I met the idea of Initiatives of Change (MRA as it was then called) as a student at the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, when I was full of blame towards political and business leaders for the corruption and communal divisions in our country. I was challenged to reflect if I too was a part of the problems of the world or their solution, and to carry out an experiment of sitting in silence and listing the faults I saw in others which were also in me.
For the first time, I could see seeds of corruption in my own life. I had stolen a piece of precious metal from my laboratory. I also became aware of anger towards my father because I felt he always tried to have things his way. I also recognized jealousy towards my younger brothers, as I felt they received undue parental attention and praise. I was able to see my anger and jealousies as divisive forces, for which the country and the world needed cure.
I realized I had no right to blame politicians and businessmen for corruption as long as I did not return the stolen piece of precious metal to my institute laboratory. It was not easy but motivation to become a part of the answer to corruption gave me the courage to do it. After considerable inner struggle I got honest about my true feelings and apologised to my father and my brothers. It resulted in a new feeling of inner liberation and a sense of empowerment. My father was very forgiving. We became a more united family
My first steps of personal change gave me a sense of inner liberation and courage and to seek what my unique role could be to make a difference to the world. I started practicing daily quiet times to listen to my inner voice for guidance. I had graduated in engineering from one of India’s best technology colleges and was working on a plan to start my own small industry in partnership with two of my friends. However I was guided by my inner voice to devote my next years to building good human relations in industry. I found a trainee job at the country’s largest automobile company, Tata Motors, located in one of India’s most backward provinces, Bihar. At that time most of Indian industry was suffering from big industrial unrest. It was reflected in huge production losses, high costs and poor quality. Mistrust between management and labour and poor human relations were its root cause. Tata Motors was no exception to it. Following the daily practice of listening to inner guidance and implementing the thoughts which came I was amazingly led to helping bring about an end to the rivalry between two bitterly divided, powerful union leaders in my department.
I come from a management family. A key factor which helped me win the trust and friendship of these men was my honesty in sharing with them my negative view of union leaders, for which I said I was sorry. In my so doing, I was dealing with the memory the working class carries of being exploited by owners and managers for a long period of labour history. Sharing my own experience of change, I introduced these two men to the practice of having quiet times and obeying their inner voice. It surprised me that a few months later they took the courageous call to end their rivalry and usher in a new era of industrial harmony in our department of 250, leading to a significant increase in production and improvement in quality. For the company management this change was something it had not imagined to be possible. The lesson I drew from it was that a higher wisdom can guide us and use us to make a difference when we humbly face change in our own lives and listen to our inner guidance to tell us what we can do to make a difference. As a young engineer at the beginning of his career I had no previous experience of facilitating the kind of transformation which had come about in my department.
An unexpected development which followed thereafter was an invitation I received from the company’s human resource department to join its management training centre. My inner voice told me it would be the right next step for me. I thought to use this opportunity to design training programs which could multiply my first laboratory experiment of conflict resolution and peace building on the shop floor. In my quiet time I had the vision of a training program, which came to be called the “Human Relations at Work” program. The entire 24,000 strong workforce of the company, comprising of management and workers was trained in this 3 days program in batches over the next 7 years. The honest communication initiated in the program between managers and workers, transformed years of conflict and unrest into industrial peace.
The objective of the Human Relations at Work (HRW) program was to provide a safe forum for trust-building through honest dialogue between managers and workers from the same work area in a learning environment. A training design was developed drawing from principles of transactional analysis, some games in group dynamics and the ideas drawn from Initiatives of Change. The MRA film “Men of Brazil”, dubbed in Hindi, was a powerful input. What happened between people during program breaks was as important as what happened in the sessions. As the three days program progressed, one could hear participants discussing the applicability of what they were learning to their real-life situations and problems. Honest sharing was seen to break down relationship barriers between managers and workers. One could clearly see that a lot of the industrial relations disputes were in reality human relations issues of insensitivity, hurts, lack of listening, etc. A key perspective change which was reported by participants was their realisation that in most conflicts both sides end up as losers, and that it is possible to solve most problems through honest dialogue.
However, the task of training all the 24,000 employees was a daunting one. I realised it would take too long if it were to be carried out by me and a handful of regular trainers, one program at a time. A large number of quality trainers were needed to run parallel programs for a faster coverage. The question was where to find them.
Once again, I was given an idea in my quiet time by which I was able to set into motion a process for identifying and developing new trainers. In every batch of Human Relations at Work (HRW) that I ran, I looked out for potential trainers amongst the participants. These were the managers, supervisors and even workers who showed a readiness to apply to their own selves what was taught in the classroom, and an openness to change. I met them after the program and ask them if they would like to become trainers. If they consented, I facilitated them in being able to conduct a training session of their choice. I also tried to arrange for them to attend some or the other program of Initiatives of Change at the earliest available opportunity. These programs helped them go to a deeper level of personal change and go beyond to becoming agents of change. In this way over 100 trainers were trained as internal facilitators. They included workers as well as union leaders, some of whom became excellent trainers. It was revolutionary for a manager to be sitting as participant in training led by a worker or a union leader. With the help of these internal trainers, we were able to run a number of parallel HRW programs to achieve a training coverage of the 24,000 workforce in just 7 years.
As batch after batch of HRW was conducted in the company’s training centre, a palpable change in workplace culture was reported. Hundreds of hidden conflicts and tensions were brought up for direct discussion and subsequent resolution. Arising from an enhanced trust level between labour and management, hundreds of voluntary improvement groups, called Small Groups, comprising of representatives of the workers and the management were formed. These Small Groups, which functioned on the pattern of Japan’s famed Quality Circles, contributed solutions to a wide range of the company’s challenges, like quality, productivity and industrial relations. An ILO study which evaluated this work confirmed its far-reaching impact. One of the visible impacts of HRW program and Small Group activity was the sharp rise in the number of improvement ideas given by employees from a mere 2000 in a year to over 28,000 in a year, saving the company a significant amount of money besides improving commitment to work.
The impact of HRW went beyond the workplace to the wider society to helping employees resolve tensions in their families and in the community in which they lived. In this process my wife too played an important part. With her support I started a weekly meeting in our home for people to come with their families and talk freely about their difficulties and learn to seek inner guidance for finding solutions. Several of those who came were able to find healing to strained relationships in their families by changing their own attitudes and were able to deal with tensions in their neighbourhoods and communities by taking initiatives of for reconciling differences.
As community leaders, company employees, mainly workmen, were successful in averting communal riots in their neighbourhoods when the rest of the country was gripped by violence following the assassination of Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi. The city’s police chief, who observed this, was curious to know the secret behind what he saw. Many employees, inspired by their inner voice, took on to redress centuries of injustice and discriminatory treatment meted out to the tribal people of the region and the ‘untouchables’ in Indian society by higher castes and the well-off. They took time to reach out in friendship to people of nearby villages, a harijan bustee (a settlement of sweepers) and students of surrounding colleges, offering them HRW programs.
Shailendra Mahato, a leader of the native people from village Dorkasai 15 km outside the city, who attended one such program, apologized to his rival village leader from a different political party for his animosity and divisive politics which had divided the village population and had held up their development. His apology was reciprocated by a similar apology from his opponent, opening the way to a new partnership between them Their village development accelerated thereafter, bringing with it better schools, irrigation and sanitation facilities. Some years later Dorkasai was declared the best village of Singhbhum district by the state government.
PK Rai, a company supervisor and a brahmin by birth, was one of those from a higher caste who decided to change his attitude and behavior towards the harijans, regarded as untouchables by higher castes. He invited harijans from the nearby bustee home for tea. Earlier, if ever tea was offered to a sweeper in their home, it would be served in a different cup specially kept aside for them and would be washed afterwards only by the domestic servant. Rai, going against his orthodox father’s opposition, broke this family’s tradition by offering tea to the harijans in the same cups as were given to other guests and thereafter all cups were mixed up and washed by everyone together, including by Rai, symbolizing a break from India’s unfortunate tradition of untouchability.
Several experiences like these, even later in life, have convinced me that the significance of one individual’s change and commitment to a higher purpose should never be underestimated. They have also convinced me that a divine power accompanies such an individual’s simple actions to produce a multiplier impact. The process of personal change is never-ending. However, each time I have been able to accept my mistake and say sorry, a new horizon with new possibilities has opened up. Currently I am engaged in guiding and running an IofC program at Asia Plateau for college professors from all over the province of Maharashtra on “Ethics & Values in Higher Education”.
English