Taniya D’Silva & Swechha Sikaria

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Research by The Bridgespan Group highlighted that one of the key issues nonprofit boards and CEOs face is succession planning. The turnover rate at senior levels for nonprofits, the study highlighted, is huge. The top reason for this turnover? Low pay. More than half (57%) of survey respondents said that low compensation was at least a partial factor in the difficulty of retaining senior staff.

There are certainly other factors driving staff turnover in the nonprofit world, but compensation as a factor looms large. A recent Chronicle of Philanthropy article, “Low Pay is Driving Workers Away,” highlights the issue as a problem at all levels of nonprofit employment.

In a recent study that India Leaders for the Social Sector (ILSS) undertook with Indian social purpose organization leaders, many echoed the sentiment that retention of employees was a high-ranking concern within their institutions. On digging deeper, organization leaders shared that funding limitations adversely affected the organization’s ability to attract, retain and meet the talent’s changing needs and expectations with increased salaries and bonuses.

The same study also had us interact with leaders who had been able to retain their high-performing employees for many years. These were employees who had grown with the organization since inception and now held critical positions despite fairly modest pay scales. What enables these organization leaders to hold onto their employees over the long-term despite funding constraints and limited incentives such as bonuses, ESOPs to fuel employee motivation? We had Indian social purpose organization leaders share insights. But first…

What is the challenge underscoring the salary-retention paradigm?

While there is recognition amongst most organizations that their long-term success resides in its people, attempts towards improving employee retention are often reactionary. In the development sector, where working towards a mission is considered a reward in itself, and lower salaries are the norm, engaging employees in charting out learning and growth opportunities as they advance in their careers is often neglected. Another reason for the reactionary approach towards employee retention is that leaders are too fixated on day-to-day operations and lack the bandwidth to focus on more strategic organization-building priorities and investments in employee engagement.

On the other hand, most people within the sector find themselves deeply aligned to the mission of creating a better world and often take pay cuts to work in it. However, in spite of the high mission alignment, organization leaders expressed that talent retention continues to be a challenge within their organizations that they don’t know how to solve for, despite their best efforts.

Employee turnover is an expensive proposition. The costs to replace an employee are estimated by Gallup to be 150% of an employee’s annual salary and benefit not to mention the intangible costs around lowered overall employee morale and decreased productivity. In the nonprofit sector, Dasra’s ‘Talent First’ report highlights that inability to offer higher compensation contributed to significantly high attrition rates within organisations. However, compensation itself does not determine rates of employee retention within organisations. Deloitte’s Talent Survey 2020 discovered that employee retention was also significantly influenced by non-financial elements such as: trust in the leadership to execute on the outlined strategy and being engaged with meaningful work. Additionally, benefits such as flexible work arrangements and strong growth opportunities determine whether they choose to stay with their employers. This is especially true for post-pandemic recruitment as we see employees opting for employers who offer these benefits. 

Our research underlined the following key challenges that organization leaders were struggling with vis-a-vis employee engagement and retention:

• Lack of funding to reward employees: Lack of unrestricted funding strains a nonprofit’s ability to invest in talent through budgets for increments or exposure to opportunities. 
• A dearth of learning and development opportunities for employees: With below-market salaries an accepted norm at nonprofits, professional development substitutes as a major opportunity to both enhance and recognize performance. Therefore, the dearth of training and education opportunities is a major impediment to morale, productivity, and retention.
• Lack of talent retention strategies that account for employee diversity: Nonprofits have a unique blend of employees that hail from various backgrounds. With the lack of people management teams and limited bandwidth of founder/leaders, development of talent strategies to retain the various types of employees within the organization is often sidelined.
• Maintaining motivation through remote working conditions: The pandemic brought to light the challenge of transitioning to remote working conditions and the ensuing changes in employee productivity whilst being mindful of the physical and emotional toll that the pandemic wrecked on people.

What are nonprofit leaders that have better employee retention doing right?

While there exists great mission alignment and a vocation that employees often feel motivated to go above and beyond for, it is necessary to keep in mind that nonprofit employees too have bills to pay, aspirations for their own lives, and seek to grow and achieve higher levels of self-actualization through their jobs. In that sense, it is necessary to understand that these jobs are also a source of livelihood for those who work in it. The development sector loses talented people often because it is mired in the mentality of scrappiness that undervalues and underinvests in the same people who further the cause of justice and social equity: the works who do the work every day.

Understandably, the reasons for the chronic underfunding are myriad and complex stemming from the preference that overheads involving infrastructure building and people-related investments are minimized (more about raising funding for people development in a subsequent article in this series). And being realistic, the expectation is not that the nonprofit sector can compete with the corporate sector in terms of pay overnight (although one might argue as to why not?).

However, knowing that the evangelization of the funder towards recognizing the importance of investing in talent might take a while, what some nonprofit leaders and funders are largely getting right is the recognition that while the salary they offer might not be at par with what the employees deserve to be paid for their contributions, they do not also expect their employees to be martyrs. A recognition that their motivation to the cause is a highly valuable resource that must be nurtured and kindled by ensuring that their efforts are acknowledged and rewarded, albeit in non-financial means is a critical mindset that enables leaders to proactively think through strategies to retain and engage committed people in their organizations.  

Beyond Compensation

In the study we undertook, with organizations that were able to retain employees long-term, organization leaders shared that they prioritized the following:

• Mission & Culture Reinforcement: Leaders focused on ensuring that the mission, values, and culture of the organization as well as how each employee’s work tied into the larger mission were consistently reinforced right from onboarding through to other employee engagement forums.
• Doubling down on Communication: Leaders ensured that multiple channels of communication were opened at many levels within the organization to understand the strategy, plans, and decisions made by the organization through townhalls, all-hands meetings, Ask-me-anything (AMA) sessions with the leader, ensuring managers effectively tackle questions and concerns raised by their reportees, etc.
• Focus on growth opportunities for employees: Leaders built a practice of ensuring that employee career aspirations were tied and aligned with the roles they pursued within the organization. While some employers were able to provide dedicated L&D budgets for their employees, others chose to enable the growth of their staff through in-house L&D initiatives, opportunities for employees to represent the organization at conferences or lead meetings with bureaucrats and high-ranking officials, and providing employees with autonomy to explore new ideas, lead internal project teams and having executive coaches assigned to them.
• Rewarding performance: Rewarding contributions of employees through not only promotions and increments but also public recognition of performances by managers and incentives such as acknowledgment of efforts in open forums, a trophy or token gift (e.g. book, gift voucher)  helped boost employee motivation.
• Ensuring psychological safety and well-being for team members: Ensuring that the employee can experience psychological safety and well-being within the workplace and has measures to address grievances and issues through regular skip-level meetings, anonymous grievance redressal forums, access to in-house counselors, or an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) service. Additionally, non-financial incentives such as flexible work environments, flexible leaves, and compensatory off policies, etc. help prevent employee burnout that is commonplace within the social sector.

Conclusion

Many employees at nonprofit organizations feel deeply aligned to the missions of their work in the sector and have embraced the idea of opting for non-cushy jobs, non-lucrative salaries, and pay cuts to work in the sector. With this, however, nonprofits face a bind in terms of keeping their employees engaged with limited abilities to fuel motivation through financial incentives. The research study, therefore, highlighted the importance of non-financial factors such as flexibility, growth and development opportunities, healthy work culture, transparent communication, and wholesome employee recognition and feedback mechanisms as means to ensure employees are aligned, engaged, and motivated by their workplaces.

Taniya D’silva and Swechha Sikaria are members of the ILSS Team focused on research and program development around People Practices in the Social Sector. For more information on the research insights, write to us at peoplepractices@indialeadersforsocialsector.com.

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On March 9,2020 Mumbai recorded its first case of Covid-19. The city went into a frenzy fearing the worst. Soon the country went into a prolonged lockdown. We at SNEHA, a Mumbai-based NGO working to improve the health of women and children in the most vulnerable slums, with a population of about one million, realised that it was not going to be business as usual for us. We would no longer be able to visit homes for door-to-door counseling on health and nutrition, gender-based violence, mental health and for palliative care.

With no past experience to draw from or a roadmap prepared for the future, the only certainty we had was that our communities needed our support now, more than ever. The question was, how do we keep our staff safe, while continuing to support our communities?

As Brian Tracy once said, “The true test of leadership is how well you function in a crisis.” Leading my organisation at a difficult time like this, there were two things I felt strongly about:

1. Being true to our mission of serving the slum communities we work with
2. Being true to our team by keeping them safe, equipped to work and motivated.

The goal posts, in a sense, was well defined. The challenge was placing the ball into the net without any formal training in football!

Working with diverse stakeholders

Our stakeholders range from women in slum communities who are not familiar with the use of mobile phones to doctors who were working overtime in the pandemic and donors who were struggling with their own businesses. We had to reach all of them through new online platforms, in a timely manner. Everyone was struggling in their own way to deal with this unprecedented situation.

As we spent the next few weeks connecting with each of our stakeholders, I learnt a few things:

1. Be the calm in the storm: As a leader in an unprecedented crisis, you too are grappling with the situation. But your team looks to you for stability, decisiveness and direction. While non-profits usually have very participatory decision-making, this is a time when you have to make some big decisions quickly — and make them alone. But for this, you must have great clarity in your mind about the criteria and goals for making these decisions. It calms people’s nerves to hear one voice and hear the same priorities. It gives them a sense of security.
2. Ask the right questions:  Don’t second-guess your stakeholder needs. Use your team like your tentacles to bring in the voices of your stakeholders. Then act swiftly. There was initial apprehension from the teams about our ability to undertake food relief due to fear of contracting Covid-19. But given that such relief was the need of the hour, the question to ask ourselves was, “How can we do it in the safest possible manner?”
3. Innovate and calibrate: New needs emerge during a crisis – as a leader, it is important to keep a close watch on these. In the Covid-19 world, a critical and ongoing need is the dissemination of information on to stem the spread of the virus. With new information emerging every day on Covid-19 and misconceptions and stigma spreading fast, we needed to act quickly. We were able to meet the community’s needs for information by making quick decisions on providing data packs to frontline workers and volunteers, building capacity to use online platforms and using locally available communication channels like Cable TV and WhatsApp. Effective feedback loops also helped us calibrate the information.
4. Operate in good faith: Maintaining trust is an important part of navigating a crisis. Working remotely, distributing food in the community or safety gear to public health professionals required us to rely on a host of stakeholders. The belief that everyone will act in the best interests of the communities we serve is integral to working effectively with stakeholders.
5. Have honest conversations: This was a time when we had to keep our top donors on speed dial. Sharing our situation and concerns honestly helped us evoke empathy in our donors and a desire to support our efforts. It was heartwarming to see how supportive people were and how they rallied around us to see us through.

Leading and motivating teams

A crisis brings people closer together like nothing else can. It also reveals human nature — you see what lies below the iceberg. At this time, how can we as leaders let our teams know that they are truly our highest priority?

• Communicate clearly and consistently: As soon as the lockdown was announced, clear communication on our overarching priorities was critical to guide everyone in the same direction. But communication also needs to be consistent, regular, and directed at addressing the team’s challenges. Daily team meetings helped understand the changing situation on the ground, take timely decisions and disseminate the information across the organisation. This also helped teams to switch to online platforms (a challenge given our diverse team) and continue our routine health intervention and Covid-19 work and keep the momentum going.

• Time to let go: During a crisis, leaders play an important role in getting the engine to move smoothly on the track. But we also need to listen to signals when the train is moving smoothly so we can step back and give our teams the space to manage themselves.

• Time for abundance: Despite all the funding constraints, I took two important decisions: not releasing any staff and giving annual increments. It required a huge leap of faith that we would be able to raise adequate funding in a difficult time. But more importantly, that seemed like the correct thing to do for our staff, especially since 70 percent of our team lives in the slums we serve, with other family members out of jobs. We have got to let teams know that we have got their backs!

• Bonding and self-compassion: As our teams went way beyond the call of duty, some even risking their lives, we could feel the fatigue and mental strain set in. We started Friday learning sessions on themes such as ‘happiness’, ‘workload management’ and ‘improvisation’, and discussed practise of our organisation values, thus creating a safe space for staff to share, learn and grow as a team.

• Be realistic about team performance: These are difficult times, professionally and personally. The psychological costs of fear are steep.  Don’t expect your team’s performance to improve significantly because it could be difficult for them to match what they could have done in normal circumstances. Reassess priorities and timelines. They are also trying new ways of doing things; be kind and patient!

Managing the head-heart pendulum

The pandemic led to an outpouring of empathy everywhere. More so in the non-profit world where we witnessed, at close quarters, some of the most challenging times for the most vulnerable. Migrant workers walking for days, overnight income loss by daily wage earners and food insecurity, coupled with intense fear of contracting Covid-19, made our hearts bleed. Every decision was weighed with empathy. As a leader, managing the head-heart balance is always a challenge.

1. Taking calculated risk: As a health NGO in a pandemic, we were called upon to help public health systems to screen for Covid-19. We understood the criticality of this exercise and made sure our teams had protective gear and all the necessary information to keep themselves safe.
2. Balance between ‘doing’ and ‘being’: The pandemic has forced many of us leaders to strike a fine balance between delivering on the mission and also being sensitive to our teams and their needs, more than before. Apart from usual work on strategy, business development etc. in the past few months, there has been the emergent need to work on building morale, helping teams manage uncertainty, being empathetic to challenges of ‘work from home’ and also being more vulnerable by sharing and talking about our own challenges, to bring people together and build trust. In a recent zoom meeting, we could hear a young child going through an online school session while her mother was presenting to the team. On another call, a staff member had to handover her presentation to another colleague mid-sentence as she had to run to attend to the cries of her young child. It’s all become par for the course!
3. Harnessing peer networks: I don’t think leaders have ever connected with so many of their peers at such a level before as they have in the past six months. While discussing important topics at hand, there has also been sharing of challenges, fears and embracing their own vulnerabilities. This sharing has also led to joint efforts at problem-solving which has then helped with more prompt responses and playing to each other’s strengths and the ability to take up larger challenges and help more people.

The pandemic has been a crisis in a million ways, but not in leadership. Crisis moments create opportunities and help us seek clarity and find direction. They ignite our creativity, push us to our limits and force us to think outside the norm. By and large, it has brought out the best in leaders. Pushed to their limits, leaders have emerged wiser, more resilient and more compassionate. Real leadership is leaders recognising that they serve the people they lead. They are centred, grounded, and comfortable with their values, who they are, and how they present themselves. This is the place from which they will always make their best decisions and be of most service to others in troubled times or otherwise.

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The United Nations has described the global scale of education disruption from COVID-19 as “unparalleled”. The 2019–20 Coronavirus pandemic has affected educational systems worldwide, leading to widespread closures of schools, universities and colleges. While students across the board have been impacted by the pandemic, it is important to explore the severe impact on children from marginalized communities in many countries of the global south, including India which, at 260 million children, has the largest school-going population in the world.

As the impact of the pandemic unfolds, it is becoming abundantly clear that traditional learning models and schools have ill-equipped us and our children to understand, make meaning, respond and adapt to the uncertainty and vulnerabilities emerging from the current crisis. The last few years have seen the discourse around education reform moving towards making children work-ready for jobs of the future. An approach that has become outdated due to 3 – main reasons:

• The future is already here:The often-repeated assumption that children would have to face an uncertain job market and a fast-changing world a few years from now is already a reality, and this uncertain future is changing as we speak. This is a time to self-reflect and critically examine — have we done enough to prepare our children for this unprecedented situation?

• Entrenched systemic inequalities have deepened: The current crisis has further thrown up the systemic inequities in our society with the poor and marginalised being affected many times over than the average population. When an eighth-grade student we heard from, who shares a smartphone with her family of four – the family has to make a  tough choice between buying an internet-package and essential groceries – is not allowed into her online class for being five minutes late, are we not perpetuating the same systemic biases we held offline on the online world? What could be the role of education in changing this reality?

The need to shift mindsets

The pandemic and its impact on educational ecosystems require for us to reflect on the existing systemic inequities that have become more visible in the recent months. We see schools rushing for immediate solutions to sustain academics, but there are far-reaching effects on students and teachers when they are forced to adopt online learning. Our policymakers need to take into account the fact that marginalised communities do not have easy access to digital infrastructure. The need of the hour is to ensure education is available to all, rather than to ensure those who can afford education continue to receive it.

The psychological impact on children, whose lives are suddenly changed forever has largely been left unaddressed; they are expected to adapt when even we, the adults who are meant to guide young people have no clarity on what to expect from the future.

Re-imagining the purpose of education

Where do we go when all this is over? If one is ‘lucky enough’ to have not been completely displaced by the pandemic, one hopefully goes to school. But just how prepared are schools to respond to this reality? We have all experienced collective grief and loss at a global and unimaginable level. We need to let this sink in. And then, when we are ready to respond, let us ask ourselves what is the most compassionate offer we can make to our children under these circumstances? Will our best foot forward be dumping our own anxiety of ‘loss of learning’ on them? Or will we recognise that they have learnt perhaps the most difficult lesson of their lives in the last few months as they stayed put in their homes? The role of teachers in the upbringing of young people is often overlooked. 

#Whatif, instead of examinations based on rote-learning, we ask our students; ‘Do you know how to be kind to each other? Do you know how to make decisions that are good for you, your community and for the planet? Do you know how to collaborate and celebrate the success of others? Do you know how to heal?’

The need for a more inclusive policy

Current systems follow a one-size-fits-all approach, whereas the reality is that in a country like India, such an approach is tough to put into practice. We need an education system that is sensitive to the myriad impact of adversity on children from vulnerable backgrounds. When designing solutions, the needs of these sections of society deserve more attention than they presently receive. The New Education Policy, while a positive step in the right direction, once again lacks clarity on implementation. It remains to be seen how such a revolutionary step in education will affect a country as diverse and vast as ours bearing in mind that not everyone will have access to the same kind of facilities and infrastructure. Another challenge that we foresee is the measurement of success upon implementation and the way forward from there.

Kindness as the foundation of a framework for change

The framework for education should start by redefining the purpose of education to mean ‘thriving for all’. We conducted a study to better understand what it means to thrive. Are the indicators the same when children come from adversity? Do tailored approaches need to be followed to achieve desired outcomes across the board? We have found that empathetic adults and safe spaces allow young people to fully discover their potential and thrive despite coming from adversity. At the centre of this approach lies kindness and the willingness to listen, holding spaces for young people to express themselves and be treated as unique individuals. 

Academic outcomes can be affected by several factors that are out of the control of educators. Scoring high marks does not necessarily mean that a child is prepared for whatever the future may throw at them. Adopting an approach that places thriving at the centre of education is much more inclusive and helps young people seek a more meaningful engagement with life.

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A few weeks ago, I had a call with the head of fundraising of an emerging non-profit organisation aiming to build significant scale. The person was bouncing ideas and seeking advice on sizing, strategizing and addressing the Indian philanthropic market. After the interaction, something struck me as odd and fundamentally amiss. It was the absence of confidence and an overwhelming presence of an apologetic demeanour towards raising funds.

Why confidence is key

Fundraisers are the first port-of-call and the organisation’s public face for donors. If you, as the fundraising person, are tentative and lacking in confidence, the donor could develop doubts on two counts: One, do you lack conviction or belief in your organisation? Two, is your non-profit capable of absorbing the contribution and using it effectively? And the donor will likely hit pause, reconsider, or worse still, terminate the contribution.

Yes, non-profits need the money. And yes, there is almost nothing ‘in return’ for the giver barring the joy of changing lives. And sometimes not even that when the donor is giving to fund structural overhead investments and no money directly flows to a cause or a community. Which is why it is critical that you exude confidence and conviction when you speak about your organisation and the reason you need funds. 

Fundraising – non-profit or otherwise – is a sales process. It is elevated salesmanship because one is selling, even if the ‘product’ is intangible. And a diffident salesperson will regress the organisation. Fundraising professionals need to possess and display confidence, not in a muscular kind of way, but in a manner that exudes quiet self-belief and communicates reassurance to donors and stakeholders. 

Gandhi unapologetically used modern sales methods like hawking autographed photographs of Nehru, Patel and Azad for a price. And Mother Teresa never suffered any blushes asking for funds in the name of the Lord.

Always remember that a wonderful idea and keen strategy can be waylaid by the absence of high-quality fundraising. Fundraising pulses the arterial blood flow of your organisation, its commitment and aspiration. The success of your organisation depends on how well – and how confidently – you do your job.

What makes a confident fundraiser?

Fundraising with confidence requires, in addition to a deep conviction in the work your organisation does, a significant amount of discipline and conscious, consistent effort.

1. Engage at a principal-to-principal level: Donors prefer to engage with principals while writing a cheque, especially, if it’s a large one. Given that context, it is essential for fundraisers to conduct themselves as principals and be perceived by the donor as the person responsible for powering the organisation. Consequently, the chances of closing the deal increase manifold. It is the responsibility of non-profit leaders to equip and position their fundraisers as principals. 
2. Narrate a story: Never adopt an in-your-face selling style. And don’t be boring. A good pitch is 75 percent emotion. Narrate a story and carry your listener on a journey. Use the story to anchor your pitch and let the listener discover a hook to your organisation and its needs.
3. Practice. Practice. Practice: Selling is a performance. Be honest. Be earnest. But hone your craft and sharpen your pitch knives every single day. Cultivate three pitches:
   • An elevator pitch that you can zing out in a minute
   • A 10-minute version for paucity of time
   • A 20-minute expansive edition.
4. Vary your pitch: If selling is a performance, remember that you are performing for a new audience every meeting. Sell the same story through a different route. Make uncertainty your best friend. The more you break the linearity of the pitch, the more comfortable you will get with ambiguities.
5. Take risks: Asking big helps and confidence is your biggest ally. Here is a story. Six years ago, when Ashoka University was still young and growing, I was in a meeting with one of India’s most celebrated business leaders. After a thoughtful 45-minute pitch and conversation, he asked, ‘What is the amount you have in mind for me?’ I replied, ‘We will be grateful if you could support Ashoka with Rs 50 crore.’ Now, a Rs 50-crore ask is sizeable even by today’s benchmarks but back then it could have been construed as overly ambitious. But was it? The gentleman thought for a moment and replied, ‘What if I propose Rs 200 crore instead?’
6. Confidence in vulnerability: Tell your donors you need the money. And that without their support, your organisation is unlikely to progress or deliver impact. Or worse still, even survive. I have said these in meetings: ‘We need your money, without which we will not be able to educate this student’ OR ‘We have just x number of days’ expenditure as cash in the bank, need your help to overcome the situation’.
   Let the donor know unambiguously that their contribution is central to the success of the organisation. Are you showing yourself and the organisation in vulnerable light? Yes. Will it hurt your prospects? No, because the honesty and integrity of purpose will shine through.
7. Demonstrate impact: A scholarship beneficiary from a small town accompanied me for a fundraising meeting. She spoke simply about her experiences at Ashoka and how that education altered her life. This lived experience is far more effective than any well-meaning pitch. This will elevate the confidence of the donor, and in turn, yours too.

In conclusion, train well and learn to sport a confidence cloak. Gawky everyday Clark Kent or Lois Lane can morph into fundraising Superman or Superwoman. The ask could be big or small but fundraising principles remain the same. It takes similar effort and diligence whether raising Rs. 500,000 for a scholarship or Rs 5 crore for building institutional infrastructure.

Lastly, never be apologetic. Non-profit work is uplifting and in the service of society and country. Let that selflessness inspire the giver into taking positive action. As Henry Rosso said, ‘Fundraisers should use pride, not apology when asking for a gift for a charity that is doing good work.’ 

Venkat Eshwara is one of the speakers and Mentors at the ILSS Fundraising Program, designed specifically to equip social sector leaders with the skills and knowledge needed to raise funds with confidence.  Applications for the Program are now open.

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The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic has put health systems around the world to their sternest test ever. While the immediate priority is the containment of the epidemic and reducing deaths due to severe infection, there is another crisis festering on the horizon.

The IMF and World Bank are reporting some of the worst economic outlooks in living memory; in India alone, it is estimated that 400 million people have been left unemployed, facing poverty and hunger, while the USA unemployment rate is ratcheting upwards to levels never seen before. Given the rich historical evidence of the strong association of poverty and economic shock on the one hand with poor mental health on the other, we should expect to see the emergence of a crisis of mental health needs like never before.

Indeed, in my decades of experience in global health, I cannot recall another moment in history when the mental health of people around the world was under such grave threat at one time; even the recession of 2008 triggered by the banking crisis affected only a few countries but the worst affected one (the USA) witnessed a surge of ‘deaths of despair’[1] in its aftermath. Much of this surge, which led to a reduction in life-expectancy of working-age Americans, was driven by suicide and substance abuse.

It’s time to invest in mental health

This time, the crisis will be much, much greater and will affect vast swathes of the global population. We need urgent and coordinated national and global action to prepare health care systems everywhere to address the inevitable surge of mental health problems. A new report from the Speak Your Mind campaign – Return on the Individual – shows that this is a strategic and sensible investment not only for the mental health of the individual, but for overall economies and societies too.

The impact of COVID-19 on mental health is already being widely felt.  There is a rise in the rates of anxiety across all segments of society, in all countries. This rise in anxiety is largely a normative response of the human mind to uncertainty, fear and loss. Such heightened levels of anxiety can impair all aspects of our life, not least interpersonal relationships, and unless appropriately managed with evidence-based psychosocial support, can set the stage for the emergence of clinically significant mental health problems.

Proportionate policies that simultaneously address concerns about saving lives with saving livelihoods, strong leadership across the spectrum of sectors, and communication about the epidemic in a manner which serves to convey a more accurate and positive aspect of this calamity (for example, the overall low mortality rates, especially in children and young people), is the need of the hour during the acute crisis.

Vulnerable groups need more attention

We also need to be aware of some groups in the population who may be particularly vulnerable to developing mental health problems in such a time of heightened anxiety; psychosocial interventions need to be ramped up for these people. I can think of at least four such vulnerable groups in the ongoing crisis.

First, are people with existing mental health conditions whose continuing care may have been interrupted and for whom the fear that is engulfing the population may be particularly toxic. I am especially concerned about the needs of people with severe mental disorders who already struggle on the margins of society and are socially isolated.

Second, the pandemic has a dramatic impact on health professionals who are struggling to cope with unprecedented demand at a time of uncertainty. The fear of contracting the infection is very real for these workers, as is the moral injury consequent to making impossibly difficult decisions about rationing scarce, life-saving, health interventions.

Third, is the mental health of older people who are not only the most vulnerable in relation to the risks posed by the virus, but also to the risks resulting from the physical distancing practices which escalate loneliness and reduce access to care for pre-existing chronic conditions.

Fourth, are young people, not only because their entire lives have been profoundly disrupted–from their education and job market prospects to the social interactions which define their personhood–but also because this is the highest risk group for the incidence of mental health problems. Suicide is already one of the leading causes of death in young people and this is likely to increase in the months ahead.

Look beyond now, prepare for the future

But we need to look well beyond the ongoing acute crisis and begin to prepare for the longer-term mental health problems which will unfold as the economic recession and profound changes in our social worlds begin to bite deeper. Even before COVID-19, governments spent pitifully small amounts on mental health–less than 2% of health budgets globally–far less than they should have in relation to the burden of mental health problems in their countries, leading to large unmet needs for care in all countries. This is why it has been argued that all countries are “developing” when it comes to mental health.

This chronic under-investment has left healthcare systems desperately short of skilled human resources to deliver proven interventions, in particular psychosocial interventions. These interventions are particularly germane in the context of the mental health crises we will witness in an economic recession, which will be dominated by mood, anxiety and substance use conditions.

The good news is that we have  strong evidence which we documented in the Lancet Commission (2018) about the effectiveness of eminently scalable approaches to enhancing the coverage of these evidence-based interventions. Key strategies relevant to the planning of the mental health response to COVID-19 are the deployment of digital platforms for building the workforce and supporting self-care, and the task-sharing of psychosocial interventions with frontline providers such as community health workers and peer support workers.

The need of the hour is an injection of resources to massively scale up these strategies through initiatives like EMPOWER, which is seeking to build the world’s mental health workforce by leveraging the science of the effectiveness of brief psychosocial interventions, their delivery through task-sharing, and the use of digital approaches to learning and quality assurance.

As the Return on the Individual  report reminds us, investing in mental health is an investment which enables the individual to regain hope for the future and the necessary cognitive capabilities to be effective in their work and personal lives. Collectively, the impact will be felt at the societal level: investments in mental health not only make society more economically productive but also more socially cohesive. I cannot think of a more important investment in the face of the most serious crisis facing the global population in a century.

Learn more about the Speak Your Mind Campaign and the Return on the Individual report here.

Learn more about mental health and the impact of COVID19 by signing up to a weekly webinar series organised by the Lancet Journal of Psychiatry and partners here.

This article was originally published by the World Economic Forum at https://www.weforum.org

[1] The ‘deaths of despair’ is a term coined by Anne Case and Angus Deaton and the title of their book published in 2020.

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Some 30-odd years ago, as a young doctor setting out to change the world, I was thinking of building a hospital for the tribal communities near Mysuru.  I was all of 22 years old and believed a hospital was indeed the solution to address the healthcare needs of the community.

So, when a kind person offered a piece of land as a donation to build the hospital, I quickly accepted, despite a close doctor-friend, who was familiar with rural realities, cautioning me that the proposed location was relatively inaccessible and therefore unsuitable for a hospital. But I went ahead and built that hospital in the same location.

In hindsight, it was not the best decision. The better option would have been to set up mobile clinics that could serve many more people than the hospital ever could. Our impact would have been much greater, had I listened to my friend back then. But I had refused to allow myself to be vulnerable.

Embracing vulnerability as a leadership asset

Having spent the last three decades in the development sector and also teaching and exploring the leadership question, I have no doubt in my mind that the complexities of our world today are so vast and the challenges so humongous that no one person can have all the solutions for everything.  However, the common understanding of leadership places the burden of finding a solution on one person – the ‘leader’. 

This fundamental flaw in understanding leadership leads to vulnerability being perceived as a weakness; a good leader is expected to be in total control always and have answers to all questions brought to them. Working with this limited and unforgiving understanding of leadership, leaders tend to start believing that they will not be seen as influential enough if they demonstrate vulnerability.

It takes a person of humility and simplicity to admit to not having the solution. In other words, it requires a person to be vulnerable. To be vulnerable is to accept that one does not need to be a leader—one needs to ‘exercise’ leadership. One needs to accept that one may not have the answers that the context demands, but that the answers can be sought from others around you. That act of reaching out and asking for help can be liberating, enriching and empowering.
[Also read: The five traits of good leaders]

If Arjuna, greatly admired for his archery and power, had not demonstrated vulnerability and asked himself fundamental questions about his Self and his purpose, there would have been no Bhagavad Gita. By demonstrating vulnerability and admitting that he was troubled and didn’t have the answers needed at that point in time, he opened up an opportunity for conversations to emerge. And the world benefited by this show of vulnerability.

Vulnerability makes you a better leader

Accepting and embracing your vulnerability makes you a more complete, humane and effective leader by enabling you to access some valuable aspects of true leadership.

• It allows you to acquire new competence:  Acquiring competence needs a mindset that gives you the permission ‘not to know’.  Your vulnerability frees you from the fear of being perceived as lacking in competence and enables you to be a continuous learner. It also encourages others who know how to handle the situation to teach you. Pretending to know can also shut out valuable inputs which may have otherwise been made available. [Also read: Drink Coffee, Lots of It]

• It allows you to share the responsibility of finding answers: Being vulnerable allows you to access the knowledge and wisdom of other people by transcending barriers of hierarchies. It builds in you the humility to acknowledge that there are voices out there that are more intelligent than your own.
• It enables you to fail, make wrong choices and flawed decisions: The popular metrics by which we measure success and failure are fundamentally flawed. We are so focused on the end that we don’t focus on the means. Leadership is all about the ‘means’; the process is absolutely critical. Being vulnerable allows you to look at success and failure in a different light. It allows you the latitude to fail and gives you the liberty to make mistakes. 
• It gives you courage to stand up for what you believe in: If vulnerability gives you the liberty to fail, it also gives you the strength to try something new and speak up for what you believe in. Paul Polman, the former head of Unilever, to me is an example of this because he had the courage to raise the issue of sustainable practices within his company even when he knew that he would be met with resistance. Organisations where the leadership has courage are the ones that are able to sustain themselves.
• It allows you to ask, seek and partner:  Only when you are vulnerable will you understand how to treat the ‘other’.  This is a great source of strength when it comes to forming teams and forging alliances.  It allows you to transcend your ego and gives you insights into engaging with people who may not necessarily agree with your views. 
• It teaches you to listen: Being vulnerable without being judgmental of one’s own vulnerability helps you to genuinely listen to others with the intensity that leadership roles demand. 
• It improves your mental well-being: Allowing yourself to be vulnerable also helps you keep better mental health, since you have freed yourself of unrealistic, limiting and conditioned ideas of what leadership entails.
• It makes you an authentic individual: To be able to inspire large numbers of people, those in leadership positions need to see themselves as ordinary and human. Leadership is not something divine that has been bestowed upon you:  you can show yourself as human and authentic if you are vulnerable.
• It helps you understand yourself: Vulnerability gives you the capacity to realise your strengths and weaknesses, connecting you to your authentic self and allowing you to accept yourself.

As the world and the workplace change at an unprecedented pace, organisations and leaders will do well to rethink their leadership styles. With uncertainty, inconsistency and unpredictability defining the context within which you function as a leader, building coalitions with the people around you is the only sustainable way forward. And being vulnerable will help you build and inspire stronger teams and demonstrate authentic leadership.

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People speculate that the principles of what constitutes ‘good’ management will need to change over time in response to the changing environment. I actually have a counter view on this: while there is no doubt that the context is changing, the broad principles of leadership don’t really need to change.

What changes over time is how leaders respond, how they communicate using new media, how they manage risk, how they deal with different technology, or how they acquire and retain talent. The ethos and values of good leadership and what makes a good leader don’t really change that much. 

Whether it is the for-profit sector or the non-profit sector, there are five key traits that define successful leaders. These may seem easy or even obvious, but the leaders who truly succeed are the ones who imbibe these five qualities in fair measure and practise them consciously.  These traits are:

1. Character, above all: This, to me, is the most important attribute–one that cannot be compromised while selecting or evaluating a leader. Integrity and humility are vital aspects of character, as would be compassion, especially in the not-for-profit space where one needs to connect with the communities.

If the leader is not empathetic towards co-workers, who in turn lack empathy towards each other, it is difficult to build a truly sustainable or great organisation. 

It’s also important to strike the right balance between caring for the outside world and caring for the organisation itself. If the leader is not empathetic towards co-workers, who in turn lack empathy towards each other, it is difficult to build a truly sustainable or great organisation. 

It is very important to be an individual who has respect for individuals within as well as outside the organisation. Respect, in fact, needs to be embedded in the organisation’s culture—and anything that has to do with the organisation’s value system must always, without compromise, start with the leader. If she cannot abide by this value system, it can be deeply demotivating for the organisation’s stakeholders.  The buck always stops with the leader and the value system always starts with her.

2. The ability to see the big picture: The second big trait in a leader is the ability to set the vision for the organisation. She must work with the board and the management to look beyond the obvious. It’s very difficult for the management team, when they are in the trenches, to think for five years down the road. An effective leader, however, steps back and sees the big picture, and also brings in disruption to something that’s already working to make it better. 

Visionary and disruptive leadership is about challenging status quo— it is difficult because often the leader is challenging herself, people around her, managing that conflict with equanimity, carrying people along and getting them to believe in her…. not an easy task!

3. The passion to follow a dream:  All great leaders I have seen have remarkable passion and energy towards their vision. Their energy is infectious: one can see the glow on their face when they talk about their cause, their organisation and the work they do. They work tirelessly to follow their dream. 

It is important to sustain this by making the goals and the rewards tangible for team members across various levels and functions of the organisation. 

Such passion rapidly starts spreading to other members of the team, who in turn start believing in the destination and happily share the journey towards it. It is important to sustain this by making the goals and the rewards tangible for team members across various levels and functions of the organisation. 

In the not-for-profit sector, for example, it is important that the leader helps her co-workers see how lives are being impacted positively by their work. She can do this by allowing teams to visit the program sites and see the power of change for themselves, or by ensuring that stories from the field travel into the office so that more people within the organisation see the value they are creating.

4. The ability to lead, grow and nurture: An effective leader never loses sight of the human aspects of running an organisation. Like the conductor of an orchestra, she develops the ability to make diverse people play to the same beat. She creates an operational rhythm for the organisation by ensuring a good process alignment in the team, defining goals, roles, accountability and metrics.

She is also committed to enabling individuals to grow and fulfil their potential by clearly understanding the aspirations of individuals,  identifying their development needs, counselling them on what they can do better, giving them feedback. This often doesn’t happen in many organisations as they lack good HR systems. The leader must have it on her priority list to put in place processes and practices that allow individuals and the organisation to grow – she herself will grow while enabling this. 

She needs to nurture herself too, helping the board to acknowledge this. She needs to take some time off every year to invest in her own learning and developing her own capacity to lead.

A good leader creates the right processes to allow sound decision making.

5. Taking decisions in a decisive way, at the right time. Many times, we see leaders take decisions at the wrong time or with too little data or without relying on the right processes. A good leader creates the right processes to allow sound decision making. She involves the right kind of people in the decision-making process and makes sure the decision is timed right. 

The best piece of advice I got in my career was from one of my mentors, Hemendra Kothari, Chairman of DSP Investment Managers, when he put me in my first management role as a banker. He told me: “Make sure you always hire smarter than yourself and build a culture for people to thrive.”

I took that advice very seriously and have always hired people who are far smarter than me and empowered them. Be it the teams I have built at DSP Merrill Lynch or Bain Capital, and or now at A.T.E. Chandra Foundation, I have tried to build great teams and make myself irrelevant.

Hiring extraordinary people allows leaders to work at a strategic level and keep reinventing themselves. A lot of people tend to shy away from this because of their own insecurities; what they don’t realise is that it holds their organisations back—more importantly, it holds them back in their own journeys. 

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Around four decades since the advent of organised and systematic development actions by state and non-state organisations, there is no denying that some progress has indeed been made in improving human conditions.  For example, hunger and poverty have come down, famines no longer occur, life expectancy has substantially increased, large scale epidemics of cholera, small pox, plague are things of the past.

However, can we say that we have made adequate progress on all fronts? Most of us will perhaps agree that we have not. Therefore, a good question to ask is whether we are missing the big picture in our pursuit of social development. I believe we indeed are—and there are five areas where we are failing to see the big picture. 

The void in local governance

Development experts have long argued that people can’t be considered as the object of development, as if they are patients to be cured. People must be considered as the subject of development, as agents of change.

One crucial way to make this happen is to create and nurture institutions and processes that are local, democratic, more accessible and accountable, and then task them with most of the development functions. The 73rd and 74th amendments to the Indian Constitution created such potential. The promise was to create strong local democratic governments and people’s councils tasked with development, welfare and social justice functions.

The later years created more such opportunities through Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, Forest Rights Act, Pani Panchayats, school management committees, Village Health Sanitation & Nutrition Committees, and  so on. If we add the autonomous districts and regional councils to this list, the country has a plethora of such local democratic institutions where development, welfare and social justice could be embedded.

Unfortunately, a host of factors have ensured that these institutions are not able to deliver on their promise and potential. Rather than focus their energies and efforts on nurturing these institutions, political parties, the legislature, the bureaucracy and many international development agencies have steadfastly worked to weaken these institutions, disempower them and turn them into agencies of the state and central governments.

The practice of democracy remains confined to voting in state and central elections, the notion of development and welfare remains confined to politicians and babu-controlled yojanas, and the notion of social justice remains a law and order enforcement matter.

Devolution of power and authority to these institutions as expressed in 4Fs—functions, functionaries, finance and freedom—did not happen. Despite regular democratic elections to local bodies, establishing political authority of these institutions over the local bureaucracy has not happened in any significant measure. Further, several parastatal authorities have been created with various development mandates with no accountability to the democratically elected local bodies. India is probably the only major nation with no local government!

The result has been disastrous. The promise of development becoming a democratic enterprise has remained largely unfulfilled.  The practice of democracy remains confined to voting in state and central elections, the notion of development and welfare remains confined to politicians and babu controlled yojanas, and the notion of social justice remains a law and order enforcement matter.  

The lack of institutions to support long-term change

Most of the development activities happen around the four axes of welfare, rights, development and crisis response. Typically, these range from raising the income of the poor, improving schooling, enhancing access to food-nutrition-healthcare and developing skills, to addressing trafficking, drought, floods, human rights violations, migration, violence against women, and so on.

Social movements, on the other hand, occupy the space in another way – raising collective voices against many kinds of injustices on people. We have seen several such movements and the tremendous results they have produced.

However, what is missing in many of these endeavours is the imagination of the institutional arrangements necessary to address these issues on a long-term basis. Let us take an example. Think of a situation where a significant part of the population is always on the move in search of work—a  national phenomenon now. How do we ensure basic civic entitlements, social security and human dignity for these migrants? What kinds of institutions at the municipal and district levels will be necessary to make this happen? Take another example. Violence against women is a wide-spread social problem in India and calls for a multi-pronged response. One question we need to ask is: What does a woman do if she faces violence? Some answers are available in the experiments of Nari-Adalats or family counselling centres, but a clear local level institutional mechanism is yet to evolve in the country.

The need for appropriate institutions is widespread: from educational institutions for first-generation learners, prevention and wellbeing-oriented healthcare, vocational education and  justice delivery, to restoring trafficked girls and boys to mainstream, livelihoods promotion, nurturing and enhancement, and the like. This must also include institutions designed along the lines of NID, NIFT, IIT and IIM for the unorganised sector, law schools to support citizenry, farmers’ colleges for sustainable agriculture, etc.   

The failure to tackle social barriers

Certain institutions in each society act as crucial barriers to development, welfare and social justice. Caste and patriarchy are surely two among them in India. Our national leaders believed that reservations, modern education and modern employment would address the problem. That did not happen.

The development endeavour too has carefully avoided confronting these two barriers. Furthermore, development actions often have been built on patriarchal and caste thinking. Child immunisation became mothers’ responsibility, SHGs were formed on caste lines for reasons of homogeneity, caste politics was hailed as democratisation of the polity, states even ran yojanas to support dowry payment at the time of girl’s marriage, financing family expenses became women’s responsibility through microfinance…

It’s time state and non-state development actions took caste and patriarchy head on, with the readiness to address the violent backlash it will generate in the short term. The country has seen innumerable such backlashes against Dalits, Adivasis and women in the contexts of Panchayati Raj Institutions in almost every state. However, over time, such backlashes reduced even if they didn’t go away. Therefore, it is certainly doable. 

The lack of quality education

India is the only country aspiring to be a world power, without substantial commitment to quality education at every level. Kids are in primary schools, but they learn almost nothing. While science recognises the criticality of early brain development, the model we have as ICDS is more to do with food for poor children than early childhood education.  Our colleges and universities are essentially degree delivery institutions. Our technical education institutions do not cater to large numbers of the workforce who are in the unorganised sector. We have no national chain of colleges for farmers. The country does not even have a reasonable quality teacher education model.

India’s claim on the demographic dividend is conceptually flawed, as no dividend is possible without a well-educated polity and workforce.

India’s claim on the demographic dividend is conceptually flawed, as no dividend is possible without a well-educated polity and workforce. I would argue that instead of creating a demographic dividend, we have been successful in creating a demographic vacuum!

This does not mean the country does not have demonstrable examples of school and higher education of reasonably good quality. We do. Unfortunately, the country fails to learn what it takes to do that, and how to do it in scale.

Failure of non-state development actions 

There is no denying the fact that non-government organisations have shown demonstrable examples in addressing many social issues. Many of them have visionary leaders who have created models of development actions and inspired many others. Several progressive legislations as well as national missions in the last 30 years have been the result of such inspiring work.

A very large number of non-state development organisations, however, remain essentially local and peripheral to the development and social action space. They suffer from multiple organisational, financial and idea handicaps. Furthermore, they remain largely apolitical. Some of them even believe that development and a just society can be achieved without good politics!

Non-state development actions need to recognise that Sangharsh and Nirman have to work together for real development to happen. Sangharsh refers to mass civic and political actions demanding rights, entitlements and change. Nirman is about offering lasting solutions with new ideas, innovations, institutions and processes. From the experiences of Sangharsh and Nirman, it is amply clear that each of them requires distinctly different orientation, skill sets, attitudes and organisational characters. Therefore, instead of one organisation trying to do both, it is necessary to collaborate. Examples of such collaborations do exist but are still quite limited, and this must expand. 

As we mark the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, one meaningful way to celebrate him will be to confront the big picture without missing the details, as he always demonstrated throughout his life.      

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I’ve recently been meeting a lot of people who want to cross over from the corporate side to the social sector. Some of them are ILSS alumni. And my first bit of advice to them is to meet a lot of people and understand their journeys and the opportunities in the sector. A lot of these meetings are at coffee shops, resulting in a lot of coffee drinking. And remember, this is the social sector. So, no five-star hotel coffee shops or bars; mainly CCD, the occasional Chaayos or someone’s home or office.  If you want to cross over, be prepared for some coffee, not Pinot Noir.

When I quit full-time work in 2010, I had no idea what I would do. But I was clear what I would not do – i.e. I would not do anything full time and I would not start something. People thought I would start an NGO and I was clear that the last thing India needs was yet another NGO. My wife was the one most worried about this transition and her retirement gift to me was a doormat that said ‘Beware of the Wife’!

I gradually got to know all the coffee and tea shops in Bandra. Here are a few lessons from my own experience and from various conversations over the past nine years:

1. Keep an open mind. Do not go into a conversation expecting to walk out with a job offer. Today there are many corporate people looking to cross over and NGOs are meeting a lot of people. Many NGOs have been burned by recruiting corporate people, so they are sceptical.
   
2. Be patient. Don’t be in a hurry. I am busier now than I have ever been, but the initial years were very chilled out. You may not find the dream job immediately. It takes time and many cups of coffee. Maybe the solution is to take up a couple of part-time assignments to figure out what works best for you.  
   
3. Look at starting off as an unpaid volunteer. This is a great way for both sides to get to know each other. Look at taking on a short project with clear deliverables. I’ve seen some great transitions taking place this way at NGOs like SNEHA and CORO.
   
4. Be realistic on compensation. Yes, you are giving up a lot in terms of compensation. But a low salary of Rs 2 lakh a month is a fortune for many NGOs. Of course, there are NGOs that will pay a lot more, but there are only a few of them and the competition for those positions is extremely high.
   
5. Listen. Don’t oversell yourself. Most NGOs like humble people. If you do all the talking, you do not give the NGO any opportunity to tell you about themselves and it may hurt your chances to get a job there.
   
6. Be ready to learn, not teach. Many of us super-smart, over-achieving people from the corporate world know exactly how to solve all the problems in the social sector. And the social sector folks hate that attitude. And more importantly, we do not really know all the answers. This is a different world and corporate solutions need not work in the social sector. Do not start preaching from Day 1. Or Day 2. Or Day 3. I have learnt so much from some amazing people in the social sector.
   
7. Are you really ready for the transition? Are you just following a fad of crossing over? Are you really fed up of the corporate life? Are you really ready to give up a high pay check? Ask yourself these questions … many times.
   
8. Sometimes the answers are in the most unexpected places. You will be surprised at how the journey can pan out. None of the organisations I am involved with, except for one, are organisations I knew of in 2010, when I quit working. There are so many interesting NGOs, think tanks, social enterprises out there and you need patience to find them.  I was recently talking to a former banker who was helping someone start a very interesting initiative. I advised her to drop all other conversations and work on this start-up because it would be her baby and the excitement of building it out could be a lot more interesting than working in an established NGO. Don’t think conventionally.

The past nine years have been fabulous. Today I chair two organisations – Centre for Civil Society  and CORO. I am also Founder Director of the Indian School of Public Policy and Managing Trustee of Collective Good Foundation. And I am on the boards of Educate Girls and SBI Foundation. I run a mentoring programme for Catholic youth called Take Charge. I am also advisor to Sunbird, 17000 Ft, Youth4Jobs, Operation Asha and Medha.

Life can end up being very crazy. Have patience and drink a lot of coffee.

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Today, Akshara Foundation, the non-profit he joined 15 years ago and now leads as Chairman, is pursuing that cherished dream. From a non-profit working in a couple of blocks in Karnataka, Akshara now has a significant presence and impact across states. Its Ganitha Kalika Andolana, a unique math program in partnership with state governments and the corporate sector, is currently being run in Odisha and Andhra Pradesh as well. In 2018-19, it impacted over 1.2 million children in government schools and focused on increasing numeracy levels by making math fun and easy.

Ashok, who was recently named ‘Namma Bengalurean of the Year’ for his outstanding contribution to the education sector, reflects on why he does what he does, and how he has made it work.

On March 31, 2019 it was 15 years since I moved into the social development sector. I had worked for nearly 24 years at Analog Devices India and retired from there at age 47. Since then, I have seen, heard and, certainly, learnt a lot. Malcom Gladwell, in his book Outliers, suggests that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to achieve mastery in anything: I have certainly invested that much time and more in trying to find solutions for improving early education.

I am often asked the question: “Why did you choose to be in the social development world when you could have continued a successful journey in the corporate world?”

A debt to repay

I think about this question a lot and there are really only two answers:

First, I was fortunate to have received from society an education at the best institution in the world—the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay —and this education was subsidised by the country.

I had to pay the princely sum of Rs 25 per month as tuition for my education. In the 1970s the country was investing about Rs 55,000 a year on each of us who had joined the IITs and we had to pay less than 1 percent of the total cost. That system allowed me to get an education that gave me the confidence to do well at anything that I chose to do. And that’s a debt of gratitude I had to repay.

Second, having worked in the corporate sector and learnt a lot, I felt it would be a challenging exercise to apply corporate learnings and experience successfully to social good. This is what I have been doing relentlessly for the past 15 years.

Lessons in hope

Over these 15 years I have seen how poor and marginalised communities take a while to trust outsiders like me but when they do begin to trust, they give absolute trust and that places a greater responsibility on me. I have seen how governments function and how they can be effective if they want to be. I have also seen many sceptics who do not believe that supporting government activities in education will make a difference. Over time, I have managed to convince many of them that there is merit in collaborating with governments for larger public good.

As I see more and more people of my generation exploring the social sector, I feel optimistic about the future. I believe that my generation has the skills, the education and the affluence to make change happen and we have an opportunity here. I also believe that future generations will not forgive us if we do not rise to the occasion, make those changes and make society more equitable so that every young person has the opportunity to get  the kind of quality education and opportunities that my generation had access to.

Focus on your duty, do your best

I would like to share a couple of lessons that I believe are very important for my friends in the corporate sector who are contemplating switching to the social sector:

Listen, reflect: Listening is an important attitude and reflection is a critical activity to practice in order to succeed in the social sector after spending time in the corporate world. We do not have to be “right” to work for social change. In fact, the arrogance that comes from assuming we are right creates resistance to our goals.

Do your bit, diligently: Once you move into the social sector and as you go about your work, you will occasionally have to confront something you have left behind: that small self, that selfish and self-centred ego (no 5-star hotels or business class travel!). With few sources of reward available, is there any security for the needy ego? And what about the inevitable defeats, let-downs, criticisms and struggles that one has to endure. How does one address it?

The Bhagvad Gita has a possible answer: focus on doing your duty and let the Universe take care of the consequences. Or one can follow the Toltec wisdom from the Four Agreements (Don Miguel Ruiz) and follow specifically the fourth one: Always do your best.

I try to follow both. And am a happier person for that.

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