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Constant Growth in an Organization

  25-03-1973

As man is a live human being with sensitive physiological and psychological functions built up and constantly influenced by human environment, an institution is a LIVE being composed of sensitive individuals, equally sensitive systems, delicate ideas functioning within the enveloping framework of a hyper-sensitive society governed by forces, ideas and national movements of activity. If the circumstances of the inception of a business house are recalled and examined it can be seen how the national environment, the commercial possibilities, the opportunity in the shape of available funds and manpower have made possible its coming into existence.

The individual who ventures has been built up to his stature by the preceding stages of society. He sees a national need and sees in himself the possibilities of serving that need. Some men join him and it becomes a collective effort. The funds they gather have a history of having been collected into that magnitude and with the history come all the attitudes and skills that had gone into the earning and saving of them. The organization he chooses is either an innovation or an imitation. This too has been built up on similar lines. The central person or persons find themselves endowed with certain personal and social capacities which also have their history. This last item has a non-historical potential, i.e. the individual's ability for innovation. When a business house is successfully established, it means that, unconsciously or consciously they have fitted themselves into the main stream of national life, progress and prosperity.

As this emergence is an act of creation on a minor scale, the maintenance of its level of continuous progress and expansion commensurate with the national opportunities, made possible by the personal, financial, institutional capacities, is an act of creativity of the highest order conceivable. This is possible when the observation grows into a creative awareness of all the strands of forces that went into the emergence of the original organization and its being guided by a DYNAMISM called into play by that constant growth.

The question arises whether it is possible. The answer is, it is possible for everyone willing to give the needed effort. One of the secrets of creating this enormous energy is to keep the springs of all these energies fresh so as to allow natural collection of it. So done, there are two possibilities: when the moving souls of the project are practical, dynamic and reasonable, the horizontal expansion takes place limitlessly. The institution expands tenfold, one-hundredfold, etc. If, besides being practical, dynamic and reasonable they are also creative, endowed with vision, perceptive and on top of the limitless horizontal expansion, there appears a vertical expansion, i.e. first they grow into the next higher order of institution and then expand horizontally in a limitless fashion.

Let me give some of my unorganized thoughts below in a sketchy way. This has to be so since my thoughts have not as yet had the occasion to organize themselves in a life-experience.

Expansion is desirable and every one in business does appreciate an expansion of business in volume and a greater in-flow of income. As a matter of fact this is an act of patriotism and generally a positive movement. To put it sarcastically if one analyses the process of shrinking, decay and disappearance of business activities, it can be seen that each of these movements has an opposite term and all these constitute the life and well-being of an institution. For growth, all these must be taken for granted and much more is needed. The terms that need detailed consideration are:

  • 1. The structure (social, administrative) of the line of business and this particular house.
  • 2. The national commercial climate in which it functions and the principles on which change occurs into this area.
  • 3. The human components, their relation to this house.
  • 4. The customs and the background in which this custom exists and grows.
  • 5. Truisms of (a) human life (b) life that is to be honored within the framework of this operation.
  • 6. Poise and equilibrium of these forces for maximum results (and its comparison with houses so situated).
  • 7. The place of the following in terms of practical utility and practical evolution in the life and growth of the organization:
  • a. Ideals (viz. truth, falsehood etc.)
  • b. Life skills (viz. activity, inactivity, utilization of satisfaction, etc.).
  • c. Principles that govern existence (viz. order, punctuality, health, harmony).
  • d. Human nature (viz. sympathy, cruelty, laziness, etc.)

The founder of each house is generally "the structure", "the line" and its life. Often it is a nucleus of a few brains. The evolution of the idea of founding this house in the mind of the founder if subjected to an analysis and pattern of its growth to its present status will show the strongly ingrained traits that have contributed to the present position. It has the components of:

  • 1. Talents, traditions, experiences inherited.
  • 2. Levels of personal courage that played its part at each land mark of growth.
  • 3. Contents of imaginative grasp of the relatives of the situation that later proved their value.
  • 4. Capacity to invoke loyalty in colleagues and inspire confidence in the public.
  • 5. Strength of nerves that maintained a sustained activity and its special marks during periods of crisis.
  • 6. That element in man that turns an observed (knowledge of) opportunity into a practical reality.
  • 7. Efforts at effective co-ordination of men that matter -- the acumen involved therein.
  • 8. Those aspects personal and institutional that rose to the occasion at times of threat of breaking, if any, and
  • 9. Heights of physical endurance that were made possible and that were made available on the average.

These when well analysed will reveal their structure of existence and growth which when taken along those lines will reach its logical consummation, a phenomenal expansion. For a more complete study of its present nature and future lines one has to trace these origins in the previous generations.

Any organization is an organism. It has a structure wherein existence is manifest. This structure is inherited, that is, built up by the past evolution. This structure is so constituted that when the manifestation, i.e. its working, is so organized as to be in perfect harmony with its constitution, it not merely makes the maximum result possible in the present, but activates the very structure to grow in such a way that its greatest growth potentialities are made possible. This principle is equally true of all its above mentioned aspects of the infra-structure. To function this way one needs to relate the institution to the next higher ideal than the one for which it was conceived.



story | by Dr. Radut