Conscious Enterprises Network

Psychopathic founders need an ‘Asoka moment.’, by R. Gopalakrishnan (2022) There are disturbing company reports of pathologically destructive leadership behaviour—poor governance, discernible fudging, intemperate language, overweening ambition, perpetually boastful talk and so on. To my simple mind, psychopathic is like behaving in a toxic, megalomaniac or narcissistic manner. Not every founder’s behaviour is psychopathic, but as the cases keep coming, one wonders whether founder-CEOs are prone to this malaise—for example, BharatPe, PayTM, and Zee. Other examples have been Rotomac Pens, Pan Parag, RDAG, Kingfisher, Gitanjali Gems, Café Coffee Day, and Housing.com. Sometimes, the funders drive the founder into psychopathy. During my career, I served as non-executive director of a start-up company with a founder as MD. It took the board seven long years to be convinced that the founder-CEO was a psychopath with hallucinations about who he was and what he was worth. It took the board ...

When the Spiritual and the Material combine, by R. Gopalakrishnan (2022) Practitioners of corporate governance get challenged when the spiritual and material combine. One is faith-based, and the other is wealth-based. Spiritual and material tend to conflict because everyone loves God, money, politics, and sex! No wonder that Godmen have several books written about them—Khushwant Singh (2003), Bhavdeep Kang (2016) and Priyanka Pathak Narain (2017).  Ruchi Soya Industries Ltd (RSIL) recently raised equity. When RSIL started in the 1980s I had just completed a feasibility study on soya. Subsequently RSIL became insolvent. In 2017, it was acquired by associates of yoga guru, Baba Ramdev. In India, yoga and business have profoundly mysterious links. Godmen combine the spiritual and material, so are able act as power brokers. Recall Shraddha Mata, Chandraswami and many others while our newly independent nation grew into today’s India@75.   Dhirendra Brahmachari, a hatha yoga ex...

Preserving SHE values in institutions, by R. Gopalakrishnan (2023) Last week this paper reviewed “Progressive Capitalism” by US Congressman Ro Khanna. The book made a case for decentralised capitalism. Asia Society India will shortly host a seminar on Balancing Profit and Purpose. Everywhere, the world seems to be searching for a different capitalism—Decentralised Capitalism, Conscious Capitalism, Enlightened Capitalism, Conscious Enterprise and so on. By overlaying my professional experiences on to these great ideas, I was led to the acronym SHE–Sustained, Humane, and Enlightened enterprise. Long-living institutions—companies, scientific, charity, educational—must overcome two obstacles regarding values: first, developing sound SHE values; second, the preserving those SHE values across generations.  Although set in the context of India’s freedom struggle, Gandhiji practiced the philosophy of truth, ahimsa, and satyagraha. Symbols like loin cloth, charkha, and Dandi march icon...