Foundation for Liberal And Management Education First Annual Convocation Address - FLAME School of Liberal Education Prof. Srikant M. Datar, Harvard University May 6 th, 2011 Founder Chairman Parag Shah, Founder President Indira Parikh, Founder Director Nemish Shah, deans, members of the faculty, parents, honored guests, and most importantly graduating students. I am deeply honored and humbled to have been asked by the Foundation to give this convocation address to the first graduating class of undergraduate students. I have to say it turned out to be a far more significant responsibility than I had imagined. I have spent many days thinking and rethinking about what I could say to you today that at least some of you would find meaningful enough to remember some years from now. Most of us, I am told, do not remember a word of what our convocation speaker said. So my fond hope is to not meet the same fate. Whether I succeed at that or not, I guess I will never know. Most of my remarks, as convocation addresses are supposed to do, are directed towards you, the students, but I would like to take a moment to recognize the parents and teachers who are gathered here today to celebrate in your achievements and distinctions. It is the many sacrifices that they have made and their desire that you have a better life than them that has brought you to where you are today. I can sense and feel their pride and joy. It makes what you students have accomplished much more worthwhile. In honoring you today, we are also honoring them. There is a lesson in all of this, however, because the opposite is equally true. There is no bigger burden on you than the embarrassment and sadness you inflict on a parent if you do not live up to your responsibilities or standards of behavior. Use this as motivation for not straying from doing that which is right. After going back and forth, I decided I would focus my remarks on two qualities ---the courage to act ethically and empathy. You are perhaps curious why of the many things I could have spoken about, I chose these two themes. I think it was because these were qualities I saw in my parents as a young boy. My father, fueled by a greater purpose, left his career to take part in the freedom struggle. To him, independence was not just a good idea. It needed action to be achieved. He later founded the Nautical and Engineering College to train officers for India s merchant navy. My mother was a passionate and compassionate social worker and an elected member of the Pune Municipal Corporation. When she passed away in 2005, hundreds of slum dwellers, men, women, and children, came to pay their last respects because, in her role as a corporator, she had given them the precious gift of a water 1
connection in each home. Her philosophy was as simple as her impact was deep. She easily empathized with others less fortunate than herself and always lent her hand whenever she could. Several decades later, I have come to realize how these same two qualities--- the courage to act ethically and to have empathy and compassion---characterize so many of the great managers and leaders I have come to admire. I will, of course, speak to why these are important qualities in their own right. My larger point, though, is that today these are vital qualities to succeed in business. In the past decade, culminating in the recent global financial crisis, businesses have lost the trust of our societies. Today, average citizens do not see business as a force for good. They have almost forgotten the pivotal role business plays in bringing them products, services, and jobs, and improving the quality of their lives. Instead, society sees business as disrespecting laws and rules and using all possible means to gain wealth without creating long-term sustainable value. This is an untenable situation but getting back society s trust will require behavior that exemplifies high standards of ethical and moral conduct. But before I speak about ethics, let me focus first on the courage to act? President Theodore Roosevelt summed it up this way: It is not the critic that counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming, but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great devotion, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best knows in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails while daring greatly, knows that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat. At this institution, you have been encouraged to generate, assimilate, and disseminate new ideas, stimulate and foster your latent curiosity, and create a spirit of enquiry that inspires you to challenge the status quo. As a result, you have been endowed with critical and innovative thinking skills so crucial to making sound judgments and wise decisions. You are therefore uniquely positioned to act, to make things happen. But as you act, never forget that you must have the self-discipline to operate within and to respect laws and rules. Companies, just like schools and universities, have structures, systems, and processes---such as fair marketing practices, internal controls over cash, and commitment to quality---that are fundamental to their functioning. Without such rules and limits, an organization will descend into chaos. The management literature refers to these limits as boundaries---bright lines that, if violated, attract significant punishment and penalties. These boundaries define the frames within which you must act. Within these boundaries, why is taking action so difficult? It is because when we act we enter the arena. We take responsibility for our actions and their consequences and worry that we might fail. It is much easier to take more time and analyze in greater depth. Taking actions becomes even more difficult if we are trying to be innovative and try to do something new because the uncertainty is even greater. It takes some daring to act. By all means, gather information, deliberate, and evaluate but recognize that you will never know everything you would like to know. The future is always uncertain. All too often, the comfort of analysis overtakes the risks of actions. It is this bias that you have to guard against. Moreover, when we act, we depend on and take responsibility for the actions of others. We worry if we can trust others to take the right actions. Sometimes we prefer to control everything ourselves. But the more we control the more difficult it becomes to engage others to implement and execute well. 2
But there is a deeper reason why we fail to act. We frequently face the choice between taking the right action, acting honorably and ethically, or simply taking the easy course, the one that is most convenient. It takes great courage to take the more ethical course. It is not always easy to take a stand, to do what is right. But for the best managers and leaders, ethics and integrity are just part of their identity, who they are and want to be. They design organizations where group and individual responsibility are grounded in strong ethical principles. Ethical actions are an important priority that cannot be sacrificed for the expediency of profits because in the long run an organization without values cannot survive. History reminds us that this is also true of societies and nations. And now to my second topic, empathy. Empathy is the ability to identify with and understand somebody else's feelings or difficulties. I can best illustrate what I mean by telling the story of a little boy in the days when an ice cream sundae cost much less than it does today. A 10-year old boy entered a hotel coffee shop and sat at a table. A waitress put a glass of water in front of him. How much is an ice cream sundae? the boy asked Fifty cents replied the waitress. The little boy pulled his hand out of his pocket and studied the coins in it. Well how much is a plain dish of ice cream? he enquired. By now more people were waiting for a table and the waitress was growing impatient. Thirty five cents, she brusquely replied. The little boy again counted his coins. I will have plain ice cream he said. The waitress brought the ice cream, put the bill on the table and walked away. The boy finished the ice cream, paid the cashier and left. When the waitress returned to the table, tears welled up in her eyes as she wiped the table down. For there, placed neatly beside the empty dish were 15 cents. You see the little boy could have had the ice cream sundae but then he would not have had any money left to leave her a tip so he chose the plain ice cream instead. So why is developing empathy so important? Besides the obvious human element that the story of the little boy illustrates, my motivation for talking about empathy is to develop the argument that empathy is an essential quality of management and leadership. The profession of management differs from other professions such as medicine, law, accounting or architecture, where the primary professional relationship is between the professional and his or her patient or client. The manager of a business must work with assembly-line workers, clerical staff, and salespersons to achieve the goals of the organization. To successfully lead these individuals, business managers must understand the aspirations, motivations, and desires of those they lead that are likely to be very different from their own. My own research and experiences suggest, for example, that quality education for their children is more important to the uneducated worker than a little more money. If a business leader understood this insight and did something about it, he or she would 3
probably gain unwavering loyalty and trust. The key is to be able to see things from another person s perspective. Developing empathy will cause you to be more reflective, introspective and self-aware. It will help you to understand better the impact your behavior has on others and why others see you the way they do. It will help you identify your own strengths and weaknesses, work well with others, and inspire and motivate those you will lead. It will engender commitment and help you develop stronger values. In a world where, as one of my colleagues described it, leaders will increasingly have less authority and more conflict, empathy is essential to finding common ground because it will help you see things holistically from multiple, shifting angles. I have no doubt that the lack of ethical actions and the lack of empathy has contributed in significant ways to many crises including the recent economic crisis, where banks made home loans to individuals who had no ability to repay them. I also believe that acting ethically and having empathy helps managers and leaders create economic and social value. It allows them to infuse organizations with greater purpose where ordinary employees can be trusted to do extraordinary things. It is good for business. But my dream for you is bigger. I pray that your courage to act ethically and your empathy will help you to widen your vision in ways that will enable you to impact society beyond your organizations. All too often, we get comfortable criticizing what is happening around us but then do little else. We can and must do more. So if you see poverty and want to alleviate it, if you see suffering and want to heal it, if you see injustice and want to right it, and if you see corruption and want to end it, I hope you will act. Some of these challenges might seem too daunting to tackle. The cynics will say it cannot be done. When you feel this way, remember the words of the author Margaret Mead who said: Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it s the only thing that ever has. Our own history is full of such examples. The recent events in the Middle East or here in India serve to make much the same point. Before I close, I want to give you one final reason why the courage to act ethically and empathy are important. Two weeks ago at the end of one of my courses, my students gave me a plaque with a quotation from Hellen Keller. If you remember nothing else of what I have said today, I hope you will remember these words: The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen and even touched. They must be felt by the heart. Many of Mahatma Gandhi s seven deadly sins such as knowledge without character, pleasure without conscience, science without humanity, and commerce without morality, have to do with a lack of heart. Robert Kennedy described the same thoughts a little differently, The Gross National Product does not allow for the health of the children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. Amidst all the material and other successes that I hope you will have, remember these are neither the best nor the most beautiful, nor the most worthwhile. So as you leave this idyllic campus, my wish for you is that through the 4
courage of your actions and your empathy, you will feel in your heart, the truly beautiful and worthwhile things in this world. Congratulations and all the very, very best. Thank you for allowing me to be part of your celebrations. FLAME School of Liberal Education 5