Individual as a resource
By A.P.N. Pankaj

"ALL organisations now say routinely, ‘People are our greatest asset.’ Yet few practice what they preach, let alone truly believe it. Most still believe though perhaps not consciously, what nineteenth century employers believed: People need us more then we need them. But in fact, organisations have to market membership .... and perhaps more. They have to attract people and serve and satisfy people."

—Peter F. Drucker

The organisation is important to the individual. To most of us, it provides all our basic needs: Subsistence, security and social. We earn our bread, obtain our identity and develop a sense of security from it. Over the years of our relationship with organisation, we also seek fulfilment of our personal dreams. In fact, even to weave the warp and weft of our dreams most of us obtain the thread of our ambitions from it. If one leaves aside the exceptions like authors, poets, artists etc (although even they, for acknowledgement of their work, need some organisation or the other) who rejoice in their isolation and love to work alone, we all are, in one way or the other, organisation people.

And yet the relationship between the individual and the organisation is not one of the dependent and purveyor. It is that of interdependence. The organisation has its vision, mission, goals, structure and infrastructure with which it functions. But not only with these by themselves. It functions with these through people. Without people, despite the entire paraphernalia, an organisation will neither be defined, nor spell out its mission etc, nor be able to exist. It is the people who give a concrete shape to the goals, devise strategies to achieve them, specify tasks which facilitate achievement of goals, perform those tasks, carry out midway changes when required, use their discretion, take risk, make decisions, relate to, own up and enjoy the results and face consequences.

Without people, an organisation does not have a face. It is an abstract entity. People, therefore, are as important, if not more, to the organisation as the latter is to them.

An individual enters the organisation on attaining adulthood with certain basic qualifications considered essential for the job. He enters in the hope that the organisation will, in return of his labours, take care of him and his needs. But this is not all that he brings. As we mentioned in the previous article, the individual also has his values, beliefs, strengths, weaknesses, hopes, aspirations and idiosyncrasies.

For a while, he may deliberately keep them under wraps when he joins the organisation but sooner rather than later, they surface and get reflected in the way he works, behaves, interacts with his peers, seniors and subordinates. Although he comes with the basic qualifications the job requires, they are, at best, of a general nature and may not fully meet —or periodically require upgradation —to subserve the specific job demands.

It is at this juncture—or such junctures— that the real relationship, notwithstanding the formal, entry point contact, is put to test and comes under pressure.

Organisations that are proactive, respect the uniqueness of each individual and, at the same time, are aware of his traits which are common between him and the other members of the group, help the individual in developing skills which are essential for working in a team. While they assist the individual in contributing his unique abilities for the enrichment of the job, they also provide him an environment in which he gradually starts exploring his latent talents.

In the process of this discovery, he realises that while quite a few of his capabilities can be directly used by the organisation, some of them may not, prima facie, be of much use. The organisation must, therefore, have a climate in which he can discuss, without fear or scepticism, his thoughts and discoveries with his seniors. As a part of the organisation culture, they may carefully listen to the individual, assist him in using his abilities or guide him how, within the limitations, satisfying results can be achieved.

The seniors must also themselves possess the skills of empathy so that when the individual has some personal, organisational, work related or career related problems, they may suitably counsel him. The individual dissent must not be ignored or frowned upon. If it is misplaced, it should be corrected with patience and logic. The seniors must not use the stick of seniority to thwart disagreement for the voice of genuine dissent. This helps the growth of the organisation and, at the same time, reinforces the individual’s confidence in himself and the organisation. The individual feels that he is contributing and helping the organisation and is valued. This, to him, means recognition and satisfaction and to the organisation, his renewed commitment.

Also, with this a beginning of a long, albeit, difficult journey to self actualisation may also be made. Organisations that give an individual a feeling of recognition indirectly assist him in making such a beginning although, in fairness, it must be said, it is ultimately upto him to undertake or continue on it.

The development of an individual, after he joins the organisation, needs to be seen from two angles: His development as a resource to the latter and that as resource to himself. While organisations do generally provide training to the individual for acquisition by him of necessary knowledge and skills for performing the assigned role and to subserve the interests and objectives of the former, not many of them attach importance to developing him as a resource to himself.

In the process, he is reduced to just a creature of the organisation. He loses a sense of balance between his responsibility to the organisation and those to himself, his family and the others. As pressure of job mounts and he spends long hours at work, his relationship with his own people suffers and he becomes an alien at home. By the time the realises what has gone wrong, it is already too late. It dawns on him that he has been cheated by the organisation. He also feels that his dedication and hard work have, while being taken for granted, not been adequately rewarded. May be he quits to join some other organisation.

But if he remains, disillusionment set sets in and cynicism takes over. Alternatively, stress and anxiety and related ailments start settling on him. By the time he is at the exit gate of the organisation he, notwithstanding all the positions, promotions, perks and pay packages the organisation gave him, is already an unhappy person. He does not know what to do with his remaining years since the communication with the world outside the organisation, including family, had ended long before. Worse, he ends up feeling that he was not just used as a resource by the organisation but viciously exploited by it. The individual who had started as a regenerative source, ends up as a depleted and a sucked up source.

The organisation must, therefore, while developing the person as a resource to itself, also facilitate processes for his development as a resource to himself so that while he contributes for the organisation, he also realises that the organisation takes interest in him. He is a person responsible, apart from it, also to his family and society and himself. The HRD and training outfits of the organisation have a great responsibility in this regard. With this, it would be easy for the person to pursue the goals of self actualisation in his years of vanaprastha and then, in the twilight of life, experience the sunshine of identification with the universal self.

The organisations we have referred to, it must be admitted, are commercial and not philanthropic entities. They hire people to meet their goals of profit and growth. It is, however, a mistaken notion that by taking interest in the comprehensive development of their people, they are doing acts of charity. They are only making an investment because while a satisfied individual’s contribution is itself quantitatively more and/or qualitatively superior, the culture so developed in the organisation, helps it to grow and prosper with the committed individuals on an ongoing basis.