The Hindu Business Line : Focus on the future

"THE world is only ten years old," wrote Tom Friedman in 1999, in his book The Lexus and the Olive Tree. The reference was to the demolition of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989. In his perception, the Wall was a symbol of the Cold War. He said that the Wall was succeeded by the Web, which was a symbol of the future. The Wall was an armed fortress, while the Web is a boundary-less world.

The world that people occupy today is a vastly different place from the world they lived in ten years ago. "The only factory we have is human imagination," says Bill Gates of Microsoft. Their market capitalisation, some time back, was $470 billion, whereas the factory assets of Microsoft may not be more than one per cent of that value. Some crucial questions arise in this context, which need answers.

Exploring further the idea that the world is only a little more than ten years old, what will organisations look like ten years from now? Will modern corporates turn into so-called empowered organisations, where employees will demand, and most probably derive, more autonomy; where they will have a bigger role in decision-making; and where self-managing teams will rule the roost?

The difference in the pattern of managerial remuneration between 1990 and 2005 is totally out of sync with all the other changes in corporate parameters. Salary levels have reached incredible heights. So also, the disparity in incomes between top management personnel and first-rung employees is a highly disturbing feature in a democratic and developing economy.

Most MBA entrants into the corporate world, in the age group of 20-25, seem to start on a pay packet of around Rs 5 lakh per annum. But that does not mean a thing in respect of job satisfaction! The general culture among this crowd is one of a disregard for `old-fashioned' concepts such as loyalty, and hopping from one job to another is done without batting an eyelid — what Warren Bennis (founding chairman of the Leadership Institute at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business) would call "a bad case of affluenza."

What about the epoch-making changes in demography, where people above the age of 60 are living longer and healthier compared to their previous generations, whereas employees aged between 40 and 50 are seeking voluntary retirement. The implication is that there will be a far smaller working population vis-à-vis a longer-living non-working population in society. How to resolve this paradox?

Another riddle encountered by employees is how to balance the demands of their jobs as against their domestic responsibilities. A new fraction has found its way into the vocabulary of the modern manager — 24/7.

In such strange circumstances, is there anyone in the fraternity of management who has attained nirvana — that state of bliss called "balance"? Are there answers to all these questions, one wonders. Is that why the much-quoted baseball ace Yogi Berra exclaimed: "The future is not what it used to be!"

R. Devarajan

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