Self Renewing Systems

- By Mr. P. Vijayan

I have been very fortunate to experience the challenge of walking on the road of institution building very early in my life and career. I would like to share some thoughts, rushing across my mind, at this time and space. What is an institution or what is institutional quality?

An institution, according to my understanding, is a collective endeavour of a group of people, which is capable of outlasting time, generates a sense of timelessness , a sense of permanence and yet evolving and changing to the contexts, from time to time. The essential discriminating factor of institutional quality is that it requires minimum hierarchical and structural intervention. The organisation is a living, breathing one and is driven by the energy and passion of its people, be it customers or employees. Institution building is all about evoking the collective and individual spirit of the human being(s) and providing space for their flowering and realising potential.

Another important institutional quality is a sense of seamlessness between the purpose of the human beings involved and the purpose of the collective. It plays out, quite contrary to normal construct of conflict proneness, with a script where individualism and the collective are celebrated in simultaneity. Institution building is not necessarily a bed of roses - there are conflicts, moments of disappointments, anxiety, fear, frustration. Some members tending to take more psychological space may not be welcomed by others. However, the underlying belief/principle - of these potential conflicts - is not one of win lose or to be pushed under the carpet. It is a dynamic play between different voices/forces and the outcome adds a new dimension to the institution and its capability to respond to its contexts- good or bad is not the frame of evaluating movement. Institution building stresses on intrinsic motivation and the spirit of voluntarism and hence membership of institutions tend to be invitational and there could be situations where a new member may just not fit the norms and values and hence find it extremely difficult to belong, as normal hierarchical and structural intervention may not exist/may choose not to intervene. Hence membership into institutions has to be given considerable care.

Why am I talking about institutional quality? History has shown that the greatest acts of valour, breakthrough results, resolution of serious conflicts have, always, happened when a leader/set of leaders and the energy/passion has acted as critical mass to move the processes from transactional focused to one with a higher order purpose. Institution building is all about generating this sense of higher order purposes for organisations and its people, customers, vendors, etc. The few global companies that have successfully outlasted a century are those who have had significant attention paid to building intrinsic drivers to generate superior performance and the leadership- even if it has structurally changed- have taken the collective from one orbit of organization success to a higher and different orbit of higher order purpose. The processes of building Mission, Vision, Values, strategic intent are all interventions of generating higher order purposes for people to feel connected.

Countries can connect their citizens in a genuine sense only through institution building and strengthening the ones already in place. Countries evolve/develop/mature over time only when the citizens, in large numbers decide that they do not want to be largely in a recipient mode and generates traction for people power. Institutional quality is captured beautifully in the famous quote of Abraham Lincoln - 'Democracy is for the people, of the people, by the people." Let me sing off with another famous quotation of Pierre Teilhard de Charden (French philosopher) - "We are not physical beings having a spiritual experience, but spiritual beings having a physical experience.' Cheers to this CSOL - Change Choices blog . I am sure it will be a vibrant, living meeting place of many co travellers-sharing, collaborating and learning almost in real time.

P. Vijayan, Mahindra & Mahindra
P Vijayan is an alumnus of Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) and closely associated with the Activities of the Center for Social and Organisational Leadership( C SOL) ,TISS.