Star Performers and Commodity Developers

I was reading an article by Peter F. Drucker titled “The Coming of the New Organization” originally published in Harvard Business Review in 1988. It inspired me to write a new blog on Xebia blog site:

ISB Alumni Meet and Bihar Floods

Saturday 30th August 2008

After enjoying the great dinner in the ISB Alumni meet, at Maurya Sheraton in Saket, I sensed a striking similarity between ISB and Maurya Sheraton.  Both institutions are the oases in a sea of poverty, exclusively open to an elite group of our society. We can enter their plush campuses and make us believe that this is our India.

I switched on the TV after returning home at 11:30 PM only to witness sad images from Bihar. Our attention hungry TV channels added a grim background music and animated titles to the flood news, as if the grief of the people due to this terrible tragedy was not enough to draw our attention. In a news item, a young  5 year old girl queuing up with adults to get watery Dal being served at a relief camp drew my attention. When her turn comes and she raises her bowl among the adults to get a spoon of hot Dal. In the commotion, boiling hot Dal spills on her hands. She bursts into tears but immediately hunger makes her forget the pain.

I am feeling a bit guilty about the dinner at the Maurya Sheraton and about my helplessness about helping the helpless victims of this tragedy. As a gentleman said during the election speech that he did everything for a selfish motive. Perhaps, he was speaking on the behalf of all of us. We visit many countries. We have dinner invitations every weekend. We wear expensive watches. We want to start on our own to earn even more money and name for ourselves.

Even after exchanging my Indian nationality for Dutch, I never managed to avoid the questions from foreigners why we are so poor in taking care of our community. That’s a real puzzle to outsiders why we are unable to take care of ourselves. Few months back the driver of a cab in which I was travelling in Sydney passed a bad joke about our roads which was hard to deny because it was based upon the facts.

Monday 1^st September 2008

Hindustan Times has news about inflation, Amarnath issue, Singur and even about ‘Singh is Kinng’ running full house in Pakistan on the front page, however the terrible tragedy of 40 lakhs people in Bihar has found no prime space in this leading daily. Ironically it even has a Patna edition. At the same time BBC World chooses to keep Bihar in its headlines showing the tragedy with no background music and animation.

ISB has India in its name. Bihar is India. Maurya Sheraton draws its names from the prestigious empire based in Bihar. We take pride in both but show no compassion for the tragedy in Bihar.

If I appeal for the action for the same cause in Europe, the people over there will see this as an act of charity and come forward with help. Any help that we do will not be a charity. It will be a pay off for a debt or a royalty  payment that we have to do for taking pride in the names such as Maurya Sheraton and Indian School of Business.

Let ISB Alumni association start with a non-selfish cause of helping the flood victims and use our management brains to help people who cannot afford to pay our fat salaries.

 

I would like to pledge Rs. 25000 from my company and Rs. 5000 from my personal funds for this worthy cause.