Managing An Organization – The Homeopathy Way!
For those uninitiated, the ‘simple substance’ in Homeopathy refers to the vital force or the life force, or what most of us know it as, the immune system. What is unique about this ‘simple substance’ is that it is our only organ, which does not have a physical form. It is simple and singular; it cannot be seen or palpitated or operated on unlike a heart. It cannot be x-rayed or MRI’d; and yet we believe that it exists. Therefore, my discussion with most people is that Homeopathic remedies are quite the same; they are simple and natural, non-physical yet they exist!
To give you a business analogy, if I had the pleasure of welcoming you at Bajaj Auto, and if you asked me to show you our motorcycles or test facilities, I could show it to you. But if you wanted to see my business strategy, I couldn’t, because it’s not physical or material – it cannot be seen or displayed. However, if you asked me, do you have a strategy, I would insist, yes of course, I do have a strategy. Therefore it is very important to know, that there is something beyond the physical. A form of energy that exists in every human being and in every organization, that which is its life force, its vital force, its immune system, or its strategy.
Another important aspect of Homeopathy is that it is repeatable, reliable, produces the same results again and again, and therefore is predictable. Unfortunately, management is not a predictable science as Homeopathy is! Two of the best-known marketing gurus of our time, Al Rise and Jack Trout, in their book Origin of Brands, lament over the fact that 90–95% of the time managers fail .
That means that the products and services that you and I put out in the market also fail. And the only reason we survive is because everyone else too fails; so on a relative basis in a competitive environment, it doesn’t matter. That’s when I started asking myself, would I accept a school or a doctor, which failed me 90% of the time? Overtime I‘ve realized that management is not a science! It does not have any laws or aphorisms. There are no principles – it is all about the flavor of the day or of the month. It is about hindsight; about anecdotes and herd mentality. I decided that rather than believe in ‘management science’, which is devoid of anything repeatable or predictable, why not I believe in something where I’ve experienced a real science; where I have seen repeatable, reliable results time and again. Thus began my journey trying to find the link between the simple substance in Homeopathy and management.
We all want wellness, be it as a company or as an individual. We are not well when we are not at ease, that’s where the word ‘dis-ease’ comes from. We know disease by the symptoms; for example, I’m very allergic to the sun and get sun burnt very easily on my ears and my neck. After symptoms, comes the concept of cause – so I always believed that the sun is the cause of my sunburns. From cause, comes the concept of exciting cause – at one point, I asked myself, if sun is indeed the cause, then the sun should cause sunburn for everyone – so how come it burns only me? And I then realized, that beyond the exciting cause, there is something called the fundamental cause – that which leads me to be burnt by the sun. The fundamental cause is what decides my constitution. In other words, what is constitution to a human being becomes the business model of an organization.
Therefore it is not the sun or the economy or the Finance Minister that defines our future success or failure. There is something within us, for that matter, in our constitution or business model, which is very typical of us – that which makes us who we are as an individual or as an organization. It means that there is something peculiar in me that defines my individuality, and the peculiarity is my susceptibility. The word susceptibility, vulnerability or predisposition, defines who we are. I am susceptible to the sun that is why I am burnt by the sun. As the great philosopher, Carl Jung said, ‘From your vulnerabilities and susceptibilities will arise your strength’, meaning that the only way to become strong is by overcoming your weakness. That brought me to the understanding that if I can identify the weakness in my organization, and humbly modestly overcome it, while strengthening its life force, its immune system, its strategy – as much as I must strengthen my own self from within – then even if things are not so good on the outside, we should be able to resist anything.
Seven Principles Of Homeopathy Individualization: The concept of individualization is that, I am what is ‘uncommon’ with everyone else. The true enemy of man is generalization – so as long as you remain yourself and retain that which is peculiar about you, life is good. This is the same for every patient, symptom, as well as for every organization. Each has a different constitution, a different susceptibility, and a different vitality. So my job at Bajaj Auto is to understand what makes us unique, and simply hand that to my salesman. For the only thing important, is what the salesman says to a customer when he’s asked, ‘why should I buy your motorcycle?’ If the salesman cannot reply in one simple sentence, what is unique about my motorcycle, it will not sell. That uniqueness or USP differentiation in management is nothing but individualization in Homeopathy.
Holism: Founder of Homeopathy, Dr. Hahnemann said, ‘A symptom is no more a disease, than a leg, a whole human being’. A perfect example of this principle is the story of five blind men on the elephant, where each one tugs on a part and believes it to be the whole. This belief was further established by the great British Homeopath, Dr. Kent, who then propounded the concept of the ‘three-legged stool’. So just as you cannot sit on a stool unless it has at least three legs, whether it is a patient or a company, you cannot look at any situation from a one-sided view. If you do so, then you are likely to have a myopic view of the subject. We do this with our product strategy wherein we apply the principles of a 3 legged stool, which in our case are design, performance and price of the motorcycle.
Vitality: It simply means to strengthen oneself from within. As Dr. Kent said, ‘The first job of physician is to restore order and discipline in the life of a patient’. This is because, without order and discipline, no medicine or remedy will work. Similarly, we believe that as an organization, it is essential to strengthen ourselves by asking which chakras and nadis (energy centers) need to be opened. Therefore, in the past 10-15 years, we have not marketed our motorcycles with a Bollywood actress or with a cricketer – it makes no sense. Subscribing to it would be considered allopathic; for if we have a sound strategy that is vital then that itself give us robustness for the market place
Like Cures Like: This means that if a medicine creates certain symptoms in a healthy person, then it can cure a person who’s unwell with the same symptoms. So if I were to express grief that is greater than the unhappiness you feel, then at least momentarily you will forget your unhappiness, because your empathy would make you relate to me. Thus, like cures like, grief cures grief. Humor does not cure grief, and that is why it is such an important principle in Homeopathy. I have found it immensely invaluable when dealing with labor, as every time I tried to impose my will on them – what is known as a primary action in homeopathy – it never worked. But if I spoke in a manner that would elicit a secondary response from them, then I eventually always succeeded.
Single Remedy: Just as our immune system can deal with only one stimulus at a time, similarly, there’s nothing worse than a CEO who goes out every month and comes back with a bright new idea. He not only confuses his employees with these fragmented ideas, but also expects them to be implemented. An organization certainly cannot dance to a different tune (idea) every month. For example, when I had hurt my neck and my cervical disk was half out, normally, it would have been thought to not do anything with the neck. But I was fortunate as BKS Iyengar, who was my Yoga guru, was still alive. He told me like cures like, so we will put more pressure on the spine and release it, and the secondary action from the immune system will heal you. He recommended that I do Sirsasana, and to avoid monotony, he taught me to do Sirsasana with front split, side split, Padmasana, etc. To my amazement, after 6 months, my MRI showed that the disk was back inside. So when I say, we should follow one idea in the company, it does not mean, it has to be boring, mechanical, mundane or repetitive – rather than doing many different things, it is better to do one thing in many different ways.
The Concept of the Smallest Dose: ‘The Emperor’s new clothes’ by Hans Christian Anderson exemplifies this principle, as sometimes it takes a little child to call everybody’s bluff. Unfortunately, I find this happening in business everyday. We are always struggling to implement ideas, and we struggle so much that Harvard Business School writes articles and articles on why execution in itself is strategy. Therefore, what I’ve learnt is that if you’re having so much trouble with execution, you should, maybe reconsider whether your idea itself is appropriate or not. In fact I believe that if you don’t succeed, try something else. In Homeopathy, if the remedy is right, which in their language is called ‘perfect or near-perfect similimum’; the smallest dose acts so gently, so rapidly and so permanently, from a fever to the biggest of problems. In management too, when an idea is appropriate, it goes through like a hot knife through butter; if not, then we struggle with it forever.
The learning in our case came when, after being a licensee for Vespa and then Kawasaki for 40 years, we produced the Pulsar in 2001 – that one idea changed everything for the company.
Potentised Repetition: People and organization get used to a stimulus if it is repeated again and again. Just like if we take a painkiller often, then we say that we have become resistant to it. So how does one improve the vitality of an organization? As somebody said, ‘he is healthy, whose food is his medicine’. Similarly I believe, that an organization is healthy whose work is its own improvement. Therefore, every 2-3 years, I tell my people to make a better Pulsar to potentised the challenge a little bit, and over time over 15 years they have become world-class engineers, making world-class motorcycles. Fifteen, years back, we exported nothing, and today, we export 50% of everything that we make. That it is proof enough that our strategy has been successful.
Finally, as renowned Homeopath, Dr. Alan Greenberg says, ‘keep it simple, focus on diet and nutrition, focus on everything that is natural like Homeopathy; that is the best way to live to a ripe old age!