I was watching the famous movie Bahubali recently and was wondering where the Queen Sivagami went wrong; apparently she follows the rules of the land, which of course are framed very carefully but is left ineffective in doing true justice. Was it just the deceit by her son or something more at play? Also Bahubali seemed not too keen on going by the book but is actually doing justice and the right thing all the time. Is it just the movie or did he get something right?
I pondered over it and stumbled on my all time favourite, Krishna; difference in the way Ram and Krishna conducted their lives is perhaps the difference between the Queen Sivagami and Bahubali. While Ram followed all the rules, well almost, Krishna flaunted many. Ram was from a generation where society made rules and people stride to abide by them. Things worked back then. But later as human mind evolved and some started taking advantage of man’s predictability created by the templatised way of life; things stopped working.
For instance would you cross the road in India just looking at right for first half of the road and then left during second half just because if everyone followed the rules that would work? no right… same way is for life. People flaunt rules, some for their own benefit while others for society’s but flaunting rules has become the way of life. Expecting everyone to follow rules doesn’t work. Then what would work? Krishna paved the path by saying one should follow values and not rules. Values are more important than rules. Values create rules and therefore values are more fundamental then rules. While rules can be bent and one can get confused values are quite straight forward and intrinsic.
Does this have relevance to how corporate world functions? I think yes!
During last century companies would formulate policies and rules and distributed it among staff (put it in notice board) expecting them to follow. In low cognitive environment this worked quite well. For instance in a manufacturing company where people are repeatedly doing a particular function and only top management is paving the way; doing the High cognitive role.. system worked.
In this century repeated task are being done by robots or outsourced. Companies are left with only High Cognitive work with highly specialised staff and in this environment HR cannot expect that rules distributed through self help portal will ensure compliance from stuff. More engagement, more education is required. More value driven; culture driven engagement can only yield compliance from staff. This trend is very visible today among corporate in the west.
In conclusion, if you observe that your employees are not complying to something that is desirable then rather than creating a new policy or rule try identifying values that are not being met. If no values are being flaunted then perhaps you are on the wrong side and if any values are being flaunted then bring it up to your stuff very passionately.
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