I recently sat on the jury of an award that was truly an award. I say this as there are awards, and then there are awards. Many are sponsored, some are sold and some are bought. But this one was different: This was an award to recognise the best-managed companies in India. Every member of the jury was a name I was able to look up to as an icon of modern India. A jury that packed diversity in every sense as well. I was happy.
I sat through the presentations by founders and CEOs from a host of companies. These presentations covered every aspect of business, the innovation they brought in, the challenges they faced, and the changes they made in the wake of new business circumstances, but I kept wondering what they were missing.
Every company was a blue-chip name and a leader in its own space. The management width, depth and exposure of all those who ran the company from top to bottom showcased excellence. There was passion to be felt in every management action. Equally, there was science, good engineering, innovation and excellence to boot. The Human Resources practices were excellent, as were the attempts to involve the company in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals that looked at the betterment of the planet at large.
As I sat through it all over days of involved work, I kept looking for the “missings” though. “Missings” that will make for the best-managed company of the future. These are companies that were out on the hunt for the superlative. They were looking to be the best. Not just good, or for that matter, better. What were these companies really missing for now? These were really the sharp companies of corporate India. How do they get to be sharper? What’s sharp in the future then?
I do believe that strategy is the immune system of an organisation. And immunity is that much desired after elixir, as business organisations sail through tough and uncertain times. I made a list then. A list that says what the best-managed company of the future will have to look like. Over to the top three on this list then.
1. Correcting our collective wrongs
Business society, by and large over the decades of existence, has done a lot of wrong. These wrongs include an assault on natural resources, a complete exploitation of what is available without thinking of ways and means to replenish the earth, a callous attitude to pollution of every kind (earth, water, air and noise included), a selfish and exploitative mindset towards every resource, and more. Lots more.
Time to correct these wrongs then. Time to embrace every ESG goal with real passion, as opposed to lip service, or for that matter, a rather fashionably frivolous and skin-deep adoption of these goals in practice. The best-managed companies of the future will need to have clear, goal-oriented behavior with equally clear targets to say how they are undoing the wrong every passing year, instead of adding to it cumulatively.
In the case of many companies, the very basis of their existence will come under question if one is to peek deep into the aspects of the harm done to nature, society, people and the earth. I need not list the category of products that come under this ambit, as every one of us is quite aware of them. We are aware, but have decided to shut our eyes to it all. Eyes wide shut.
2. Spending sans the profit motive
Now this is a difficult one. The best-managed companies of the future will need to be spending ahead of the curve when it comes to the intent of rectifying the harm done by the company’s operations, both current and cumulative. In many ways, every company will need to make a list of its negative deeds over the decades. Just as every company lists its positive achievements, every company needs to list its negative ones. And having done that, time to put together a complete plan as to how it intends to address the issues on this list.
Addressing this list of negative achievements is really all about spending without the profit motive. Every company needs to have a “loss centre”, just as it has a “profit centre”. This loss centre is all about spending without profit in sight ever. Can the loss centre be the new glamour area for the best-managed company to occupy and claim as its own?
A clear example is the kind of harm caused by the Diesel Generator (DG) used by literally every industry. Pollution has added to the misery of today in terms of clean air quality. Time for every industry to correct this then by installing equipment that rectifies the issue. The device in question is the Retrofit Emission Control Device (RECD) that is available at a price. The expenditure on this is one such spend without the profit motive at all. This device, which rectifies pollution that is otherwise let out into the air, creates no profit. Not in money terms that will sit on a balance sheet. Up the down staircase then.
3. The company as a “social being”
The company, in many ways, is an inanimate entity. Yes, it caters to the needs, wants, desires and aspirations of real living people. Yet, in many ways, the company is an opaque entity that has an inanimate and machine aura. Yes, the company is run by real human beings with real hearts, livers, kidneys and more, but the company is a corporate entity for sure.
I do believe the best-managed company of the future will need to change its approach altogether. The good company of the future will redefine its presence, purpose and objective of existence as a “social being” instead of a “corporate being”. The moment this happens, the entire perspective of business will change. If you are a cement-making company and a part of society, and value yourself to be yet another individual of that new society, will you not think differently? You will need to think as being just a part of the whole, as opposed to imagining that you are the whole. The selfish whole as opposed to the hopefully selfless part of it all.
The best-managed companies of the future will need to think big and act big. Thinking beyond profit as defined on the balance sheet will define this new company that might just even glamorise the loss on the balance sheet as a part of positive corporate and social action.
In the next several years, I visualise an era where the big and the rich will be looked at with contempt. Big companies will be viewed under critical microscopes that will examine intent: good, bad, ugly and malignant. Time to correct intent then.
Harish Bijoor
Brand Guru and Founder, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc