Is SHE for real?

The title is not about a svelte model or an apsara from Divyalok. A reader asked me this question after reading my last few columns on SHE corporations — sustainable, humane, enlightened. The person felt that most “reputed” corporations were founded on skulduggery and ethical gore, though the degree differed.

Based on my professional experience, I dispute this view even though I appreciate why such a view could exist. Scottish-American philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, author of After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, went so far as to dismiss the possibility that a manager in a for-profit business could ever be virtuous. However, my experience with SHE corporations swims strongly against that view. I must add that SHE corporations are not paragons of unblemished virtue; through their history, they can be faulted for aberrations, much as every great person exhibits human flaws. For the most part, SHE companies are virtuous through their behaviour and actions.

They protect the resources that enable them to conduct their enterprise — pancha bhuta elements (earth, water, fire, air, and space), community, employees, vendors — indeed all stakeholders. They are driven not just by money; they operate with fairness in terms of human relationships. They do take ruthless decisions their business demands, but likely implement them with compassion.

They exhibit “spirituality”, to borrow from Harvard Business School professor Geoffrey Jones (Deeply Responsible Business). He defines spirituality as “an implicit and explicit belief in the interconnectedness of all life and the planet that translates into a set of guiding principles and value”. Interestingly, Swami Vivekananda had said during the 1890s that the solution to the intense and fractious problems of the world at that time — indeed even today — is to “flood the world with spirituality”. Note, spirituality, not religiosity!

SHE corporations are giants of conscientiousness, though not necessarily giants of fame and market capitalisation. They practise exemplary corporate behaviour towards their community. Conscientiousness giants may be big or small, well known or unknown, but they are who they are. Here are SHE examples from three continents, all about a century old now.

Scott Bader started over one century ago in Finsbury Square, London. Ernest Bader began a chemical company to design, develop, and market celluloid in many shapes and forms, and low-viscosity nitrocellulose. Ernest Bader, the founder, was greatly influenced by E F Schumacher’s book Small is Beautiful. Thirty years later, to whom did he leave his fortune? To the employees who made the company what it had become. The Scott Bader Commonwealth Trust was constituted in 1951 with explicit principles, performance, and a voice to guide members. The company instils in employees that it is a “Business with a Conscience”. It imparts the ethos of founder Scott Bader that “no company should exist purely to generate wealth.” Today, the company has 800 employees (including in India) and revenue of slightly under $500 million. It is a SHE company, and can be regarded as an example of a small SHE giant.

Such a company in India is Forbes Marshall in Pune. This private, unlisted company began around the same time as Scott Bader. Nowadays it specialises in steam engineering and control instrumentation products. The company runs a 50-acre state-of-the-art manufacturing facility at Chakan, Pune, and has a comprehensive social responsibility programme encompassing health, education, and youth empowerment. The Forbes Healthcare Foundation runs a 25-bed hospital around Pune. The company operates in 28 countries. It measures and reports employee engagement numbers, and the company gets fine reviews from its employees. It does appear to be another small SHE giant.

An example of a big SHE giant is The Cummins Engine Company, which was also founded around the 1920s in Columbus, Indiana. Its explicit purpose was “to provide gainful employment to the youth of Southern Indiana”. Clessie Cummins was a superb technician with a searing fascination for machines. Being an inveterate tinkerer, he sought jobs where he could earn while learning through pursuing his fascination, which, according to his own account, “acted like a drug”. He found a job as a chauffeur with a wealthy Irish-American financier William Irwin, who helped finance the Cummins startup. After the “patient capital” had been stress-tested over about a decade, J Irwin Miller took charge of the company as a whole. He ran it for many years. The Cummins Engine Company took so much interest in the town of Columbus that upon his death, the New York Times observed in his obituary: “He and the company were instrumental in changing a decaying Columbus into a showcase for buildings.” Well before companies were compelled to respond to calls for gender and racial diversity, Miller prompted his HR colleagues to hire African-Americans for more senior positions.

Cummins operates in India too in two avatars: first, as a listed company called Cummins India, and, second, as an unlisted joint venture with, who else but their brother-in-causes, Tata Motors! During my career in Tata, I became curious about Cummins and its leaders.

That is why I disagree with Mr MacIntyre. Undoubtedly SHE is an idealistic goal, but it is practical. Companies should strive for that goal.

The writer is an author and a business commentator.  www.themindworks.me;  email, rgopal@themindworks.me