What For-Profits can learn from Non-Profits
The predominant narrative in the social sector ecosystem is what the Not-Profit Ecosystem can learn from the For-Profit Sector - in a sense about becoming more professional. Rarely if ever, the counter narrative is heard - of what the for-profit or the commercial sector can learn from non-profits, charities and social enterprises. In this open conversation, Sujatha and Deepak speak to Ravi Sreedharan, Founder and Director of Indian School of Development Management (ISDM) and unpack lessons from the social world that the business world can learn from. 
Keith Haring, Untitled, 1985, Source: Nakimura Keith Haring Collection
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About Ravi Sreedharan
Pic: Ravi Sreedharan
Ravi Sreedharan is the Founder and Director of Indian School of Development Management (ISDM)
He worked in the corporate world for 24 years, most of it with the MNC Bank – HSBC in Dubai, Hong Kong, Jakarta and Cairo. At HSBC, Ravi held numerous senior positions including CEO & President Director of Bank Ekonomi (member of HSBC Group), in Indonesia. He quit a successful corporate career in 2011, at the age of 49 to return to India and pursue a career in Social Work. Before founding ISDM, Ravi was part of the leadership team at Azim Premji Foundation 2011 to 2015.
Ravi is an Engineer from IIT-BHU (1985) and an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad (1988).
Resources
HBR Article: What business can learn from Nonprofits, Peter Drucker
IDR Article: What corporates can learn from Nonprofits, Jayant Rastogi
Book: Systems Thinking for Social Change, David Peter Stroh
Transcript
Sowmya 00:00
Hello everyone and welcome back to Season Two of the WorkWise Pod. The predominant discourse in the social sector ecosystem today is about how nonprofit organisations can learn from for profit organisations. However, very few conversations take place about what the For profit world can learn from the nonprofit world. In today's episode, Deepak and Sujatha are talking to Ravi Sreedharan, the founder and director of the Indian School of development management to unpack some leadership and management practices that social purpose organisations excel at, and how these can be adopted by the business community to create flourishing and nourishing workplaces. Please do bear with us. The audio in this episode is a little rocky in some places, but we hope the interesting conversation makes up for it. Stay tuned.
Sujatha Rao 00:52
A lot of the discourse and conversations in the social sector ecosystem today is about what the not for profit world can learn from the For profit world, in a sense about becoming more professional. This could include in the design and management of their programmes in the way that they manage and run the organisation, in the impact of the organisation itself and around financial prudence. However, there's far less conversations taking place, about what the For profit world can learn from the running and managing of social purpose organisations. Today, we're going to unpack lessons from the social world that the business world can learn from. And we're going to do this in conversation with Ravi Sreedharan. And we're going to try and unpack some of the key lessons that can help business leaders design and lead more purposeful, more flourishing, more equitable, and more impactful organisations. Ravi, thank you so much for joining us in the podcast today.
Ravi 02:03
Thank you Sujatha, really excited to be part of this conversation. This is such an interesting area to explore. Thank you so much.
Deepak 02:11
Welcome, Ravi. I'll ask you a question which I used to hate doing interviews, you know, tell me something about yourself, because you've had a very successful career in the commercial sector, and then had an equally successful career in the nonprofit sector could you explain a little bit about your transition? And what made you change?
Ravi 02:31
Sure, Deepak. Yeah, this is karma. Right? I've asked this question to so many people so I deserve to answer that question. Very quickly, I found this best way to introduce myself is the three Idiots Guy, engineering kia, management kia our banker bangaya ,what a waste of life. But that's how I started and when I started career, it was the late 80s and the formula was, by the time your dad's retiring, you as the son in the family needs to start earning, that is a formula. So one went, because one was good in maths went to engineering, because MBAs paid well, he went and did an MBA, and so on, and so forth. So that really was the first part of the life. And then I went and worked in the corporate worl and I must say, I really enjoyed my life. And I think I'd give my family a lot of others a lot of opportunities, which we may not have had otherwise. I think midway through that career is when one felt a lot more about asking the higher order question of, what are you living for what is a good life, what is a good society and things like that. And that happened around my late 30s. And then it took another almost a decade, I'll be honest, to finally, you know, sort of make a transition. And I hate to call it from that part to this part. But for today's conversation, we will do it that way, because it is about what the commercial world can learn from the social sector. So I made the transition about 10 years ago, I'll be honest, when I joined the Azim Premji Foundation, but that was probably the best accident that happened to me, because I got to meet many including Sujatha, and so many other amazing people who helped me shape a lot of my thinking and approach to work in the social sector, which otherwise would have been very different if it hadn't been, deeper and refined and, you know, immersed in an understanding of the social sector. And I'll talk about that a little bit in the course of this conversation. So it's been 10 years in the sector. It's been a wonderful journey. I have never regretted anything I've done in my life. So I would redo exactly what I did in many ways, other than maybe switching to the social sector a little earlier.
Deepak 04:40
Thank you, Ravi. When you moved into Azim Premji Foundation, what surprised you the most after joyride that you have had in the commercial sector? Or do you find it surprising? What was new?
Ravi 04:53
Yeah, I think there were several layers to that newness, and get some of it for this conversation, the first layer was just being humbled by the people I met. Right. I mean, in the corporate world, it was an easy life, we got paid a lot of money, we had a lot of comforts, there was no sacrifice we were making, I'll be very honest. And then I was meeting, the first person I met was, you know, Periodi in Yadgir. And he had spent some 10 years of his life there. And that's a humbling, to think that people and he could have done anything, he could have been a corporate guy, one of the smartest people I've met, for example and I'm thinking, wow, I mean, this is humbling, you had to accept that you did nothing, compared to anything that was a first level, which is the people were very inspiring, that was the first level. The second level was that the conversation was so much wider than it ever was in my corporate. Corporate world as a banker, I was in this banking ecosystem, we would talk, a little bit of banking, a little bit of golf, a little wine, a little bit of some holidays, and it repeated, time and time again. And here, the conversation just was so rich, because it was about human beings. It was about aspirations. Because about a sociologist talking and anthropologists talking, a psychologist talking or historian talking. It was just unreal how rich the conversation were, that was the second sort of big thing that if you ask me that happened. So the third level was just the complexity of the problem, who you're working with, coming from the corporate world, I came with this mindset of, there's another problem to be solved, like, I had to solve a credit card problem or a house loan problem, or whatever. The complexity was overwhelming, because like, unreal how overwhelming it was, I mean, I've actually said in some of my early talk, that the complexity of the problem one was working, was at least 100x of anything that I had done in my pocket. There is a third level of issue. I mean, to put you out, use your word, things that surprised me or word? I didn't anticipate I'll be honest, when I came into this,
Deepak 07:10
I wanted to touch up on the leadership quality that you mentioned, right? Because of sacrifice concept, I think for people who have been in for profits, they can relate from looking from outside, in looking at the sector, they see it as sacrifice seems to be something that they say, Okay, I can't do the sacrifice. I I respect the sacrifice your way, but the leadership quality and the complexity, I sometimes feel is underappreciated in the commercial sector. You can you just explain a little bit more about the leadership quality that you saw in the social sector, and the complexity of the problems that you saw?
Ravi 07:55
And that is a huge question, right? There are no formula to solve this problem, right? In my corporate world there was always a formula to solve a problem. Here, there was no formula that was the starting point.You're there and there are diverse aspirations, complex needs forces that exist for, 1000s of years. And, and you're dealing with real and that was a surprise element that I talked about. So first of all, I don't think manager in the commercial world recognise the complexity because there is a myth that my corporate job was very complex, because it involves 80 countries, it involved a balance sheet of so many billion dollars, and so many, whatever and it was a numerical complexity. Here, there was a social complexity and the moment it's social, right, it's human being is very, very complex, right there it was a balance sheet and it was a process that it was a, which was far more problematizable and solvable, and so on and so forth. So that is one complexity that I don't think, we recognise at all when we come from one side. The second side is there is a belief that everything can be captured in a data point. And thereby, it's easier to solve a math problem. Because once I have a data, I can solve the problem. And I don't have data, I can't solve the problem right here. I do. And thereby there's a tendency to use data a little excessively when you come in as a corporate, not saying you shouldn't do but it's not easy to capture a data for what does it mean to be a mother who ties a towel around her child while she goes to sleep hungry at night? What data is going to capture that? I remember talking to Periodi , for six years in Yadgir, our work didn't show any change in the results. And in the sixth year we are having a conversation with Periodi, asking him how are things going Peri in Yadgir; Peri saying it's going really well. And you say hello Perry how you saying it's going really well because the data shows there is no change at all. This is children are very happy. How do you know children are very happy? They're playing they come and talk to me. They are running around they are burping, that is a data point, he gave. Now, I can't imagine in the corporate world telling my customer burped. But these are important things to understand, it is completely different. It is so complex, and you have to figure that out. So the only way it works is like you have a relationship there and from that relationship ends, and try and understand. I mean, most people listening to this podcast, would have had a relationship at a gender level, that itself is so complex. Now, you're trying to do it with somebody who comes in such a challenging situation with all sorts of forces. So that's another level right data, how do you work with data? The third thing is, how do you work in a system, that is, I just use one aspect, which is democratic. Right now, we've all said the French Revolution happened for Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, we know that a good society is driven on those three pillars and anchors, the corporate world has completely avoided that. There is no liberty, equality fraternity there. And how that is happening in today's society is a wonder for me. And I am of the opinion that the next French revolution will happen to destabilise the corporate inequality that's been created. Because it happened if you look at society, state markets, I'm digressing a little bit deeper can give me that indulge me on that.
Deepak 07:55
Absolutely.
Ravi 08:08
There is Samaaj Sarkar, bazaar, right? These are the three pillars for any good society, and they are at your own goals. When the state became super powerful, the civil society reacted to that that was the French Revolution, right? And then we defined a society that is just equitable, you may. Today, if I look at the corporate world, it's again moved out into becoming a power in itself. And it's a matter of time, either the state or civil society will do something to bring that equality back. So the third is how do you operate in a democratic society, in a pluralistic society, where you respect everybody's opinion, desire and aspiration? Right, that's the third one. The fourth is the intersectionality of various things. Right? in the corporate world, there's no great intersectionality. In fact, I actually decontextualize everything. If HSBC does banking, like this in London, I will make Jakarta banks like that. I will not make banking to become for Jakarta. Because I can't do that. Coke will sell exactly the same recipe with very minor changes, if at all, the same recipe, they can keep contextualising, coke to India, to Indonesia, to Australia to whatever. Whereas in this firm, that option is not yours. These are all dimensions, which are incredibly complicated things that you know, you don't realise when you're in the corporate world.
Sujatha Rao 12:49
Ravi, I want to pick up a little bit more on what you you've just said right about the realisation that you've had about the non formulaic world, right, which is this complex world of the social sector. So when, as part of this transition, where their mindsets where their values were their belief systems, or habits in that sense, that you had to unlearn in order to absorb the what is happening in this sector, in its totality. So were there things that you had to let go off and things that you had to adopt? During this transition?
Ravi 13:34
Yes. Sujatha. And, you know, without meaning, to be pedantic, I've always realised that you can't unlearn anything, right? You can. I mean, that is part of me. And whatever I learned as part of me, I can keep adding things and you know, making it more dominant in what I do and all that, and I'll talk about the kinds of things right. So the first thing is that in my corporate job, I was on stage. I was an actor. I mean, we are all actors in life in a very philosophical sense. But there I was very specifically, the CEO of the bank. That was a role I had to play, I wore a certain dress, I spoke a certain language, I kept a certain tone, I kept a certain power status in the way I dealt with people who I met what I said, and so on and so forth, to becoming a human being and a member of the society that I'm working, there's a big difference. That was a huge change that you no one had to make. So you're no longer role play. You know, you're a member of the society and the society is a larger society, and there are many people involved and you're just one of that. One of the members of that, that's a very big change that happened. The second is, it's like when I became an atheist, you know it you suddenly have to let go of a lot of powers that are available to you. You know, when I was a believer, I could just go and pray to God boss please bachado when I didn't have a belief, now I Don't know what to do now I have a problem, I have to solve it myself. So it was a very same feeling I don't have those power structures to resort, right key boss, I can fire I can send the memo, as a second big, big change that I had to make the third change and this is the interesting thing, right? And now I'm beginning to start learning how the surprises over I'm now beginning to engage, understand, then you realise that, wow this is a completely different ballgame. And I'll give you examples that I talk a lot about. So bear everything was competition. Sure, everything is collaboration. It's a complete different mindset that I have to now start with, how do you do things collaboratively, by the way, it's easier to do it competitively than it is to do it collaborative. Because competition, you can competition, you're done. Here, you can kill anywhere, whatever you don't like whatever you decide, whatever you disagree is part of society, and you have to live with it. And you have to make things happen. Right. So the whole spirit of collaboration. The second is this whole idea of agency, this is the most biggest difference from the corporate work. In the corporate world, the agency was defined by the level at which you're in the organisation. So if you are a entry level person, your agency was x. And if your CEO, your agency was considered to be 1,000x, and which is why they get paid 1000 times more and all that stuff. That had to change completely. Right, because here it actually almost reverse, I would say it is equal, but it almost reverse. When the agency was highest at the grassroots of the person working in the community, actually not even that person, the community itself. So that was another sort of, you know, big change. The next one was this whole process of just recognising keyballs don't jump into solutions. In the corporate world, it was almost expected of me to come up with a solution every time there was a problem, especially as I became senior, people just came to you with a problem, you had to come up with a solution even in fact, if you didn't have a solution, my advice to you know, senior executives used to be, you know, look confident, stay like, you know, you're in control of things that you know the answer to thing, you know, that's what will drive your leadership and all that to, you know, completely right now, you have no clue. Actually, you will never be able to come up with a solution. Because you don't know the problem and the first, and you will never know the problem. It's like hash one that says right, you will never ever know what it feels like to be this girl who's going to bed to steam on a pavement, not knowing whether she's going to be saved by the money. And that recognition is a huge change. So you stop jumping into solution, you start accepting God tumko, you don't know anything, and slow down that process of coming to what might be some steps forward versus that in control leading from the front type thing. So these are all some very big changes to data that I would say, came out of that recognition.
Sujatha Rao 17:55
So when hearing you speak about this, Ravi, and I'm imagining myself, right, as a CEO of a commercial organisation, and I have, let's say I've been, you know, manufacturing furniture, right, or chairs or tables, I've been doing this for a significant period of time, I might sit back and I might ask myself the question, is my space as complex as the social space that Ravi is talking about and while I acknowledge that the social space complexity requires me to pause and not jump into solutions, for instance, or to collaborate, or to look at my people quite differently, does it make sense for me in my context, right. I mean, after all, I am producing something for consumers and I am in competition with, say, 50 other furniture manufacturers? Do any of these core instances matter to me? Right? And should it matter to me? So what would your response be to that kind of thinking?
Ravi 19:05
You know, that's a beautiful question. Sujatha. And I'll be honest, initially, I used to think that there were, it's fine to be that way. Today have come to the point, it's not fine to be that way. And it's almost like climate change. Right? Can I keep producing something at the risk of climate getting destroyed in let's say, 100 years from now, when I'm not alive? It's really that sort of a question that this question is an earlier because I didn't have that 100 year vision. I used to say, yeah, how does it matter, right? I'm doing I'm not breaking the law. Nobody's told me that. I'm fine. I am now completely convinced that you don't have a choice but to accept the complexity. What the corporate world has done is to conveniently define their system in a very narrow sense. I follow the laws of the land. Don't now say that I'm not doing anything. You know, that was the simple. I'll give you a very interesting example. So this guy was and it can apply to a furniture startup also. So he's starting some venture where he wants to organise the car cleaners of the city. Because he believes that's a huge opportunity. Every rich guy in this country in the city has a car, everybody is biggest one thing they all need to do is have the car clean. So I'm now going to uberise. And uberise has become this new English word, right, which is I will organise them, I will create an app, I will create an access and I will learn. And I'm thinking, this is the classic capitalist mindset, right? You're trying to make money. You're not trying to solve anyone's problems. Even if you're trying to solve the problem, if you're trying to solve the problem of the person who doesn't really have a problem, because that person can find ways of paying, you need to solve the problem of the car dealers versus the car owners. That mindset doesn't exist. Because this person hasn't even thought of it and came and was, you know, telling me about what a great idea this is. And the words were, they are so unclean, they are so dirty, they're not organised, they don't know how to talk to these car owners. They don't have a bath every day, I'm now going to fix all this. I was aghast because that's how the business thinks the business is not thinking just equitable, humane. Now, if you agree and all of us are part of the citizenry, whether I'm in the corporate, whether I'm in the social, whether I'm in the state, if we have to agree what is a desirable or aspirational society. And if that definition is revolving around just equitable, humane, or justice, equality fraternity, then that was to guide what you're doing. Today, unfortunately, that has been conveniently kept aside. And the state has also designed, you know, laws and bylaws and everything else is conveniently keeps that aside, right. That's how the business operates. I don't think this is a sustainable model. And the reason I said somewhere earlier in this conversation, the next French revolution will be to topple the corporate world. It's for that reason, and and it's very important for us, those of us who are in business, to recognise that this is not sustainable. You know, we know that in recorded history, the prosperity levels that mankind has seen, has never been human, and has never been at the level at which, but at the same time, the inequality that it has created has never been seen before. We have far more money and resources for every human being animal and planet to take care of itself. But we will have in India alone, half a billion people living horrible life with you, and I will cannot accept as being part of the same. And I think for that reason, that guy who's making furniture must realise what is she doing to society? What is she doing to the planet? What sort of society are we creating? What sort of relationship structures are we creating? What sort of unknown power structures are we creating? That whole space is conveniently forgotten about? No business manager will ask any one of those 10 questions I just said. And I don't think you have a choice. Like I said, it's a long term problem, you may not suffer as a furniture company in the next 10 years. But as a system, it will collapse at some point in time.
Sujatha Rao 23:16
We seem to be in the in the corporate world, privileging far more transactional relationships and far more short term thinking in terms of action, right. Whereas from what you've been saying, necessarily in the not for profit world, we have to embed what we do in transformational relationships, as well as as long term. Right. So what have been your experiences in terms of this sort of spectrum? Right? And as you've been engaging more with the social sector, do you see this as becoming far more sort of central aspect of leading and managing the not for profit world that the other one should be looking at the for profit world should be looking at?
Ravi 23:59
No,I have absolutely no doubt. And I've done my own research to understand why .In my own career Sujatha, When I was in management school, I had one of the most amazing professors teach us. And one of the foundational things he said in one of the earliest of the classes in my first year was, you can't be in the business of making money. You have to be in the business of making a difference to society. Whatever it is, it can be at the high end, you know, very rich sort of people, it can be the perfect, but it has to be about solving a problem of society or helping, you know, access an opportunity in society. This is if you're in the business of making money, then very quickly, you will downgrade yourself to anything and everything. You will get into arms trading, you will get into flesh trading, you will get into anything and everything. You have to be very clear why you're in business. So it's not like the business didn't have that mindset, but the problem that's happened is twofold. And this is very systemic. And that's why it's not an easy one that's going to change soon. One is management was created by the engineers of the industrial revenue. Right? That is where management was for the business world was created by engineers who had designed the industrial and arguably industrial revolution has created, you know, the prosperity that we talked about, which has never been seen before. Except that that's very transactional. The mindset of engineering of or the Industrial Revolution was standardisation. Right? And standardisation, takes out context, takes out all these complex human aspects of life. It treats everything as a process. So what we've been calling lately, and it's become quite common, and I'm glad is the techno managerial way of running things, which is rooted in the industrial level. What made it worse was when Soviet Union collapsed and capitalism took off, then suddenly, shareholder value maximisation became the mantra of the business. You can't blame me as a manager initially, because that was a system that I was, you know, it's and this is one thing, I must digress a little bit. We shouldn't think that people in the corporate world are bad people. And people in the social sector are good people. No, the system is bad. And that's important. And the system is bad. Because it's techno managerial. The system is bad because it's transaction. The system is bad, because it's capitalistic and stakeholder or shareholder value maximisation, we have to redefine those mantra. And that's very important. And truth be told, there's a lot of conversation about Conscious Capitalism about three p's and all sorts of ese and whatever else. So clearly, they're beginning to recognise that I don't think any meaningful work has been done. I think there's some token debate and token structures put in place as of this point in time. But everything starts with a token. And over time, hopefully, it will move in that, but there is absolutely no denying the fact that any work you do whether it is the state, whether it is the markets, whether it is civil society, has to be transformational, has to be rooted in ideas of a desirable and aspirational society.
Deepak 27:06
For this new trend of social entrepreneurship, which is trying to balance a business model with a social problem. Do you see that as over time, all businesses will become social enterprises. In itself. It is this right now we see that there is a commercial world, there is a nonprofit world, and there is a social entrepreneurship world. But essentially, all businesses are social enterprises in any way.
Ravi 27:36
So Deepak, going back to the comment, I said, that faculty made, every business has to be a social enterprise. So social enterprise is a good thing. There's no doubt about that. But enterprise management, the way it is, is a bad thing. Right? If you manage the social enterprise, the way your business is traditionally married, but managed, where you narrow your boundaries, and you have a very narrow view of what success is, we have a serious problem. And that's the biggest danger to social enterprise. And today, that force of management view is not easy to run again, because that's a huge title, you know, and some small enterprises claiming that I will go against that, I think you're fooling yourself, it's like, you know, you try to push the waves back there is you're just going to finally give up and you know, tire itself. So management has to change. So all the stuff that we talked about, you know, the values, the complexity, the structures, the transformational nature of work that you do in the social world, has to come into play in the world of this. And then social enterprise becomes very boxed. What social enterprise does is it releases money. Now, unfortunately, you and I live in a capitalistic world, which is defined by monies. Unless I can change that word, I have to figure out how money will work in the space. And the monies you need is huge, right? But it's 100th of what is already available in the world. So what is traditionally called risk capital, right? How do I release risk capital? Today, there's 300 trillion of risk capital that exists, right. And if you take the volume of money that exists in the in the social sector, I don't have the data globally is a fraction of that. If you want money to come into the system, you have to create structures to bring that money. Now social enterprise impact investment pay for performance, social Stock Exchange, these are all these newfangled ideas to figure out how to bring the money. So the objective is a good object. But if the way you do it is not correct, that can you know, like turbocharger bad thing. And that's the risk you have of social enterprise impact investing and all this sort of newfangled stuff that's happening. You're all good intention. But if you don't bring that transformational nature of management, the collaborative nature of work a healthy respect for human beings and the planet To respect for the ideas of justice, equality and fraternity, you will have a serious problem. So I think social enterprises are well intentioned, but given the way management works, you are heading for a disaster. But if we can figure out how the management itself changes, right, then the social enterprise can be a very, very powerful way, it cannot solve all the social sector issues. But you know, it can work significantly in a certain direction of moving, you know, the Society for a better life for the most downtrodden.
Deepak 30:33
So one thing is the risk of French Revolution that you're in the corporate space that we're talking about. The other thing is this big issue of climate change, that all of us are going to get impacted by, and then the values of liberty, equality, fraternity that you spoke about. But what is the urgency today, for any of the commercial businesses to change the way they operate?
Ravi 30:59
Yeah, there isn't, unfortunately, right, unless you make me believe that a just equitable Humane Society is my idea of life. It doesn't matter to me, today, shareholder value maximisation is my life, I will maximise my value, or the value to myself. That is the mantra with which I live in the corporate world. And unless you change that mantra, if I want to change as a as a business, I'll be very honest, I have no desire to change the society. In fact, the the argument you will have here in the corridors of the corporate world, but that's not your problem. That is somebody else's problem. That is the government's problem. Or there are NGOs to worry about that. I'm not an NGO. That's the mindset that I exist today. You know, my shareholder wants returns, it can be long term value. So if you're able to do that, and you if you prove to me that long term value will be created, when I create a society that's just equitable, human, then I will support you, I will give you bonuses, I will incentivize you, I'll promote you, etc. Right now it's tokenism. You know, there is some CSR there is a connected to, you know, nature, whatever, right. I mean, recently, during the COVID, I was listening to, you know, one of the FMCG company CEOs of the country, huge, sort of a guy, right. And he was talking about how we need to empower because these are the people who work for me down the chain food chain, land markets, village markets, etc, etc. What has he done, he's de risked his company, how has he de risked the company by transferring the risk to these small and you know, poor people down the chain. He's not realised that he thinks both I have protected this value creating FMCG company shareholders are their employees are their, etc, etc. So he feels he just went and that's what he's incentivized for, he got the biggest bonus this year when, you know, the annual results, particularly the fact that the migrants, the you know, the van Marquez, the people who are all working from, he had to finally take the brunt of all the choices he made, never bothered him. So there is a problem with the system.
Sujatha Rao 33:09
So let's change the scenario a little bit. And let's talk about a commercial enterprise CEO or manager, who has implicitly and almost explicitly begun to realise that the way that they had been operating the mindsets with which they had been operating, and the techno managerial systems that they had put in place is not right, right. And they are beginning to not just a sort of, you know, talk about it, but they are sensing it right. And they do want to make this change. Looking at the not for profit world. From there, what could be one or two things that could be, you know, the kick start of, you know, these little levers that we begin to change that could help them move closer towards the kinds of organisations and workspaces we are looking at, right, just equitable, more flourishing. So I've worked on my mindset, I am prepared to give it a go. But I'm sort of wondering, Where do I start? And what could be some good places for me to begin this journey?
Ravi 34:17
Yeah, and that there is no easy answer to that question. Sujatha, because I'm in a system, and you're telling me to change while the system remains the system, right? And I as an organisation can't change because there's no way I succeed, all I will do is I'll set myself up for failure. So what can I learn from the social sectors structures? Right? That's really the question. It's very simple. How do I ensure that there is a voice of the common man in any business that is done? Now, in the democratic system, we have created a way to get the voice of the every person in the state in the market space. We haven't figured that out. But the principle of how do I involve humans beings in deciding whether I'm doing a good job or not in the reward structures that I get in the so, you know, there are ideas that are talked about in the corporate world, right? How do I give a lower cost of funds for somebody who's great on ESG guidelines? Now, those are ways of doing it not. And there must be more ways of doing this sort of stuff. That's the principle that we have to follow.
Sujatha Rao 35:22
sort of brings me to this idea that you have already sort of indicated in the beginning of this conversation, but I'd like like to sort of come back to it, which is the power of networking and collaboration, when one of the things that you spoke about was this change from competition to collaboration. And while I grapple with more complex questions of power, and voice, can I start focusing, let's say, at a more fundamental level around how I begin to network and collaborate, what are your thoughts on that?
Ravi 35:57
You know, that is one of the answer, right? Unfortunately, what has happened, if you look from the World War, right, all these networks and collaboration that have in spirit have created with right, so the UN, the, you know, all these sort of multilateral agencies, that Toothless organisations, we have to figure out how to give these bodies a power, but not a hierarchical power, a collaborative power, the collaborative power is everybody following the problem is that everybody will not follow it, because it's not equal for everybody, the one who will lose that will be the more powerful one. And, and thereby, that person will be the first violate, and that person is the easiest to violate, because you're the most powerful guy in that structure. And thereby, this gets into that vicious cycle of the same power structures come back into play. But that idea that you said, Sujatha is the most powerful idea, which is how do you bring everybody together? Once everybody decides I will not violate this clause, then it's easy for me to live that life because now I'm on equal grounds in the competition that I'm fighting the moment one guy violates it, everybody will die. And thereby, we have to think of how do we create more agency for these agencies? Right. I mean, it's not been easy, right? Like I said, the UN body when everybody signed on, was the most powerful idea of the whole war. But it's most of us know, is the most Toothless organisation that exists today. And that consumed mass sums of money and resources.
Deepak 37:24
You know, there's a brief time Ravi that then the cooperative movement was at the highest, you know, at that time and ecosystem was getting created, where you had business concerns, or market conditions, and also, Justice equality for the members of the cooperative. So while it was there, there was some semblance of hope. But that has unfortunately died down. And the now have cooperatives being known only for the wrong reasons.Unfortunately,
Ravi 37:59
You know Deepak , I don't think there's been a more stuff like this now, I'm not very well read or learned or anything like that. But in my mind, I don't think there's been a more powerful idea than the cooperative movement for business to have learned from and to have a stunning example, like an amul which you know, today does business of 55,000 crores has still not proven to the world how you can that I find amazing, but you're absolutely spot on, when you said the cooperative moment came closest to the idea of the agency of Samaaj Sarkar Bazzar, right? That you had a regulations for it, you had a market forces at play, and you had community involvement in that, I don't think there's been a better example of how that can work, then the corporate movement, and why that collapse? It's the same reasons, right? The reason that it collapses, going back to the same, you know, forces of power play, right, somebody violates a tent that, you know, falls apart. You know, you use coercion, you use other tactics, you get into greedy returns, you get into, you know, all the wrong things. And it's all it takes a one somewhere to start the thing, and then the cancer will spread across very, but you absolutely said it the most powerful idea that the world needs to learn from on how to structure businesses, I think there is an answer to be learned from the corporate.
Deepak 39:20
Ravi, the system's not going to change. But we also know that humans have a power to change the system as well. If you were to, let's say, go back into a bank, let's say an HSBC, for example, having spent the last 10-12 years in the nonprofit sector, and having this complex thoughts, the experiences that you've had, how would you be different as a manager?
Ravi 39:48
This is a question very personal for me. Right? The system is a second part but the first part is need self. You know, and I think that's an important part. And I want to answer that and then I'll attempt the system but I really never thought of it. The first one is, I had a certain arrogance when I was in the corporate world, you know, and I lost the humility that I had as a lower middle class child, I grew up with tremendous humility, you know, and and that was a middle class value system almost in many ways to becoming an arrogant, I am good, I'm in control, I know what's going on, I can make things happen. I need to lead people, I need to show the way, so there's an arrogance. So if I were to go back, I would resort back to humility. And I think humility can be a very powerful force and how you make things work. I think somewhere the business world has forgotten or lost that understanding of how a Gandhian idea can be very powerful in leading, change making things happen, and so on and so forth. It's become a very techno, managerial, I'll incentivize, I will disincentivize, I will, coils I will punish and stuff like that. So the first thing is, how does one take humility back, that's the first thing. The second thing is that I think businesses will, I hate to use the word profit, but will derive a lot of value, if they believe in the agency of the people, versus creating pigeon holes for people to say, this is your job. And I don't need you to comment on anything other than, in fact, there are business processes, like, you know, the quality circles that are used in Japanese manufacturing at some time, it's actually built on that idea, which is that the greatest ideas can come from anywhere, in fact, more likely from the field rather than from, you know, the sort of conference rooms and chambers that we used to sit in. So the agency of every person, and how do you create some frameworks and systems to believe in that agency and bring those ideas to bear on the work that you do? That will be the second thing. The third is that, and this is the one that is very personal to me, you don't realise that when you're in a job, that job defines the person that you are. And eventually you become a person, which is a function of all that job that you did, over a 10 year 20 year period. And I try and say this to youngsters, and I'm not sure I'm able to communicate, that whatever career path you choose, will make you a certain person when you're 50. And if I had somebody that explained this, to me in a manner in which I would have understood when I was twenty, my career choice would have been very different. Because I don't want to be a certain type of human being when I'm 50 that I don't want, there is a certain type of human being I want to that. And this would mean nothing to do with everyone else thinking about me, I want to be a person that is I feel proud of myself, I'm telling you, that would completely change the choice of work that I do the way I would work the way I would tell people the way I would achieve results. And this narrative, what does success mean, would change completely. Because somewhere success got measured in very capitalistic techno managerial terms. And that will change completely. So this is all the personal side of if I had gone back, if I do go back, you know, that question hypothetical, though it is, what would I do? The other is the systems thing. Right? So I, you know, have been influenced significantly by Margaret Meads code, about how you know, few passionate people can change the world. And if the world has ever changed, it's been because of that. I would not sit there thinking I'm in this, you know, Dilbert cubicle with no influence. You know, I would move away from that mindset to say Baat tho karunga. I will write a blog, I will write a note to my CEO. I will, whatever I mean, I am not lessly saying I'll become an artist or anything. No, I'm not saying that. But I will talk about it. I will share about it. And those spaces do exist. Yeah. So from a systems changer perspectiv that would be some small sort of thing one would have done if I was back there. ever again.
Deepak 44:08
Beautiful. Even I resonate very powerfully with Margaret Meads, quote,
Sujatha Rao 44:12
What is the most heartening thing that you are seeing Ravi right now could be in the corporate world could be in the not for profit world but some practices, something that is across sectors and things that you can see are actually happening.
Ravi 44:32
So I have a feeling that the market side has reached it's horrible, and in some ways, and now it has to naturally go the other ways. My honest view may not be a five year cycle, maybe a 50 year cycle, but I definitely think it's hit that point. So from here on, it can only get better is somewhere the big strong UI. And I have evidence because there is conversation. So if you go to the CEO forum, I mean that's a fascinating one, right? The lie And I don't remember the exact data. But the last conference of the top 100 CEOs that got together, issued a statement, which said that no longer will shareholder maximisation be the mantra for leading an organisation. Two years later, somebody went and researched all those organisations to check was there one change that was made based on that? Not one change was made in any of those 100 organisations, right. But the fact that the conversation happens on these heartbeat, now, you know, the action will happen, you know, it will need to build maybe by the third conference, they will do something to that effect. So, that's one very heartening thing. The second one, which is an interesting one is, is the value systems of the millennial, I find that there is a complete new paradigm that's happening, you know, moving away from structural hierarchies, like families, like organisations, you know, I'm hearing a lot more live in relationship, for example, I'm hearing lot more gig working as a as an idea. So I'm not working for one guy, I'm working for five guys. And if I don't like one, I can kick it because I'm not so dependent on that. So I'm seeing a new value system that's happening in the, in the younger generation, right? My kids and the kids were younger than that, and all that. And I think that will blossom into something which will create a new system. So these are two things that I feel very hopeful and passionate about. In fact, recently, somebody was asking about, do you want to live long, and I said, I want to live very long. Because I think there's some amazing things that are going to happen in the next 50 years. And you know,
Deepak 46:34
I think also we lampoon social media quite a bit, but social media has also brought different worlds together much more. So I think the knowledge exchange is happening, information exchange is happening. While the power structures while still remain with the corporate space, I find that the exchange itself will lead to something new.
Ravi 46:55
But I do think that there is this idea of the trust deficit across the Samaaj Sarkar Bazaar, which is another system issue. And I think, in some senses, what people have said, how do we increase the communication? I go to a conference, there are only civil society people in my business? Well, I never saw civil society person in a business conference. And I'm sure if I went to the States, that's, so how do we cross pollinate? You know, it's certainly something that's easy to do. Nobody will say no, no, I don't want anyone to know that we have we have I don't we have five NGOs come and also be quite happy. And I think that is start a movement of listening to people and recognising Oh, I didn't realise that, you know, this is the thing. So, as the only other thought that's been on my mind lately.
Sujatha Rao 47:38
It's been such a pleasure having you here with us on the Workwise Pod. And thank you so much for sharing, not just your journey, but more importantly, your learnings from this and the approaches, the philosophies, the mindsets that people across the aisle on both sides need to sort of participate in and sort of build that collaborative conversation. So thank you so much for joining us today. It was wonderful having you here.
Ravi 48:06
Thank you so much, Sujatha and Deepak you know, I love these opportunities to just, you know, express myself and share those innermost thoughts and maybe we stand and I like you asked that question about the corporate world, right? I mean, these are things small, small things we can do to you know, push the larger caravan in certain directions.
Sowmya 48:32
Thank you for listening,that was Deepak and Sujatha talking to Ravi Sreedharan about what for profit businesses can learn from nonprofit organisations. You will find the resources referred to in the episode in the show notes with more information at our website, www.workwisepod.com. We'd love to hear from you. Comment on the website or write to us at Hello at workwise pod.com. Credit go to Sanjali Ranjan for the cover art and Derek lake for the intro and outro music. Today's episode was mixed and edited by Prashant Venkatesan with production support from me Saumya Karun. Don't forget to subscribe to the workwise pod on your favourite podcasting platform.