The power of neeyat in enterprise

Neeyat is not a new management jargon to replace vision and mission, nor is it an attempt to nativise an Anglo-American concept in Bhartiya hues, but it is relevant for all businesses, big or small

Neeyat is not a novel idea or jargon. It has always existed, but it lately caught my attention. Over a fine dinner in Paris with the Moroccan chairman of Indo-Maroc Phosphates Company, our discussion veered to the role of business in society. My host dropped the Arabic word neeya in our discussion. That was when I realised the word neeyat that we use had its origins in Arabic — the true intent.

The relationship between neeyat and behaviour can be imagined to be similar to that of the Gangotri to India, or the Vedanta to Hinduism, or the Preamble to the Indian Constitution. Neeyat is pure, inspiring, and uncluttered. However, it gets interpreted as it develops. Narratives, rituals, fables, and interpretations are added with distance and time; the Ganga no more accurately resembles the original Gangotri.

In his book The Colonial Constitution, Arghya Sengupta argues the current functioning of the Indian Constitution may be considered by some as not being faithful to the Preamble. He makes a case for citizens to “engage” with the Constitution, rather than to attempt the draft of a new one.

Likewise, in corporations strategists advise leaders to continually engage with the neeyat or the purpose of the company (the reason for its very being) and to ensure that its expression is faithful to the original intent. Apart from thinking about and appreciating the concept, there are twin challenges for practical leadership: While neeyat is essential in the early stages, it requires continual renewal and enhancement.

Jamsetji Tata had stated his company existed to serve the community. Tata still does that. Jamsetji was surely influenced by the Zoroastrian principles of huma, hukhta, hvarshta (good thoughts, words, deeds). William Hesketh Lever stated his company existed to clean the teeming millions all over the world. He diligently applied his Congregationalist principles in business. Unilever still cleans people. Andrew Carnegie (Carnegie Steel) was influenced by Swedenborg values and Thomas Watson Sr (IBM) by Presbyterian ideas. John Cadbury was determined to improve the world around him, and was driven by his Quaker principles.

Well-known or large companies are not the only ones that should think about neeyat. Carbon-neutral and green technologies attract much commentary all over the world; much of the discourse is perceived by lay citizens as platitude, though couched in fine language. This is evidenced, to take just one example, by the behaviour of some oil majors, especially American ones.

On the flip side, a nascent bleat emanates from Greenland (The Guardian, Olle Ellekrog, January 9, 2024). A 2022 startup in the Nordics recently despatched its first 20 tonnes of pure Arctic ice from natural glaciers in the Arctic to Dubai. The company co-founder, Malik V Rasmussen, describes the product as the purest water in the world because it is sourced from Arctic glaciers, which have been in a frozen state for 100,000 years! Critics have attacked the company for its “dystopia and frivolity”. The founders firmly believe in their neeyat — we have been brought into this world to help Greenland in green transition.

Another little-known, and less exotic, example: Author Kiran Deep Sandhu recently wrote a book (Roads to the Valley, Notion Press, 2023) about how Sardar Pritam Singh helped to change the landscape of hilly Nepal. He has the reputation in Nepal as “the transport king of Nepal” though he himself described his neeyat by saying “India is my janmabhoomi, and Nepal is my karmabhoomi”. He is credited with ushering in commercial transportation in Nepal from 1959 and played a major role in developing the logistics industry in a challenging terrain. Born in Jammu in 1935, Pritam Singh made his neeyat as “bridging nations” — India and Nepal — through roads and transport and serving the people of these two nations. Pritam cites his inspiration as emanating from his father and his religion. He put into practice the tenets of Sikhism but for the benefit of all the society he served.

Neeyat is not new management jargon to replace vision and mission; nor is it an attempt to nativise an Anglo-American concept in Bhartiya hues. Commonplace, not so popular stories are evidence that neeyat is relevant for all enterprises — small, big, family-run, promoter-driven, or multinational.

The author’s new book, Embrace the Future: the soft science of business transformation, is due in February rgopal@themindworks.me