BeyondProfits
Investing in the
human economy
We have lived through two major stages of economic evolution
that is, the agrarian and the industrial economy, and have already
stepped into the third stage that is the human economy.
Even as we are trying to cope with drastic changes being brought
about this, hangovers of practices of the pervious waves still seem to
be taking charge of our business behavior.
One of the areas where the shadow of the past seems to loom
large is in realms of investment. The essence of human economy
is and will continue to be tapping into higher than realized
human potentials of participation and performance. And to see
the businesses that the investors are
investing in grow and evolve, they need
to, as of yesterday recognize this truth.
Those who have already invested as
well as those who are contemplating
to invest in start-ups or scale ups
need to radically re-work on the
criteria for evaluation, due diligence,
monitoring and development to be
able to see healthy returns on their
investment. That is, assuming, that
most or all investments are being made
in enterprises which are humanistic
Even as we are trying to cope with
systems and not robotic or alienistic. drastic changes being brought about exist in. Any institutional benchmark
Some of the shifts envisaged are: this, hangovers of practices of the
From survivability to
pervious waves
evolvability charge of our business behavior
All enterprises created with a purpose
are meant to live and evolve. And as a corollary if one can uncover,
focus on, articulate and monitor the inherent evolvability of the
enterprise, growth is a natural outcome. A one-time investment in
such discovery and ongoing investment in tracking and auditing
evolvability is recommended.
From employment to enrolment
Humanistic systems and sub-systems do not uphold captivity and
dependence. On the contrary they, often through extreme chaos,
work towards re-instating human freedom. The investors need to
recognize that enterprises in the human economy need to enroll
people as inter-dependent members of a symbiotic growth and
have systems and processes that uphold such memberships. An
interesting feature of this shift is blurring of boundaries between
June 2010
17
Indroneil Mukerjee
employees, partners, clients and even competition as the value of
loyalty is being replaced by respect.
From performance to contribution
The human economy is all about symbiotic growth. Growth that
happens through co-existence and co-creation. Investors now need
to look at measuring contribution as one would measure the extent
of fertilization that happens when a bee sits on a flower to draw
nectar. This also means humanistic enterprises need authentically
to be seen as providing the ‘nectar’ of life than mere substinence.
This may require scrapping mechanistic, transaction oriented
HR systems and processes and invest
in instituting processes that are more
participative and evolving.
From benchmarks to bench-paths
All hi-points of human accomplishment
are driven by values. Human beings are
essentially wired to driven by their values
to joyfully invest in their talents in a
manner that they can consistently exceed
all benchmarks, including their own, to
create exponentially increasing value. For
themselves as well as for the space they
therefore will curb this humanistic glory
to bring in consistent mediocrity. Investors
still seem to be taking need to ensure that businesses are
outlaying sufficient funds to enable each
contributor discover their hidden values,
potentials and talents and create roles that
are talent centric, to enable the individuals to choose bench-paths of
infinite excellence.
From training to learning
Learning is the life blood of any growing and evolving enterprise.
Investors also need to make sure that sufficient investment is being
made to enhance learnability of the learners, capacity building of
enablers and creation of an environment that fosters measurable
business-relevant learning both for the individuals as well as the
institution. They also need to advise plugging the leaks that are
happening due to the contributing human capital getting locked in
classrooms to attend meaningless cookie-cutter lectures.
Indroneil Mukerjee, Transformational Coach & Executive Mentor,
iProdigy Learning Services P Limited. www.iprodigy.net; Email:
indroneil@iprodigy.net