The Hindu Business Line : Need to reframe mental moulds

A SURE way of being promoted in an organisation is to go ``above and beyond'' the call of duty. What this usually means is taking initiative and often more authority than one is given. A person who stays within the box he is put into demonstrates his ability to follow the rules, and manage the status quo. A person who reaches out, takes more authority and grabs the initiative shows an ability to take risk and grow. Very rarely is a person promoted because he or she did a good job in the previous position. It is an expectation that the person will do a good job in the next position that justifies the promotion. And there needs to be evidence of this in the actions executed. Progress requires us to break and reconstruct mental moulds.

The above principle can be extended to other spheres. Two recent instances demonstrate the need for such mould-reframing behaviour. Take the recent controversy arising out of the Minister of HRD issuing orders to lower the fees of the IIMs. The justification given is that this is to make the education more affordable. The fact that this decision was upheld by the Supreme Court (surely it had more pressing matters?) seems to give the impression that the Minister's stand was vindicated. But, surely, the Supreme Court was only upholding the authority of the government within an existing structure of rules and regulations. The issue before the court was not whether the Minister understood basic economics and its implications for the current environment.

The Minister's generation in India grew up on a system of central planning, a major part of which was physical controls.

The Planning Commission and the Director-General for Technical Development held the measuring rod and the weighing scale in monitoring the economy. The mental mould coming out of a colonial era was one of self-reliance and fear of the outsider.

The dominant ideology was allocation of resources under conditions of shortage. We were enjoined to skip a meal because there was not enough rice available. We stood in line to buy sugar and cement.

Over time, we learned that physical controls were also bad economics. They sent the wrong signals. After all, under the system of physical controls, industry learned that it had to inflate its coal requirements because it knew it would be slashed and then, perhaps, the reduced amount would be what was really needed! Planners who added up the coal requirements of all customers quickly concluded, falsely, that demand exceeded supply and, therefore, had to be rationed.

One clerk in Delhi, supervised by one Section Officer, does not make a market. I recall the time when a Chairman of Coal India swept aside the files and ordered the issue of permits to all who asked for coal. Overnight, demand collapsed and no one was lifting the stocks! When industry learned that there was enough supply, the only took what they needed. We were transitioning from an era of scarcity to plenty which required reframing our minds.

Look at another case. By setting the fees for an IIM education, the Ministry does not know what the market will bear.

No student who was admitted in the past ever gave up the admission on the grounds of affordability. Banks, who knew better economics that the Ministry, were willing to lend to the student who wanted to invest in an education, because they were sure that the returns more than justified the cost of the education.

Good social policy, combined with good economics would, say, leave the fees alone, and create a scholarship fund, or subsidised loans for those who wish to finance the education by alternative means.

Let the market send its signals. Clearly, the reforms and liberalisation of the present government in the areas of industry have relearned economics but this knowledge, ironically, has not spread to the education department.

One columnist aptly termed the situation as the need to educate the education ministry. We have not been able to fully wipe out the vestiges of cobwebbed planning theories that still reside in the minds of our leaders. But why blame the public sector.

My second example is from the private sector on the same theme of IIM education. It was reported in these pages last month that the President of the All India Management Association urged ``the government to set up a national Task Force to develop a road map for management education in the country''.

Here is a leader in the private sector asking for the government to intervene! Again, stuck in the old mental mould when industry leaders, at the drop of a hat, rushed to the government for an additional license or a revised quota, or a new policy dispensation.

A person who has broken the old mental mould would have said, ``As head of a leading management association in the country, I am setting up a task force in collaboration with other employers' organisations to develop a road map for management education.''

We do not need the government to tell us what management education should be. We need managers and employers to decide what kind of management education is needed, and by the way, they can give a copy of the report to the government and ask the government to monitor and rearrange its enforcement accordingly. The new era of reforms and liberalisation was aimed at cutting the umbilical cord that made the people look up to a government for everything.

The best certification for the management education of an institution is issued when organisations hire its products, namely, the students. Employers need to take the initiative if they want properly trained applicants and not wait for bureaucrats to take the initiative in identifying the needs of organisations. They need to reach out and grab more than what is given to them.

The next big area where we need to reframe our mental moulds about physical controls is in reservations. We fix quotas for admissions for different communities, want to fix quotas for women in Parliament, there was even a law maker who wanted to fix quotas for directors on corporate boards! The same purpose of achieving better representation for the under privileged would be achieved more effectively by assisting the weak in meeting entrance standards rather than compartmentalising the standards.

Effectiveness for national strength, growth, and security would require that the best get to do the job. We need to reframe our mental moulds about how we would assist weaker sections. Not by physical controls but through incentives and support systems.

I had this crazy scene flash before my eyes the other day. I was lying on an operating table for an emergency procedure, and my only concern was that the doctor with the scalpel in his hand had received his education and his job because of merit and not because he satisfied some reservation criteria. Now, this also applies to the person who is driving the bus I would travel in.

(The author is professor of international business and strategic management at Suffolk University, Boston, US. His Internet address is cgopinat@suffolk.edu)

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