A Close Encounter Pulin K. Dutta

I like asking people, especially, businessmen and managers what do they think is the purpose of “business”. When by chance I got involved in a massive company wide Management re-education programme for senior managers, towards the later half of my career as a practising manager; I realised that often we did not know the real purpose of the word, “business”, the management of which was our livelihood. Strange? Yes. The first time I asked this question was at our head office in Bombay. It was rather a close encounter — my job was on the line. You see, I was almost forced to address my bosses by the new CEO from Europe. I did not know before that he was fully trained by the Japanese for quite sometime. He was deputed to India to turn around the company, which was sinking. One fine morning I found him in my office in Pune. He indicated that I had to present before a senior group for one full day on my pet subject “We are in a New Economic Age”. So I should come fully prepared. But he did not tell me that the group was his board of management itself. All my director bosses plus three upper level Finance managers, much senior to me. He also told me that my friends at the company’s European head quarters told him about me, which was music to my ears. That made me agree to his proposal, without much thinking. May be I was hasty. Seeing the audience I was worried to say the least. Even they were not at all amused to see me, I could sense. The good thing was that the CEO was sitting next to me in front of the overhead projector, which gave me some comfort. He was very warm and effusive in his introductory remarks reaffirming his faith in calling me to this gathering. The audience was not interested. I could feel they were by now awfully angry. I knew it was foolish of me to have come to this meeting in the first place; but then I still had to do my job. In a way, I had no choice. So I put up my first one-line transparency on the OHP, “What is the purpose of ‘business’?” My discomfort increased a lot more, because, the audience was not even looking at the projection on the wall, as if it was not for them. The CEO quietly observed that they meant to humiliate me and touched by hand to make me comfortable. I asked again, “May I not learn”? Still no response. All were sitting glum and angry. At this point, nearly after five minutes of waiting, the CEO broke the ice, “Come on gentlemen, I am sure you can answer Dr Dutta’s simple question”. That I think was enough to burst their patience and one very senior Director, let me name him as “Mr O” angrily retorted, “Dutta (earlier he used call me Doc), do you think we were cutting grass all these years? Don’t you know business is for making money? That’s all”. The tone was abrasive and insulting and the others were enjoying that I was snubbed royally. Their smiling lips and eyes meant to convey — “you asked for it, didn’t you?” Surprisingly though, I did not feel intimidated at all. Then a dramatic thing happened. The CEO pointedly asked the “Mr O”, who tried snubbing me and making the others enjoy the dramatic delivery of his dialogue: “Oh! Mr O”, you knew that the purpose of ‘business” was to make money?” After a pause he asked again, “then how is that you were managing this company for past two years with heavy losses?” That was it! The smiling lips and eyes were now quivering; all the proud heads were down. It was an unbearable sight — a nerve-wrecking situation for me, the smallest man in the room. To diffuse the tense situation, I requested the CEO to give us a break for a cup of tea, which he did. While in the lounge, I was sipping my tea alone in a corner, I saw “Mr O.” coming towards me. Then I saw a few more of the bosses also coming along. It was ominous. I did not see the CEO, my host, anywhere. That made my life worse. I thought, now the moment of truth for me had arrived. I would be asked to leave the company immediately. However, quickly I decided to cover up my agony, I could welcome them with a smile to disarm them; but was determined not to offer my resignation. I also decided that in the event they advised me to resign, I would not oblige and instead ask for a dismissal letter from the company, I was sure that I did not commit any crime by asking just a question. Did I? Soon it appeared that my fear was unfounded. “Mr O”, began by saying, “Sorry Doc, I did not mean to hurt your feelings”. Now the others too were smiling again shaking hands with me and they wanted to probe me further on what was in my mind. But suddenly the CEO appeared on the scene from nowhere and called back everyone into the meeting again. Now, the atmosphere was more congenial to go ahead with my talk. Under the bulldozer the ego barriers got flattened, which helped me. Still, it was a touch and go kind of situation — a rather close encounter, I can vividly remember. Their positions did not bother me; but their behaviour was certainly upsetting. As a student long ago, I even argued with Pandit Nehru during the Guwahati Refinery movement, in the presence of my mentor, late Hem Baruah, and Minister late Siddhinath Sarma. Panditji too in his inimitable way was irritated; but eventually had to listen to my piece quietly, thanks to Hem Baruah’s encouragement. My old friends like Bujarbaruah, Hem Dev Goswami etc. might remember this story. Now, back to the question. Will you like to answer now, “What is the purpose of business?” Take your time and we shall see what it is a little later. The intriguing story is that the Mecca of business schools, known as the Harvard school of Business Administration, (HBS in short), Boston, Mass, USA, also did not have a better idea of what was the purpose of ‘business’, the management of which they were supposed to teach. This was usually the story with every business school I visited so far, in India and elsewhere. They don’t know nor teach the real purpose of “business”. While getting ready to celebrate the 50th foundation day, few of its past pupils and successful business managers realized this gaping hole and created a think-tank to come up with a clear-cut definition. The outcome after months of deliberations was a definition worth remembering everyday by any business-manager and educated, big and small, old and young. This definition is: “Businesses exist to create and deliver value-satisfaction at a profit”. The word ‘profit’ coming last, many macho managers didn’t like. Only recently in a large PSU, 25 upper level managers spent almost half an hour discussing. For my sessions to progress, this definition is important. So it has to be laid well. Note that ‘creating and delivering’ is the process and ‘profit’ — the result. Only a process can give real result, any other way will mean manipulation! We shall talk more about it later. “Value-satisfaction” means in simple language, ‘good value for money’, or Value-satisfaction=quality/cost The value-satisfaction will be higher when quality is better and cost is lower. Is that possible? Of course, yes. That is what I have been doing for a number of years and I am enjoying it. We shall learn this together later. (The writer may be contacted at pulin.dutta@vsnl.com)