Organisations as fulfilment engines

What is the true purpose of an organisation? Is it merely the creation of wealth, or must there be a higher purpose to it? The East may have some answers to this question.



Indian culture, as a result of its philosophicalfoundations in Vedic traditions, has nevereschewed wealth. However, it hasrepeatedly stressed that the real purpose oflife is a higher fulfilment whose end goal isself-realisation.



Thus, material wealth of any form cannotbecome the end of any enterprise or humanlife. It may certainly be one of the outcomes,but is not the central purpose.



Our institutions in all spheres - be it business,education or Government - seem to belosing sight of the higher purpose of theirexistence and have increasingly startedviewing themselves as a means to an end. What then could be the higher purpose thatan institution must seek to address itself to?



While there could be many ways of looking at this issue, one possible answer is thatthe reason for the existence of any institutionis to provide an arena for fulfilment forits end-users (customers) and constituents(employees and other stakeholders).



What might such a fulfilment-centred organisationlook like across these two dimensionsof external and internal stakeholders?



Customer Fulfillment:



The big question here is - which customerpurpose is this organisation trying to fulfil?Unfortunately, the industrial era mindset isone of viewing customers as being no morethan `wallets` waiting to be tapped. This isnot to suggest that such firms are unethical - they are only responding to shareholder andinvestor expectations by behaving in a mannerthat only focuses on financial goals.



Additionally, given the complexity of largeorganisations and the degrees of separationbetween the producers and end-consumers,it is no surprise that organisations view customersas abstractions.



The post-industrial world needs to viewcustomers and their needs in the light ofpurpose fulfilment. Every customer is essentiallyseeking fulfilment of some sort throughthe consumption of goods and services. This fulfilment could be at a basic level of survival, or at the highest level of self-actualisation.



What if a business organisation were to alignitself to this hierarchy of needs and claim asits mission the goal of raising the customer tohigher levels of fulfilment?



This may mean the creation of increasinglysophisticated products for which theremay not be a market at the moment. The exact opposite of this is seen in many privately-owned electronic news media outlets.



In the interest of `what sells`, these outletscater to the lowest in their `customers` insteadof raising the bar to challenge theircustomers to evolve. They need to realisethat producers of goods and services have amoral responsibility towards customers. Infact, this is a far higher form of corporatesocial responsibility than the contribution ofa share of profits towards social causes.



The Internal Perspective:



Within the organisation two axes of fulfilmentmust be clearly defined - the first isthe fulfilment of customers through thework done by a worker, and second is thefulfilment of the worker himself, and the tworeinforce each other. However, as pointedout earlier, the distance from the actual customer,and the abstract way in which tasksare parcelled out means that the averageworker no longer feels connected to the customer`spurpose or even his own purpose.



The way out of this alienation is to erase theboundaries between the firm and its customers,and allow customers to `infiltrate` withtheir views and allow these to actively influencecorporate strategy.



The second dimension i.e. the worker`sown fulfilment. This involves a systemic reevaluationof how careers are viewed fromthe traditional give-and-take transactionalmodel to a fulfilment-oriented model. In thelatter model, a service mindset (seva) will bevery important. Seva, in the Vedic/ karmayoga context, is a work offered without anyanticipation of reward, because the workitself is the reward in that it offers an opportunityto expand oneself from one`s narrowselfish ego, towards a greater humanity.



While this may seem like lofty idealism, itis easy to see its practical function. Activitiesperformed without anticipation or anxietyfor future rewards must necessarily bringgreater focus to the work at hand, and hence,a greater quality in the outcome, as well asgreater fulfilment.



In conclusion, India is well placed due toits unique cultural and historical context tobring alive the vision of fulfilment-centricorganisations. The question then is whetherwe will choose to replicate the path taken bythe West and its attendant pitfalls, or will weat some point integrate the best of the Eastwith the West.