A story goes that three men engaged in laying bricks responded differently when asked what they were doing: one said he was merely laying a brick; the second said he was building a wall; the third proudly smiled and said he was building a cathedral. A variant of this story, which appears in the book Above and Beyond: How to Build Impactful Businesses , possibly best describes the ethos of such an organisation.
The authors argue that a business with a larger purpose, beyond just profitability and excellence, gives it a greater chance of endurance and success. Once the purpose is clearly articulated, it is easier to get people aligned to the goal as they find meaning in what they do. Then, the journey becomes as delightful as the destination.
Valuable anecdotes
Young entrepreneurs with dreams of building institutions, as much as seasoned businessmen, who want to take stock of where they are will derive valuable lessons from the book. To help them identify where in the journey their companies and employees are, the authors neatly lay out the evolutionary phases of both organisations and people — from seeking profitability or merely a job, to making a difference.
Anecdotes from the authors’ own working lives make it easy to understand the truisms they bring forth.
Case in point is that of Lakshmi, a regional accountant in a private bank. She had flagged some bills from regional managers that did not ‘look right’ to her. Her manager, with whom she had had some friction, was furious that she was throwing a spanner in the works merely because someone just ‘bent the rules’. Told to pass the bills, Lakshmi ended up asking herself if this was where she wanted to be in her career.
This is one of the examples that set the authors thinking as to how the Indian subsidiary of Germany’s Widia was different — as a maker of tungsten carbide cutting tools — from other companies. (All three authors had worked in Widia India. Co-author R. Srinivasan was among the first group of people that set up the subsidiary in the 1960s.)
A humorous jibe the authors take at a popular acronym from the West evokes a smile but also signals what red flags to watch out for: if your employees are relieved at the end of the week, saying ‘TGIF — thank God it’s Friday’ — then something is not right with your organisation.
Widia India was not content with supplying the right tools. Others were already doing that. It wanted to help customers with technical inputs to use the tools in an optimal manner for better output. Note the difference between making money from selling a useful product and the pursuit of a larger goal in which sales naturally occurred.
A larger purpose
And to boot, a vision statement alone does not make a company. People do. Employees find meaning when they work in a secure atmosphere that allows questioning the management freely and in which ideas come out uninhibited. The creation of an entire division in Widia, which emerged from a young engineer’s wild suggestion, exemplifies this.
What niggles the reader is the question of objectivity as the authors use the evolution of Widia India as the basis for the book, while that of other employees in the company serve as the proof of good practices in play. But the honesty of the writers inspires a counter: ‘Who better than the authors themselves to show you how companies ought to be built?’
Above and Beyond: How to Build Impactful Businesses ; R. Srinivasan, Shrihari Udupa, R. Mukund, Notion Press, ₹600.
