BY SANDEEP PADOSHI
Co-founder & Director, WOWEXPRESS
I come from a small town and from a close-knit family where as a kid, I was told that all beings have a ‘soul’. Later, I went to business school, and was highly inspired by two books ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ by Robert Pirsig and ‘Maverick’ by Ricardo Semler. About 16 years ago, I read these two books many a time and owned copies of them and lent them to my friends who never returned them to me. Strangely, I never asked them to give the copies back. I just bought new copies.
Maybe deep down, I wanted people to have these books and really read them. I’ve had several interesting discussions with friends on these books.
Over time, I always wondered if there can exist an organization with a ‘free will’, with a culture where one is free to choose the time that he or she comes to work, where one has no fixed place of work, choose the projects that they can work on and at the same time add great value to the organization, something similar to Semler’s ‘Maverick’. I also wondered if the concept of exploration and seeking a higher knowledge level as in Prisig’s book can be applied to an organization, because an organization is not a person, it is a group of people, systems, processes, assets and beliefs, which work in a market scenario.
Over the years, I have had the good fortune of working for many organizations, some local and some MNCs, some large and some small and across different geographies and industries. I experienced different cultures, but almost all organizations lacked the inner spirit or inner light - where every stake-holder acts in unison, where there is harmony in all that the organization does and it is to achieve a common purpose which in turn would result in a greater good.
Last year, I had the opportunity to attend a senior leaders programme at IIM Ahmedabad, where I came across a professor who somehow made me realize that the concept that I have always pondered over and questioned, what I was always looking for, was actually ‘the soul’ of an organization. I understood finally that all these years, I was actually wondering if organizations could have ‘souls’. This professor also made me realize that organizations can be seen as beings, and can indeed have souls and it is possible for us to build an organization with a ‘soul’.
Feedback: sandeep@wowexpress.in
