & end inside the temple; it is a way of life. In fact temples are said to be in existence since only 3,000 years. History of Hindus is much older than that. 

Even the temple complex was hardly a place of just worship. It was a central activity place with a large complex for community gatherings. Dwellers, craftsmen, and artists, as well as commercial activities, took place around there.

Beautiful architectural design & engineering marvels were its USP. 

For the British, God was separated from his creation, so religious & secular partition was a must. 

For the Hindus, God is omnipresent. 

The British began to fix what was not broken. 

The British ruled for almost 200 long years !

During that period, they not only captured the land but also colonized the minds of the people of Bharat through their education. 

They took a few into the Christian fold through active proselytizing & a few more through education, by what is known as "Macaulayism."

In "Baron" Macaulay's own words:

“We must do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect.”

It was an education system to unleashed disdain for all things native or indigenous of Bharat, be it their language, knowledge, beliefs, customs, culture, clothes, faith & practices.  

They showed that all that was good was theirs, and all that was bad was due to the locals' own doing, including their culture. 

Coloniality refers to long-standing patterns of power that emerged due to the colonialists but that define culture, intersubjective relations, and knowledge production well beyond the strict limits of colonial administration. 

Thus, coloniality survives colonial rule, where people believe all things of the West are wonderful & wise.

Much wealth and knowledge was looted from here. To make blatant of what was obvious, they even stole the word 'loot' and appropriated it into the English language!

Having been influenced by that kind of agenda-driven, indoctrinating education, the people of Bharat began to compromise and sacrifice their core values. 

That coloniality never left us. Englishness became our ticket to prosperity. 

Some of us with little talent or skill are still wealthy simply because we speak good English, the language of the oppressor, that bulk of our countrymen don't understand. 

That's a tragedy, isn't it, because language is the vehicle of expression, but in language is entwined the inseparable emotions and imagination and so it tells one where the vehicle leads one to. 

Well, much of that gets lost in translation. 

As a reference to context, take the word Dharma as an example. Dharma has no translation in English. It can be explained as the innate law or the principled duty, but is translated as religion. 

Get the irony, religion is foreign to the Indian. 

Modi the Unifier

The Liberals have no idea how & from where did thiz sudden Hindu resurrection occur & hit them so hard. 

Well, Hinduism waz never dead, had just gone a bit dormant, and awaiting for an opportune moment to rise again. 

And then Modi did his bit.

The clarion call waz given on his first trip to Varanasi, when he had said "Mai na aaya hoon, na mujhe kisi ne bheja hai. Maa Ganga ne mujhe bulaya hai !"

He held his hands in a prayer, bowed & took a dip.

And when he resurfaced & rose, a billion faithful hopefuls knew their time has come. The Hindu culture's renaissance waz round the corner. 

Ten years on, Modi has not only injected life to Hinduism, but did it with the all the pomp & prayer that thiz tryst with destiny demanded.

He single handedly rejuvenated the faith with an energetic zeal across the nation, the world included. 

But weren't the Hindus a divided lot - by caste, language,  practice? How so suddenly did they come together screaming 'Jai Shri Ram' in a chorus?

Well, for most part, the Bharat bhakt creed converges on the acceptance of Bharat Mata as their reason of being.

To them, Bharat Mata represents both, the land mass & the all-encompassing Hindu faith, notwithstanding the many differences. 

She can be understood in the geographical sense - land between the Him-parvat (Himalayas) & the Indu-sagar (Indian ocean), thus representing the Hindu.

And then the Hindu worships the sun, sky, rivers, ocean, mountain, trees, etc found here on thiz land,  making it sacred. 

On an interesting spiritual sense, while ancient Bharat waz having many rulers & kingdoms, the pilgrims of thiz land had unlimited "visa-less" travel permits across the many borders, to visit places of worship or for special festivals like say the religious melas since time immemorial.

Throughout history, the religious prayers, hymns, songs, stories & poems evoked Bharat's total or akhand landscape with a spiritual sense and mentioned the numerous rivers, mountains including spiritual seers & scholars.

It mattered not in which kingdom the author lived or in which region were the natural landscapes or sages.

Thiz in itself was a unifying geographical connect, including an embedded spiritual cum patriotic calling upon the people.

Thiz makes Bharat and its people the most unique in the world. No wonder then, while empires, rulers & governments have all come and gone, Bharat's Hindu centric civilizational ethos, or the Sanatana Dharma is the oldest surviving one. 

And so, without hesitation, over 550 princely states came together to immediately form the Union of India, at the time of exit of the British rule in India. 

Today's Hindians (Hindu & Indians) are the obvious progeny of those folks from different regions, but we know that they converged on an idea that thiz is their sacred land. 

By any imagination, it is not a zero-sum game at all, so, if the Christians & Muslims accept that they are converts, they shouldn't have any problem in accepting the indigenous idea either. 

Modi haz simply connected the people with their ancestral roots.

In a discordant & divided world, Bharat stands out.

After Sardar Vallabhai Patel, who united Bharat physically, Modi haz now done the same emotionally.

Bolo Bharat Mata Ki ... Jai Okay Please 🙏 🇮🇳

The Living Grand Narrative

Most business owners fail to find their core values that, when lived, make them feel fulfilled. If they do, they cannot offer a farsighted vision and cannot confidently articulate the same. 

The journey from values to vision separates the winners from the whiners. The connecting processes lie between the person and their purpose. The ultimate power lies in the processes themselves that serve so long as they maintain integrity between:

• Values

• Vision

• The well-being of the people that run the organization

For the core values that the organization's leader endears to manifest, the purpose-driven vision to take shape, and processes to unfold through the team while maintaining integrity, deep involvement and commitment are required from all those who work in the organization, not just the business owner. 

How does one bring about such an organizational transformation? 

It happens when every stakeholder participates responsibly. This is where leadership gets tested. Therefore, leadership is a privilege and an opportunity for individuals to let their creativity flow within the organization.

In business, the magic lies in the leader’s ability to connect with the men, materials, machines, merchandise, and markets and make money for all stakeholders.

Leadership is the art of getting others to do, what you want to do, because they want to do it - Dwight D. Eisenhower

Leadership is truly an art. It is not a set formula or plans and certainly not a sequential things-to-do type of checklist. Business is highly dynamic. Modern commercial business, as we know it, is not a natural entity but an artificial construct. It came into existence out of a parliamentary act, is regulated, must work within the legal framework, is subject to statutory audits, and penalties are imposed for noncompliance.

Not being natural, it is prone to disintegrate unless there is sufficient emotional stamina at the top and a high coalescing force at the bottom of an organization. 

What often compounds the problem is the business owner’s dilemma. Owner-operated companies have an inherent conflict between the owner as a Shareholder and the owner as a CEO, as both are the same person. Invariably, the dominant self-identity eclipses the other, leading to an unbalanced approach.

The owner-Shareholder part is interested in organizational stability, long-term sustainability and growth, appropriate and timely dividends, high valuation, and perhaps even a smart exit strategy. Usually, this identity becomes diminished in most but never gets eliminated. 

On the other hand, the owner-CEO is interested in day-to-day functioning, procuring more business, chasing customers, managing survival while simultaneously scaling up, and seeking a handsome salary. This identity remains active due to the daily grind. 

The impact of this inherent conflict is that the person at the helm remains in a perpetual dilemma, and the company remains unstable. 

The goal is to balance the owner's conflicting pursuits as a Shareholder and a CEO.

This dichotomy gets accentuated during the next-level transition, such as scaling up, delegating authority, succession planning, strategizing, governance, business acquisition, or exiting and retirement. 

Irrespective of its size, a stable business running continuously on cruise control is virtually impossible. People who work in it, including the owner, will likely not be hinged or aligned with the values or long-term vision. Issues are bound to crop up due to ideological differences and ambition-action mismatch amongst various stakeholders.

The other issue is that the business is prone to destabilization due to external factors such as geopolitics, government policies, market conditions, competition movements, and changing attitudinal trends of customers and employees alike. 

Consider this: The river is the same for the fisherman. Still, the water quantity, depth, temperature, and surroundings in the river keep changing with external weather and climate conditions affecting his catch.

Few business owners truly understand that the business entity, in theory, remains on an infinite journey, so every external success is momentary. It is no different than the cursed life of Sisyphus, who had to push a boulder up the mountain repeatedly for all eternity. It is because if he rested even for a moment, it would come rolling down on him and crush him under its weight. Hence, the unending chore had to be done again and again. 

In the real world, we see so many companies having new start-up enterprise kind of problems, even after being in business for decades. They keep falling back as the force of the chaos exceeds their injected energy when they rest on their laurels.

The Bhagavad Gita’s sobering message of ‘Do your deeds devoid of desire’ has a profound spiritual and philosophical relevance for most of us personally. However, that wisdom is unlikely to be wholly and severally relatable to all members in the organization's context. That is so much due to everyone’s varying moral codes, backgrounds, wants, and ever-changing group dynamics. 

Therefore, the distinction between ambition and aspiration must be appreciated for the sake of the organization's longevity. We can only look for convergence in the latter. 

Ambition is personal. For the owner, it can be the highest sales turnover, maximizing profit, becoming the top company, beating the competition, getting an industry award, etcetera. For the employee, it typically relates to a higher salary and designation.

A big purchase order would make the owner happy, but the factory worker may view it as more work. 

On the other hand, aspiration is about each person's need to keep becoming a better version of themselves. Each person intrinsically desires to achieve this, and they can use the organization as an available platform. When that is tapped into as a relentless work-in-progress by the person at the helm, there is scope for success, as everyone likes to emulate the example-setting leader at the top.

Eventually, there will be a significant enough critical workforce that “gets it.” 

This is where transformation begins, first with the business owner, then the core team, and consequently, with the entire company. Once that is done, it becomes slightly less exhausting for the owner, who becomes a true entrepreneur. It is less about being in constant convincing mode now, as the team is well-aligned toward realizing a common goal. Everyone begins to perceive complex problems as interesting challenges. They participate in active resolution by offering more of themselves and, in the process, reinventing themselves into the next higher version of themselves.

Failure, which earlier brought panic and sorrow among members, will now only galvanize them. They learn from it by seeking constructive feedback. In fact, they even begin to contribute their learnings with risk-mitigating feedforwards. The setback merely acts as an insight for a more informed comeback. Through such an inside-out approach and clear understanding, personal victory supersedes the want for public recognition. 

Then, the next stage takes shape. 

A transformational strategy is required, where all actions or responses must be long-term and creative. 

For our purpose, strategy is about operating in a niche area to achieve a specific objective without sacrificing core values or deviating from the vision. It also involves having a personalized approach while dealing with all stakeholders, ensuring overall organizational integrity is maintained.

A company without such a strategy is like a kite with no strings attached. It will float aimlessly in the marketplace winds for a while and soon crash to the ground.

Peter Drucker famously offered, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast." While it may have been evident to him, as an abundant clarity, culture, and strategy need not be considered separate and distinct entities outside the academic or consulting world. This is especially true for the owner entrepreneur or any leader, where there is a clear line of sight between the owner/leader and employees/followers. Merging culture with strategy will serve more, ensuring that the people who execute the plans and their collective mindset are aligned.

In other words, for the owner entrepreneur, culture is strategy.

Culture is defined as the characteristics of a group of people with shared cognitive constructs, leading to typical behaviour patterns. These are learned and fostered by observation and socialization. 

The leader's job, therefore, is to strongly influence the people's minds within the organization so that they can effectuate a recurring winning behavioural pattern.

In other words, before any leader can sell their ideas, they must buy the minds of all the people within the organization with their authentic value-vision proposition. 

Once they subscribe to it, it becomes the organization's Living Grand Narrative. 

The leader is not required to always be physically present in such a scenario because their team willingly undertakes a larger collective responsibility, which allows the leader to get out of the way. Freed, the leader can then devote time to think of the next possibilities, keeping the organization ahead of the curve.  

Such a company builds trust and can often turn around challenging trade-offs, converting many “this versus that” binaries into the more accommodative “this and that.” 

Generalized Faulty Beliefs began to dissipate slowly. One need not stand on a pedestal and scream at the staff to extract more work from them. Instead, one can be nice to the employees and still function as an effective leader by bringing out the best in them. This kind of strategic work culture easily enrols the workforce in the organizational value-vision narrative.

A leader does not charge at them; he or she charges them up.

It is about coming close to them while remaining tall, as they hold the leader in high esteem.

 

Companies operating with this kind of a Living Grand Narrative are like an army unit. They are structured but not rigid. In fact, they are agile. That agility comes from the capacity of all individuals to experience a safe space, allowing them to promptly make relevant decisions at their respective levels. They can do so and act accordingly, as the company's Living Grand Narrative acts as a constant guide. 

It eventually leads to the entire company becoming entrepreneurial.

That is in stark contrast to most of the typical companies, where the only decision that every junior employee takes is at the behest of the manager. They lack confidence and are further constrained by unnecessary moralizing policies. Hence, even when the situation demands, they are found twiddling their thumbs. They are not trained to seek out the moral from an emerging story and cannot act after making a principled decision.

To better understand what is on offer, let us take the example of the army unit again. Each member of the unit holds high moral values, and so, as a civilian, or in a non-war situation, will never kill anyone on their own accord. However, the same person in a soldier’s role would readily kill the enemy on a battlefield. That’s not all. They will use their personal morals and professional ethics as a foundation to reason and make a principled decision as the changing situation demands. If a situation so arises, they are capable of deciding when to kill an enemy soldier or capture and take the opponent as a prisoner of war. A soldier’s primary objective is to win the war. So, the soldier will not hesitate to eliminate anybody who blocks that path. The captured prisoner of war is not blocking the path anymore. So, the soldier takes the call on the spot and may even decide to feed or administer first aid to the enemy, who is now incapacitated and deemed benign.

For the Indian army, one of the best in the world, such a scenario has actually come about in several wars, including the last one at Kargil. That war was televised, and the nation witnessed firsthand how the Indian army had not only tended to the POWs but did not fire on the retreating enemy once the war was called off. They even gave an honourable burial to the fallen Pakistani soldiers that were left behind, as that nation sadly refused to claim their own dead. That pretty much defines the Indian army and its’ evolved culture.

In the company’s context, an evolved culture is about executing work that continually raises standards, thereby adding to the sustainability and growth of the organization while building pride amongst the stakeholders. An organization has no expiry date. Thus, a high-quality output must be produced without feeling fatigued. 

When children play hard on the field, they, in fact, feel relaxed. An evolved culture is as much about work gamification, where various departmental teams stop competing with each other. Instead, they cooperate with each other without losing their competitive spirit to take on the competition. 

A larger purpose coalesces them together and lifts them above petty squabbles to become a team for the greater good of the company and the individuals.

The TEAM’s meaningful backronym is “Together Everyone Achieves More,” such that “Together Each Achieves More!”

For such an evolved culture to form, the onus is on the leader to set a powerful tone for the organization. Communication from the leader is the key that opens the door to possibilities. Communication is not simply speaking or oratory skills.

The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place - George Bernard Shaw

Communication involves verbal and nonverbal messaging. Its impact is influenced by the emotional context in which employees perceive the leader's thinking, speaking, and behaviour. For the message to be heard effectively, it must be completely in sync with the audience's background, culture, and the occasion or situation.

In their book, The Three Laws of Performance, Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan have explained the connection between leadership and performance with the following:

1. How people perform correlates to how situations occur to them.

2. How a situation occurs arises in language.

3. Future-based language transforms how situations occur to people.

These laws can be applied to any general or specific situation. 

From the employees’ point of view, their biggest “situation” is - what kind of leader they have to deal with every day in the organization. 

It has a lot to do with how the leader comes across in their communication. Communication is all-encompassing in both the evident and silent messages being delivered. It includes light banter in the lunch area, daily conversation in the corridor, tone and topics during meetings, formal internal memos, and town hall speeches. Overall, how is the leader perceived? Does the language and tone sound like a mandate or a statement of intent? Does the intent stick to or betray the values and vision of the organization? What emotions do they evoke? Is the person self-centred, or do they consider the employees’ point of view too? 

What does it all say about the unborn future under the leader? 

Only when the leader sticks to the stated value-vision path do they appear empowered and capable of empowering all others on the same route. However, if the leader deviates, the person saps energy and does a disservice to their charisma.  

Perception matters!

A leader is the company's living, walking, talking notice board.

Communication does not depend on syntax, eloquence, rhetoric, or articulation but on the emotional context in which the message is being heard. Even the choicest of words lose power if used to overpower. Attitudes are the real figure of speech – Edwin Friedman

Consider this: People from different professional or socioeconomic statuses in the present are still drawn to a school reunion because they are still compatible with the past, where they have shared fond memories. That evokes certain emotions and propels them to come back together. The leader's job is to mirror just that, to create a vision of a common aspiring future in the collective imagination. It occurs through the right language, which triggers positive emotions.

Spoken and unspoken communication reveals a lot about us and forms the basis for how we judge each other.

What you are shouts so loudly in my ears that I cannot hear what you say - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Only if employees perceive their leader to consistently demonstrate integrity towards the stated purpose without sacrificing any underlying values and show them the way by going the way will that leader be respected. They will then accept them as their leader, be drawn to the person, and assist in the common cause of creating a better future. Language can influence, motivate, enable, and empower a team. Language is contagious. Therefore, the leader's language can change the conscience and energy of an organization and its cultural setting and even decide its destiny.

In the final reckoning, only effective communication leads to an evolved organizational culture that brings about an enabled strategy. Let our values and vision communicate who we are!