Reflections on the Spirit of Great Institutions

The corporate world has taught me more about life than I ever expected; I have heard the horror stories and lamentations about ‘sordid corporations’ and ‘exploitative companies’. I had heard it all, been warned (and belittled) about entering it and shuddered at the thought.

But what I did not anticipate was the robust implementation of effectiveness, integrity and service embodied by the leaders that I have observed, learned from and admired.

While we imagine ourselves to be logical creatures, we are usually blind to many emotionally driven behaviours and idiosyncrasies that dictate our conduct – primarily shaped by our early experiences and relationships. Sustainable institutional effectiveness, however, demands an objective appraisal of activities and each individual to add value to society at large eventually, and in this connection, generates exercises (e.g., frequent feedback with actionable workarounds) with this view in mind. Two books on this topic spring to mind, namely ‘Positive Intelligence’ and ‘Multipliers’, which emphasise a process of self-observation and iterative course correction to deliberately practice behaviours aligned with an organisation’s objectives. The same principle can, however, be applied to life by asking the question: “Do my day-to-day actions and activities align with my dreams?” and adjusting accordingly. This single example (of which there are myriad) demonstrates how the toolkits utilised within institutions applied to oneself can prove invaluable and, in some cases, so closely synergise personal and professional growth that the distinction between the two slowly disappears, echoing Indra Nooyi’s reference to ‘work-life integration’.