Human Values, Ethics, Spirituality & Corporate Governance

• Human Values consist of all those values that are universally applicable to all people. These values relate to truth, righteousness, peace, love, compassion, harmony, non-violence and appropriate ethical humane behavior.
• Ethics is concerned with the discipline of the right and wrong conduct of individuals.
• Spirituality is the ability of an individual to understand the innate divine nature of the human self that can realize its potential to reach the “Higher Self”. This is also known as the spiritual quest.
• Corporate governance is concerned with a set of relationships amongst the various sections of a company’s management, which include board of directors, shareholders and stakeholders. It lays down the structure and incentives for the board and management to pursue certain objectives, in the best interests of the company and its shareholders and thereby facilitates effective monitoring of the company’s operations.

Evidently, therefore, integration of human values, ethics, and spirituality would align the interests of investors and managers and ensure that business activities are conducted properly for the ultimate benefit of all classes of investors. This is what good Corporate Governance is all about. Good Corporate Governance means the extent to which companies are effectively functioning in an environment of integrity, honesty and transparency. Such governance always creates overall market confidence, ensures and enhances efficiency of national and international capital allocation and thereby productively and efficiently contributes to the nation’s progress welfare and wealth.

Examples are galore of companies which were at one point of time at the zenith of success but have ceased to exist now. Likewise, there are companies which have stood the test of time and stand above the rest through effective amalgamation of the three virtues in question. Perhaps the subject of human values, ethics and spirituality explains why certain companies gloriously perpetuate or unfortunately petrify. This may therefore be a research question for answers to ponder upon.

Contributed By:
Prof. D. P. Chattopadhyay
(Globsyn Business School)

SPIRITUAL ANALYSIS OF 'NAMASKAR'

The word 'Namaskar' is derived from the root 'namaha', which means paying obeisance (Namaskar) or salutation.

By doing Namaskar to a deity or a Saint, unknowingly their virtues and capabilities are impressed upon our minds. Consequently we start emulating them, thus changing ourselves for the better.

By doing Namaskar the Deity's Chaitanya is absorbed to a greater extent by the body, as compared to other methods of doing Namaskar. This gives maximum distress to negative energies. The negative energies that have manifested in a person are unable to touch their thumbs at the mid-brow region in Namaskar.

Click here to read more about Namaskar

Ethnographic & Cultural Shifts in the current workforce

It is important to understand some of the major cultural shifts happening amongst the current workforce primarily comprising of Generation Y. There are differences in opinions but in general the findings indicate that PaPR researchers highlighted three socio-cultural trends –

1. The new WE
2. The new ME
3. Plastic Time

The new WE

• Blogs, wikis, and other Web 2.0 applications are revolutionizing the social order.
  - The Internet is not just personal information-finding, but a place of action.
  - People are coming together on and off-line to get something done: grassroots activism is among the winners in a Web 2.0 world.
• In our collective experience is that we’ve found new ways to come together, more efficient and powerful, enabled by our current technologies.
• We are not just passive web surfers, but social doers on- and off-line. The powerful actors are the collective, not the individual.

The new ME

• Media has become MEdia – both on-line and off, we are the creation of our own creations and consumptions.
• MEdia emphasizes media “expertise” as a cultural value to be performed.
  - Facebook applications, YouTube videos, playlists…are all about who you are.
• The expertise in media manipulation, practice & adoption that you demonstrate is more important than the content created.
• There is a shift - In particular, youth do not see technology as a special category that enables something, but one of many material possibilities to create their own selves.

Plastic Time

• Research first revealed that the issue of managing one’s own personal time zones was increasingly complex and fragmented - though this occurs differently in different parts of the world.
• Your time is shrinking, yet somehow, you happen to know the latest post on your favorite website; A jet setting life style – but you still keep up with your blog postings & email;
• Research showed that you are experiencing “plastic time.”
• The experience of "plastic time" frames modern life—it is an experience that is highly interruptible; shrinking and expanding around immediate concerns; and interleaving through multiple activities.

Contributed By:
Ranjan Sarkar
(Vice President - HR & Corporate Communication)
Acclaris Limited

Excellence

A Gentlemen once visited a temple under construction where he saw a sculptor making an idol of God. Suddenly he noticed a similar idol lying nearby. Surprised, he asked the sculptor, "Do you need two statues of the same idol?" "No," said the sculptor without looking up, "We need only one, but the first one got damaged at the last stage." The gentleman examined the idol and found no apparent damage. "Where is the damage?" he asked. "There is a scratch on the nose of the idol." said the sculptor, still busy with his work. "Where are you going to install the idol?"

The sculptor replied that it would be installed on a pillar twenty feet high. "If the idol is that far, who is going to know that there is a scratch on the nose?" the gentleman asked. The sculptor stopped his work, looked up at the gentleman, smiled and said, "I will know it."

The desire to excel is exclusive of the fact whether someone else appreciates it or not. "Excellence" is a drive from inside, not outside. Excellence is not for someone else to notice but for your own satisfaction and efficiency...

Contributed By:
Debasree Chattopadhyay
(HR Executive - Kotak Securities Ltd.)