Book Review: Grassroots Innovation, Anil K Gupta, Penguin, 2016

Uncommon saga of rural innovation

The author's feelings of guilt, gratitude, suffering, happiness, obligation, and so on are not usually central in an academic thesis.

GRASSROOTS INNOVATION
Minds on the Margin are not Marginal Minds
Anil K Gupta
Penguin India
381 pages; Rs 599

This is a book about looking for, listening to and learning from rural innovators, but most importantly, returning to them the diffusible value so created. The author is well-known for his pioneering work in mobilising a wide-spread empathetic search for innovation in the informal sector, via the Honey Bee Network. After many years of stubborn effort, best represented by the padayatras he organised into rural areas, the Network received national and international recognition, and spawned many organisations including a rural venture fund, a technology acquisition and licensing arm, a website for documenting innovations, institutional patronage by the President of India, and, indirectly, the National Innovation Foundation itself. The book chronicles the long and uncommon saga of the search for innovators in the villages of India, the struggles and successes in linking them with formal institutions and scaling them, and the continued challenges of formalising rural innovations and linking them with entrepreneurs, finance and markets.

Though written by an academic, the book is not academic in its style or contents. The author's feelings of guilt, gratitude, suffering, happiness, obligation, and so on are not usually central in an academic thesis. However, for Anil Gupta, feelings are central, because they lie at the pivot between knowledge and action, and tilt the scale from inertia to change. Being a follower of the Gandhian maxim of transformation at the individual level, he believes that empathetic citizens can make an innovating, ethical society.

The narrative is for the most part absorbing, being a re-telling of various encounters with grassroots innovators woven around specific themes: The main one being that there is a wealth of traditional knowledge and innovation in the villages, but to find them, one has to go and seek them out, rid oneself of many pre-conceived notions about the economically poor, and acquire the qualities of humility, gratitude and empathy.

Mr Gupta's humanism does not imply pacifism. He takes a belligerent stand against the promotion of jugaad as frugal innovation, pointing out that it is but a survival mechanism in an ecosystem of inefficiency and poor quality. He attacks the Rs 1 soap or shampoo sachet model of integrating the poor into markets, arguing that the model is sustained only by externalised environmental costs. He confronts Maslow's "needs hierarchy model" with evidence from the villages, where livelihood concerns do not stand in the way of high personal attainment via folk art, music and craft. Likewise, he hits out at government unwillingness to support simple, sustainable solutions, for example, in pest-control, and corporate unwillingness to adopt local ideas, for example, compressed-air engines. He laments the bias of institutions in favour of formal knowledge systems at the cost of the informal, and castigates the design of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act as a "systematic de-skilling of 250 million people".

However, Gupta is no cynic. He describes various measures taken to document and make available online over 100,000 innovations, and success stories in proliferating some of those innovations, within India and beyond. He celebrates the success of Gujarat Technology University and others, in adopting the technical challenges of small entrepreneurs as college projects. He lauds the individuals who chose to act despite uncertainty and "imperfect beginnings".

In sum, this book chronicles a journey to mainstream innovations from the informal sector. It creates a different tune, in that it emphasises the role of emotion and intention in eliciting stories of grassroots innovation, and ethically sharing the value so created. The stories documented are inspiring, but the journey dominates the narrative.

Scholars, researchers and other seekers of structured knowledge may find the informal style somewhat limiting. There are significant editing lapses, including the repetition of lines and sections of paragraphs. The graphics are few, incomplete and unhelpful. The last roughly one-sixth of the book, which contains important content relating to next steps, namely systematic scale-up and linkage to contemporary market mechanisms, is written in lengthy and relatively dry passages.

Throughout the book, there seems to be no attempt to present the content in the form of a well-defined framework, even though many individual concepts and important conclusions and recommendations are presented. These idiosyncrasies may inhibit the work from taking the high academic platform it otherwise deserves.

Nonetheless, no policymaker, academic, entrepreneur, innovator, student or change-maker who seeks to engage with the vast innovative capacity at the lower economic rungs of society, in India or abroad, can afford to ignore this work. The observations presented can be expected to still resonate in the years to come.

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Shailaja D Sharma  October 12, 2016 Last Updated at 21:15 IST

The writer is an academic and a business consultant

Is Math History Important? -- Talk at NIAS 27 Jul 2016

Pre-University Mathematics: Looking Back to Look Forward

India has a long mathematical tradition spanning over two millennia. A substantial portion of what is regarded as standard school level and part of undergraduate level mathematics has a history and tradition in India. The characteristics of a systematically developed body of knowledge – namely the existence of specific terminology, temporal continuity, geographic span, cross-referenced and consolidated literature, and a body of solved real-life and book problems, examples, formulas, algorithms, illustrations and so on – are all available in this tradition. Yet, this tradition seems to have had no impact upon mathematics education in India, which is a matter of both curiosity and concern.

Epistemological issues have been cited as the reason for the marginalization of Ganita from the taught material. Yet, a close look at the curricular content of modern mathematics textbooks suggests, first, that this objection is inconsequential– i.e. that high-school level mathematics, in the way it is increasingly taught, makes few if any appeals to the requirements of formalism, and therefore, can be supplanted or supplemented with Ganita mathematics without much philosophical consequence; and second, that, as machines increasingly take over repetitive tasks in problem-solving, the focus of math pedagogy worldwide is on problem-framing or modeling abilities, where it is advantageous for Indian students, to dip generously into their own authentic traditions of enquiry.

An examination of curricular objectives, textbooks and examination patterns of popular curricula indicates certain systemic trends in Pre-Univ Math, showing a preference among students and faculty for modularized content, more critical thinking components, less formal theory and more intuitive and practical problem-solving skills. Theorem-proof is far less emphasized in mainstream curricula at the high-school level, than it used to be.

We examine below some examples from Ganita, which map onto current high-school syllabi. It is postulated that awareness of and facility with an indigenous tradition will enhance confidence among math students at the high-school level and provoke independent thought, questioning and innovation.

The scope of Ganita has been discussed in ancient and modern literature. It includes both the act of computation and the science underlying computation. The scope has significant overlaps with modern high-school math, for example in areas such as: Quadratic Equations, Sequences and Series, Limits, Calculus, Trigonometry, Combinatorics, etc.

Quadratic equations find repeated mention in Ganita literature. The technical term used is: Madhyamāharana. The earliest recorded quadratic equation problem is attributed to Aryabhata (c.500 CE) and is in the nature of a moneylending problem.

A Principal P is lent out for a month and a return of x unit is obtained on it. The earned income of x units is further lent out for a period of t months at the same rate. The total earnings on the Principal is desired to be A units. What is the rate of interest x to be charged?

The problem is modelled as the following quadratic equation:

The solution is:

This can be described as a problem of . Brahmagupta (Brahmasphutasiddhanta, c. 658 CE) gives a more generalized version of the above problem, in which P is lent out for  months, yielding a phala of x, which is then lent out for a further period of  months, gaining a total yield of A. The equation for interest is

which can be solved in the same manner, leading to an even more successful moneylending operation! Students can create look-up tables of interest rates, similar to those used by insurance agents, using these formulae. This unique problem is not seen in math textbooks.

The Ganitashastra Sangraha of Mahavira (c.850 CE), poses problems in Arithmetic Progressions involving multiple incremental series, and their sums and characteristics. The use of quadratic equations to solve for ‘n’ is also demonstrated.

Mahavira also gives a recursive search procedure for finding the common ratio of a Geometric Progression, given the first term and sum to n terms, entailing the scaling down and stepping down of the series. The procedure will draw the student to think about an efficient algorithm for the search. For example the student may observe how a ‘gradient descent’ method can be used in conjunction with Mahavira’s algorithm for the common ratio.

Limits are the precursor to the discussion of calculus and a vital step in higher mathematics. Yet it is one of the most challenging topics for teachers and students alike. We examine how limits are evaluated or understood in Ganita. Making use of the example

to show that as we sum more terms on the LHS, the difference on the RHS becomes smaller and smaller but not zero, Nilakantha Somayaji (Aryabhatiya-Bhashyam c.1500 CE) demonstrates the formula for the sum of an infinite geometric series. In this approach, we discard very small quantities, depending upon the practical context. The terms of the infinite series give the instantaneous position at any chosen instant. This is the foundation of differential calculus.

Note that the formal way of summing geometric series, involves subtracting infinity from infinity, leading to difficult or unanswerable questions, for example in the second step of the following derivation:

The derivation and application of the Infinite series and Calculus is a fascinating story of Yukti, or clever, ingenious methods, using results from geometry and summations of power series. In his commentary Aryabhata’s observations on the ratio of circumference to diameter, Nilakantha says:

“The unit which measures the circumference without a remainder, will leave a remainder when used for measuring the diameter [and vice versa].  … We can achieve smallness of the remainder, but never remainderlessness.”

Students, to their great loss, are never introduced to this idea in their curriculum. Thus, their understanding of  is ambiguous. And this ambiguity carries on to infinite series and calculus.

Scholars have answered the question, “What makes Math hard to learn?” by pointing not to the content of math, as much as to its history and philosophy. Fields’ Medallist Manjul Bhargava has urged students of math to “go to the original sources” and has cited his own experience of reading “Gauss and Dirichlet, and Pingala and Hemachandra”.  It is very useful to understand how various concepts arose and in what context. Insights in those writings, if recovered, could stimulate the mind and engender creativity.

Thus, the study of Ganita literature, in the context of modern-day high school math education, and in conjunction with it, could, if properly undertaken, hold the key to improving the quality of math education and outcomes in line with modern-day requirements, in India.

Book Review - The Nanologues & Reva Electric Car - India's Green Gift to the World - Feb 2013

Book Review: Two Gritty Little Drives

Two cute little Indian cars, a crazy drive and an amazing journey

The Nanologues: 10,000 km across India in the world’s cheapest car, Vanessa Able, Hachette India, pp 323, Rs. 399

Reva EV: India’s Green Gift to the World, Dr S.K.Maini, Random House India, pp 192, Rs. 299

Imagine a person driving around the Indian peninsula – from Mumbai to Mumbai, via Kanyakumari, Kolkata and Nainital. The trip takes 90 days.

Now imagine that the person is a woman. Alone.  In a Tata Nano.

Is it possible? Answer is, yes. The woman in question is Vanessa Able, an English journalist. Her gritty tale is documented in her monologue, titled The Nanologues.

So, such a thing is not only possible, but you -- and your Nano - can emerge practically unscathed from such an experience. Ergo, it is not just doable, it is within anyone’s reach.

Well, only almost. You have to have the gumption to undertake such an expedition. Everything that you expect will happen does happen, but thanks presumably to Ganesha on the dashboard, ways and means spring out of complete adversity, nothing extreme does happen and the author thrives to tell the tale, having mainly suffered only extreme pangs of indignation.  Her tale does include roads suddenly ending on the edge of a cliff, and wheels screeching to a halt in front of unexpected police barriers and trucks making a U-turn in the middle of the road, apart from cornea-searing headlamps and bottom-scraping potholes. The story has two morals – one being that the Nano is a gritty little car, whose misdemeanours through the 11,000 km ride total to one misaligned steering wheel. The second moral is that an Englishwoman will have to do a little bit of un-learning and re-learning in order to drive around on South Asian highways, a point that Able graciously concedes.

Able’s writing is fluent and laced with, well, Brit-style humour. She dispenses with political correctness and is blunt about horns, headlights, hierarchies, stares, cops and toilets. There are also moments of awakening, such as:  “The most important preconception to tackle was that horns always imply hostility”. She learns and acknowledges the complex language of highway honking  – something most car-driving Indians cannot claim to have done! Her story is smartly interjected with information about places, people, things.

Who should read the book? Able’s target audience is mainly foreigners, especially who want to drive in India. I would add to that, people who have some lazy afternoons to spend, Tata Motors people and their competitors, PR people and those concerned with transport or tourism or travel blogs. I promise entertainment, except for those now-and-then moments when Vanessa Able may get under your skin with her way of shrugging away the ‘Indian way’. 

If the Nanologues are written with half an eye on celebrity, then Reva EV: India’s Green Gift to the World is written with both eyes bent on gaining acknowledgement. Reva EV is a chronicle, in which the senior Maini recounts the long and difficult journey that led a precocious youngster toying with model airplanes to launch an Indian electric car on the world stage -- among the first such cars.

The Reva was not an accident. Unlike the Nano it was not an after-thought, nor was it a child of impulse. The genesis of the Reva was slow but sure, a seed germinating on the shopfloor of Reva Precision Products, and taking initially the form of a custom-built electric forklift, in 1984. Combined with the early germination of genius talent in the youngest Maini – Chetan – the idea of building an electric vehicle in and for India started taking shape in the mind of the Maini patriarch. The story of the Reva is as much a story about the Maini family,  of a dream nurtured and brought to life by Sudarshan Maini, in which each of his family members would have an acknowledged if unequal role.

It is easy to recount a journey after it has happened, especially if you live to tell the tale.  However, the journey before it has been made is a plunge into risky darkness, and that is true of both the journeys - the stories of which we are here reviewing.  The journey of the Reva electric car was undertaken with a sense of destiny. The project was financed and supported by the Maini Group, allowing Chetan Maini to focus upon and pursue the dream of a compact zero-emission city car - made in India. This tale is without a doubt a memorable one in the history of Indian enterprise.

Told in a quietly assertive tone, for which the credit must also go to the co-author Sandhya Mendonca, Reva EV is, title onwards, a simple and uncomplicated 3-hour read. The story is sprinkled with best practices in Indian innovation and sustainability. Modular design, frugal innovation, partnership, persuation, technology, design, PR, public sentiment, values – are all covered in the narrative. This little book is case study material for B-schools, but should also be read in every Indian high school.

Shailaja D Sharma

Book Review - Why Some Firms Thrive - Crisis Lessons, T H Stanton, 2013

Why Some Firms Thrive While Others Fail: Governance and Management Lessons from the Crisis

Thomas H Stanton

Oxford University Press, New York, pp 278, Hardback, Rs.1645

In 1986, a relatively unknown economist wrote about the boom-and-bust financial cycles, contrasting them with the attendant cycles of risk. In the boom period, risks appear remote and companies are willing to increase leverage. Lending standards fall and risk management is marginalised, until boom gives way to bust. Governance and risk management are most necessary in the growth phase, rather than in the bust phase when caution would naturally dominate, however the discourse on these topics takes place at the other ends of the cycle. The dreaded ‘Minsky moment’, is the tipping point, when increased risk-taking on the part of lenders meets with a price slump, destroying asset value and engendering a sharp downward financial fall.

This was all studied and recorded decades ago, yet the crisis that began in 2007-08 could not be prevented. Will it happen again? Thomas Stanton argues that the very act of rescue by government -- of ‘privatizing profit while socialising risk’ -- undermines the debt-holders’ interest in and ability to monitor risk, a vital source of market discipline, thereby sowing the seeds for the next recurrence.

Collecting evidence from the debris of the financial crisis via interviews conducted in his capacity as staff on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and his own research work at John Hopkins University, Thomas Stanton brings together the complex story of the financial crisis, spanning as diverse issues as mortgage and financial product pricing, approaches to governance of large & complex financial institutions to behavioural economics, organisational structure & public policy.

While risk taking is natural in business, it has to be balanced with sound practices in risk management and governance. The likelihood of ‘black swan’ events is accentuated in the case where companies become globalised or otherwise experience rapid growth. Stanton makes a detailed comparison of companies that survived the crisis (with or without government support) versus those that went under (often despite government efforts).

Stanton identifies many specific organisational, behavioural issues that increased the risk to companies or reduced the effectiveness of regulatory bodies or both. “Normalisation of deviance” is a phenomenon of “reducing standards to unacceptable levels based on past success, without taking account of the risks involved in the new low standards”, a concept originally developed in the context of the Challenger space shuttle disaster. “In the pursuit of unprecedented profits, financial firms, mortgage originators, securitizers, rating agencies and investors deviated sharply from traditional standards of prudence. Increasing asset prices masked risks inherent in those lower standards”, he says. He emphasises the importance of distinguishing risk, which is quantifiable, from uncertainty, which requires judgement. “Successful firms used judgment to add more protection than quantitative modelling would have suggested by itself”.

Stanton outlines the history of the financial crisis, the build-up of vulnerabilities, starting with the glut in global savings and the development of low-cost credit and an active market for instruments that offered safety-plus-yield. As financial firms innovated with new products, companies often lost sight of what was really backing a particular AAA-rated security. Individual transactions appeared to be ‘reasonable risks’ but in aggregate assumed very different risk profiles. “If one part of the daisy chain broke, the market was in danger of collapsing.”

And it happened: Mortgage defaults took place, funds failed, companies exposed to ‘toxic assets’ collapsed, the market panicked, jobs disappeared, incomes fell, feeding the downward spiral.

However, the book is mainly about the learnings.  The book offers well- illustrated examples of behaviours that worked and maxims that withstood the test. JP Morgan Chase was helped by a ‘fortress balance sheet’; and a ‘one client, one firm, one view’ global approach. Goldman Sachs had a hands-on risk management approach with daily monitoring of the firm’s enterprise-wide risk profile on a mark-to-market basis and a focus on liquidity. For Wells Fargo, decisions to avoid risky instruments were hard choices but ultimately protected its customers. Toronto Dominion Bank CEO Edmund Clark, who holds a Ph.D. in economics opined, “I don’t think you should do something you don’t understand, hoping there’s somebody at the bottom of the organisation who does”. Generalising, the book cites a study which showed that banks with the highest returns in 2006 had the worst returns during the crisis.

Valuable insights are presented on Board constitution, competencies, tension between the revenue and compliance, lack of long-term data (in the statistical models), lack of experienced staff, etc. The author describes the phenomenon of ‘cognitive capture’ of supervisors by the business perspective. Another important observation is about regulators’ deference to the overriding belief in the self-correcting abilities of the market.

Each chapter is introduced with a powerful but pithy comment, usually sourced from the congressional hearings. By Chapter 7, one notices repetitiveness, but that reinforces points made earlier. The book lends itself even to the novice, but students, teachers and practitioners of risk, corporate governance and public policy would greatly benefit by studying it.

Interview: Naveen Soni, CSR Head, Toyota, Aug 2016

“R is for Responsibility”

In this interview, Naveen Soni, VP of External Affairs, CSR & PR, Toyota Kirloskar Motors Private Limited, speaks about why the CSR programme in India goes beyond business into social domains unconnected with Toyota’s core business. We also explore the values underlying the company’s approach, its work ethic, its way of working with stakeholders and the governance structure it operates for CSR.

Q. Toyota (TKM) seems to have a range of programmes under its CSR portfolio, including education, sanitation, etc. How do you justify your CSR portfolio to your business heads?

A. In Toyota, CSR is a responsibility, a voluntary activity, not driven by laws. TKM set up a manufacturing plant in India back on 1997-98, and the CSR programme began right at that time. It was not an after-thought, nor did it begin after the government policy was enacted. 

We may say in some sense that manufacturing is fundamentally anti-thetical to ‘nature’ -- because it involves removal of natural objects and creation of man-made objects. Toyota, being a manufacturing company, addresses this fundamental issue in its core value of Monozukuri, which refers to sustainable growth, in harmony with nature. All our activities are to be conducted with balance and harmony. This is a fundamental premise.

Therefore we seek growth with environmental sustainability and social harmony. CSR is a platform to share the wealth created. Our projects are not linked to the business cycle.

Q. Can you help us understand how the global sustainability focus of Toyota translates into your local sustainability and CSR programme?

A. CSR at TKM is two-pronged. We have a global sustainability focus, which we embed in our local CSR. Specifically, our global focus on Traffic Safety as a theme that is close and dear to our business is also rolled out locally. In addition, we undertake developmental work benefiting the local community, some of which may be aligned with the local government mandate. However, we seek to make all our programmes sustainable.

In order to manage a well-defined programme, especially one that is run with third parties, it is essential to have clear thematic focus areas.  Our focus areas are: 1. Traffic Safety; 2. Education; 3. Environment; 4. Health and Hygiene. These are thematic filters, whereby we can select activities out of the many that are proposed by stakeholders. Such a focus is also mandated to us by our internal “Kyoto Protocol”, which gives the guidance that scope of our social contributions shall be confined rather than spread out.

Q. It appears then that you have two types of CSR programmes – one linked to your business domain and one that is un-related.

A. The Traffic Safety programme is indeed linked to our business domain, but it is not driven by our business needs. Under this programme, we reach out to school-children and educate them on road safety.

Our manufacturing plant is located at Bidadi, 30 km from Bangalore. Our road safety activities are focused mainly in the city of Bangalore. In the vicinity of the Bidadi plant, we undertake all the community development programmes. We work with 4 gram panchayats, across 20-25 villages, where we work on education, health & hygiene and environment.

The Bidadi Industry Association, of which we are an active member, is also involved in the rollout of our programmes.

Q. How do you leverage the industry association for CSR? Does the association have the requisite skills to support a CSR programme?

A. The role of the industry association in regard to CSR is to make the local interventions more effective. For example, we work with BIA to identify the villages in which to focus. BIA makes sure that the industries in the region distribute their efforts and cover all the villages equitably.

We operate through local NGOs as well, and the industry association can help identify such organizations and monitor them. TKM execs and others build capacity in BIA for these purposes. The PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) model of continuous improvement in business is also applied to the CSR process.

Q. Do you also reach target customer segments with the Traffic Safety programme? How does the programme work and do you measure results?

A. The Traffic Safety Education Programme (TSEP) is a 3-layer model which includes, Coaching, Evaluation and Action-Learning, and it entirely targets middle-school learners. Of course, we indirectly impact their parents and other adult stakeholders, but it is not the focus.

We try to instil the idea of rules, need for rules, etc. through the programme. The practice component has been recently added. We work with Traffic Wardens and local authorities to roll out the practice component of the programme. The programme covers several metros.

In terms of impacts, even such a simple programme comes with challenges. Children receive contradictory signals from parents, society and the general environment, which the trainers have to deal with. We can easily measure the input- and output-side measures, in terms of training delivered. But in order to create safe roads, we are going beyond these measures, into societal impacts achieved. This is why we are now working with more stakeholders in the current phase of the programme.

Q. Is there a difference between the Asian and Western companies in terms of their approach towards CSR? Most Western companies would look for a direct connect between the business and the CSR programme, but you have no such requirement.

A. Our approach is to do good for the sake of doing good. Public perception in India demands the absence of a link between the business and CSR. If you make a link to the business objective, where does the emotional connect come from? For example, the programme of some FMCG companies, of giving share of the price of each product purchased, does not give the same feel!

Q. How do you allocate funds, in that case? Where do the business controls come from?

A. We make a list of the proposals coming from the target communities, i.e. from the gram panchayats. Some of these are ongoing activities which need to be carried forward or terminated. Some are new proposals, which need to be tested for a fit with our thematic filers and our ideas about sustainability. Where such a new activity is adopted, we provide adequate justification from the standpoint of working with the communities and fulfilling our responsibility.

Checking with the 2% profit share compliance is something we do afterwards. Even in our loss-making years, we have continued our CSR programme.

R is for Responsibility. It cannot be mandated.

Q. That is very well put, indeed. Is this something that comes from the Japanese values that Toyota is known to exemplify?

A. Toyota is an ethos-based company. I would say that it is not so much a company, as much as a culture, a way of being.

There are 10 values that are at the foundation of the Toyota culture and these are not compromised. Anywhere in the world, there is a uniformly distinct Toyota.

Some of the well-known ones are the spirit of Kaizen – which is about how individuals can pursue evolution via innovation; the Toyota Way; and PDCA.

Many companies have adopted the Toyota Production System (TPS) model, but there is really no meaning in adopting the model without the underlying values, which are a commitment to continuous improvement and respect for people.

Q. What about governance, the topic of greatest interest to the readers of The Directorial? How is corporate governance exercised in the domain of CSR?

A. We have a CSR Committee of Directors, which takes decisions. This is a de-risking and strengthening strategy. The Committee members have no direct executive role with regard to CSR. Proposals go up to the committee and are evaluated and thereafter modified and approved or rejected.

Independent Directors or external opinions may be sometimes sought, but the process of decision-making is driven internally by the Toyota value system. It is challenging to bring in meaningful external inputs, because outsiders may not know or be able to internalise the Toyota way of doing things and reflect them in their suggestions.

The India operations are a part of the top 10 global affiliates of Toyota. Knowledge-sharing with regional headquarters in Singapore, at the best-practices sessions, happens on a regular basis to ensure we are continuously learning and growing.

In the Health & Hygiene vertical, the water purifier and sanitation programme for girl-child, the sustainability model which ensures that infrastructure is maintained and schools adopt the systems – is a best practice from India. Incidentally, TKM has received awards from CII and IOD for CSR, Sustainability and Supply Chain.

Q. What sort of a CSR team do you have at TKM and what sort of skills does the team need to have, in order to work with these grass-roots level programmes and diverse stakeholders?

A. Our current team size is 6, but we aim to leverage the TKM team of 6000 for this cause!

All our staff wish to engage with the CSR programme and we are making plans to fulfil this aspiration.

The key skills in my view are: 1. A sense of ownership for the programme; and 2. A sense of giving to society. CSR is not a check-box activity. A degree in social work is helpful, although not mandatory. We have separate teams for CSR, PR and media, but there are overlapping stakeholders and areas, therefore our team has to be able to communicate well across stakeholders.

Q. How would you sum up the work culture at Toyota?

A. “Taking everybody together” is the key to decision-making in Toyota. All the decisions are made by consensus. One of the key requirements for successfully working in TKM is the ability to do team-work. It is team work rather than individual brilliance, and building consensus rather than having flashes of genius that is appreciated here. Thus, more efforts have to be put into planning and this may take time.

5500 parts go into each car we make. We are therefore not afraid to own up, and deal with with any customer complaint and we have done that. Yes, there is a hierarchy, a respect for seniority – all this protects against failure.

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