CHAPTER 2

Who Are YOU?

Animal spirits—a spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction, and not as the outcome of a weighted average of quantitative benefits multiplied by quantitative probabilities.

—John Maynard Keynes*

Individual unleashing of energy and getting credit for it is the new form of capitalism. In art, in literature, in music, in sports, individuals gain renown, not the corporate entity that promotes them, be it a sports club or an opera house. Marc Benioff’s calls for a new form of capitalism are timely, as the hierarchical one-man call center model, a model where delegation of authority doesn’t exist, no longer works. Paul Polman, citing Winston Churchill says, “However, just like democracy, the alternatives to capitalism have all been tried and all been found wanting—some, like communism, catastrophically so.”1 Just as Samuel Johnson said of marriage, that it may have its own pains, but celibacy has no virtue. Correspondingly, co-responsibility is the keyword for partnership between a joint-stock company and society. Flawed as it may be, there is no viable alternative to this partnership. Industry shall flourish once the pains of marriage are removed. There will be a change, the realignment of forces. Corporate has misused freedom of enterprise as a catchword and that needs thorough scrutiny. There are two distinct areas at the forefront: conflict of conscience and freedom of individuals.

We have been in search of a new capitalism for too long. Economic self-interest dominated centuries of trade and commerce. It is the same today, with the MAGA—Make America Great Again—campaign by President Trump. This is commonplace for all ages. However, if we are looking for a new capitalism, it is the ethics of capitalism that need an emphatic emphasis. The current practice of corporate leadership “is not about giving energy, but unleashing other’s people energy,” says Polman.2 It is indeed the definition of capitalism—ownership of one’s energy. Energy cannot be taken away. Corporate now needs to measure the unleashing of energy and ensure that those individuals that do, get due credit for it. With this, the freedom of individuals is activated in an organization, and with it, the embracing of accountability. Within corporate’s own closed walls, responsibility resonates with co-responsibility. From the foot soldier level upward, individuals are ready to take on responsibility. Hitherto, co-responsibility has not been practiced within the corporate. It’s only put on display as a facade, for the benefit of a watchful society. Polman’s method of bringing data to society’s table, in the way co-responsibility is practiced at Unilever, would be more useful for society to learn. Corporate ethical motive, ushered in within a company first, eliminates the need for whistleblowing. The way to do this is to remove the barrier between the highest paid and the lowest paid, and then measure ethical responsibility, as all stand equal. The conflict of conscience is removed. Then the experiment can be extended to society. Bring the abstractions into reality, acknowledge value where value is due, and deconstruct what is valueless. That is the new form of capitalism, ethically, morally, and fairly implemented.

Corporate history is replete with many misgivings, tolerating the idiosyncrasies of many a CEO. The sociologist Diane Vaughan says, “Normalization of deviance is a cultural drift in which circumstances classified as ‘not okay’ are slowly reclassified as ‘okay’.” Ushering in CER cannot be postponed. At this juncture let us briefly check on what John Maynard Keynes had to say about it. By defining Animal Spirits, Keynes takes us to that level of understanding of what corporate shall look into and learn. He says,

Even apart from the instability due to speculation, there is the instability due to the characteristic of human nature that a large proportion of our positive activities depend on spontaneous optimism rather than mathematical expectations, whether moral or hedonistic or economic. Most, probably, of our decisions to do something positive, the full consequences of which will be drawn out over many days to come, can only be taken as the result of animal spirits—a spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction, and not as the outcome of a weighted average of quantitative benefits multiplied by quantitative probabilities.

All that we list of corporate failures, Keynes captures precisely. Our disasters are man-made, and they are repeated. No company is geared to avert such disasters. If we recognize the instability of human nature, we should take steps on how to measure such human nature that leads to the instability of the corporate, the world over.

Moral, hedonistic, and economic classifications correspond with the good, bad, and ugly scenarios in relation to corporate sustainability.

Moral

Morality does not come of its own. We teach ethics in schools but propagate greed once the same students reach a business school. Conflict of interest, conflict of personal interest, and conflict of conscience have to be seen from a corporate perspective and need quantification. We can’t leave them to the hands of God. We have to quantify within the corporate walls, the acts of people who disregard the very basis of morality that society has given birth to, after hundreds of years of justice and democratic principles. Defining moral, measuring ethics, identifying the behavior of employees, workers, or CEOs, we are looking for an environment for the growth of values. What we see within corporate is a representative sample of the society at large. We have people in MNCs traveling the globe and undertaking to conform to the rules and laws of the lands they visit. It is the fiduciary duty of corporate to create an environment of moral values. We cannot hesitate to ask and must get answers, should we look for a civilizational approach to corporate history. When moral rules are violated, social chaos is bound to raise its ugly head.

Hedonistic

Charles Ferguson’s documentary film Inside Job notes the hedonism rampant in Wall Street. In it, Jonathan Alpert, a therapist whose clients include many high-level Wall Street clients, says,

These people are risk-takers, they are impulsive. And that manifests outside of work as well. It’s quite typical for the guys to go out, to go to strip bars, to use drugs. I see a lot of cocaine use, a lot of use of prostitution. He goes on to add, there’s just a blatant disregard for the impact that their actions might have on, on society, on family. They have no problem using a prostitute, uh, and going home to their wife.3

That’s corporate hedonism in action for you.

Economic

The third instability Keynes mentions is economic. Look at the list from Lockheed in 1976, when Lockheed Aircraft Corp. admitted to a payoff of $24 million during a Senate subcommittee meeting. The revelations exposed the bribing of key world leaders—Prime Minister Tanaka of Japan, Prince Bernhard of Belgium, and Columbian and Italian top brass were among the major beneficiaries. Corruption continues despite the UNCAC, despite the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), despite the Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX), despite the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) study on anti-bribery. The Augusta Westland VVIP chopper scam is rattling now in India, after the main culprits, Christian Michel and Ratul Puri, have been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), long after the Bofors scandal, in which Rajiv Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India, was allegedly involved.4,5 It never stops. An OECD study on anti-bribery instruments cites Joseph Murphy, a corporate compliance and ethics professional and a participant in the study. In it, Murphy says, “Governance is not compliance and ethics” and disputes the OECD’s assumption that large multinational companies generally have adequate internal compliance controls.

One need only look at the record at Siemens, whose code of conduct was described as the ’read, laughed and filed code,’ or the long, legalistic (and ineffective) code that existed at Enron to see the great danger in such sweeping conclusions.6

Economic disasters are man-made, and we seem to have no current means of arresting them. Bad management of corporate affairs, costing a company heavily, with disastrous economic consequences, is blamed on the company. The perpetrators go free. This book is unique in the sense that there is no separate company rating but combined ratings based on the performance of individuals would constitute company ratings. Each person is rated and simultaneously his or her inactivity. An Index of Inactivity is prepared for each, which reflects the cost consequence of nonperformance daily. Shirking the shoulders and getting away is not possible.

Indian Companies Act 2013

In the Indian Companies Act 2013, under Code for Independent Directors, the first listed is, “An independent director shall uphold ethical standards of integrity and probity.”7 Never mind that there is no code of conduct for directors while independent directors are given one. There is no mention of how they are going to measure it, neither for the independent directors nor for the other directors of the board.

In the 2013 Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO) Framework and SOX Compliance, ethical values are listed as the primary concern under the 17 Principles of a Control Environment. The first “demonstrates commitment to integrity and ethical values.” The COSO Framework defines the Control Environment in the following manner:

The control environment sets the tone of an organization, influencing the control consciousness of its people. It is the foundation for all other components of internal control, providing discipline and structure. Control environment factors include the integrity, ethical values, and competence of the entity’s people; management’s philosophy and operating style; the way management assigns authority and responsibility and organizes and develops its people; and the attention and direction provided by the board of directors.8

In the Volkswagen emissions scandal, we are unaware of the persons who cleared planting the cheat software in millions of vehicles. The CEO and the board are two separate entities within an organization. The board is responsible for management quality, that is to say, discharging fiduciary duty that brings out rules of ethics, a set of policies, whereas corporate governance is domain of the CEO team. If there is no written policy toward not creating a cheat software, then the CEO is free to act as he did in Volkswagen. In China, there is a proverb, if you find a student committing something wrong, go and find out who the teacher is and beat him. A similar event has occurred recently with Boeing shuffling CEO and board chairman posts after the Boeing 737 Max plane disaster.9 At the same time, we find the futility of creating an act of parliament where we have no means of measuring such clauses as that for an independent director “to uphold ethical standards of integrity and probity.” Then we find society continues to be ignored in all the happenings within a corporate wall. This book brings out a scientific analysis of the Corporate Atomic Structure that provides a basis of measurement to these critical functions essential for the smooth running of an organization.

Ethics is subtler than the subtle. The COSO Framework works on the corporate entity’s people. The denominator for integrity and ethical values is people. Ethics has been brought from the unknown to the known as a tangible substance. If the code for independent directors and the COSO Framework are to succeed, ethics, subtler than the subtle, has to be brought to the level of the known. The known level is of matter that is infinite in numbers. Connecting the two—the intangible, the basis of ethical values, an energy force, a constant singularity, on one side, and the tangible substance that is infinite, on the other—is indeed an exciting exercise for an intuitive mind.

The three factors of Keynes’s Animal Spirits that lay stress on instability are moral, hedonistic, and economic degradation and these shall be explored further.

Keynes brings forth the cause of such degradation to these three factors, but he also suggests a way out of the chaos that corporate is entangled in.

Two key principles of Animal Spirits are “1. a spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction, 2. not as the outcome of a weighted average of quantitative benefits multiplied by quantitative probabilities.”10 Corporate needs spontaneous action, meaning action by individuals employed by a company, without exception. Quantitative data is indeed humongous. Spontaneous optimism is the catchphrase, rather than mathematical expectations. The data explosion has graduated from Kb to Mb to Gb to Tb, yet the adage remains—garbage in, garbage out. Within its own wall, a company’s data becomes unreliable, for it is left with an audited balance sheet and nothing else. Polman has abandoned submitting quarterly results for Unilever, focusing on a long-term sustainability plan. Rightly so. Corporate should also look into a spontaneous action to find and replace existing quantitative data with qualitative elements of the same data. Inaction already occurs by sitting on data for too long. This has gone on for several decades now, the pathetic status quo. Corporate admires itself and is lost in the masquerade.

Knowledge is the goal of Ethics

The spontaneous urge comes from within. When James Burke, CEO of Johnson & Johnson, took such action as to reiterate an existing time-proven culture, it permeated the whole organization. An individual with such an urge could end up as a whistleblower too. Both the whistleblower as well as ethically responsible employees are for the societal good when it arises in a more mature stage of knowledge. Knowledge is the goal of ethics. Any corporate not founded in an ethical motive is wrong. Freedom of enterprise is a freedom to choose right, not wrong. It is not a choice between right and wrong. But course correction would be needed when an event goes off the trajectory, such as the introduction of cheat software.

The current news is that Bayer and BASF have been ordered to pay $265 million to a U.S. peach farmer in the Weedkiller Suit, on account of his peach orchard being destroyed. Bayer faces nearly 140 similar lawsuits in U.S. courts, plus thousands of other suits that claim health damage from Monsanto’s glyphosate-based Roundup.11

Looking at the multibillion corporation’s decisions, what is apparent is that UNCAC Article 13, Participation of Society, is absent. Public awareness is an ex post facto result, coming not from the companies but the courts of law. Now when public asks where corporate governance is, we find accountability factors just not there. This must change. For example, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Modernization Act of 1997, before being enacted, solicited comments from all the stakeholders, including the public, globally. FDA rules are rules, where a rule expresses the truth and when it is being certified to have been followed as prescribed, then it justifies conduct. That truth is ethics and that conduct is knowledge. Therefore, knowledge is the goal of ethics.

In the case of Volkswagen as well as of Siemens, actions they initiated after the material events, they are bound by the principle of UNCAC Article 10, Public Reporting. Society would like to confirm that such material events do not repeat. Start with a clear strategic plan for the future. Avoid the word “somehow.” It is an expression of the fallibility of our market response to what we produce and sell. It need not be so. It can be precise when qualitative elements are underlined. Spontaneous optimism arises out of the qualitative elements of management. An urge to understand cheat software here, a wrong acquisition there, corrects the flow of events in the right direction. Differentiating the Boeing board and CEO functions becomes the lead indicator of delineating the duties of an organization.

Pulsating Energy

Good or bad, any outcome of operations in a company is attributed to a nonentity. It stops with quarterly or annual results in a balance sheet. A balance sheet cannot convey how vibrant such a company is. Pulsating energy is the only resource an organization, nay the planet earth, has. Our current efforts to tap solar energy as an alternate fuel warrants a moment’s scrutiny of the one and the only indestructible resource—energy. At this juncture, a word about the intangible. The intangible is antimatter, and similarities exist between matter and antimatter on the one hand and the tangible and the intangible on the other. Intangible in the mundane world of business management has been used in only one instance, as intangible assets. Otherwise, unsurprisingly, it is not touched at all. Tangible on the other hand is easily defined. A physics textbook describes matter as “that which takes up space and has mass.” Every physical object we have ever seen consists of matter and it is indeed tangible. The tangible is a subject corporate is closely involved with. It is with the intangible that the discomfort sets in.

Man’s quest is to define and quantify this intangible. Let us examine what is antimatter and the part played by it. The experiment is on with a Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a 27-km long tunnel where beams of particles are fired to prove the theory that when a particle meets its antiparticle, they annihilate each other, and their entire mass is converted into pure energy. One of the LHC detectors, code-named LHCb, is attempting to investigate whether equal amounts of matter and antimatter were created in the Big Bang and what happened to the “missing” antimatter. When matter and antimatter come into contact, they annihilate, in a flash of energy. The Big Bang should have created equal amounts of matter and antimatter. But matter exists far more in the universe than antimatter. When antimatter collides with matter, pure energy emerges. Correspondingly, for corporate, the matter is turned into energy. There are two processes for corporate. The first is the Creative Process that turns a conceptual idea into matter. We call it innovation. The Creative Process is of many dimensions and keeps churning out what we need in every walk of corporate management. What scientists have been continuously exploring, the existence of antimatter in the known universe, corporate also needs to explore within its own domain—where the antimatter is and how it infuses energy for them.

What we see in corporate is nothing but matter, the tangible. The management of corporate affairs by virtue of visibility is matter turned around and made use of. This, the second, let us call the Action Process. All corporate processes occur under only two primal process management setups: the Creative Process and the Action Process, that is, creation and destruction. Modern physics has thus revealed that every subatomic particle not only performs an energy dance but also is an energy dance, a pulsating process of creation and destruction. Strange but true, the quicker we destroy, that is, consume what we produce, greater are the profits. All great brands are built on consumption. Both, during the Creative Process and the Action Process, energy flows from the pulsating and ends up as the non-pulsating, that is, from creation to destruction. An intellectual property right (IPR) created is an object containing non-pulsating energy that enables the accomplishment of an infinite succession of finite purposes by controlling each goal.

Corporate is governed by Newton’s First Law of Motion. For the energy to flow from corporate, there must be a collision, as when antimatter collides with matter. During the Action Process, energy is multiplied by its usage. Matter—or in the corporate world, objects—attracts consumers or individuals in society to collide with it, in order to transport itself from one form to another, to go from the stages of creation to destruction. An advertising firm’s revenue is based on how enticing a product looks to the consumer, and this determines how rapidly a product will travel through the cycle of creation and destruction. It is a process that abides by the fundamental laws of physics. This is better explained by Newton’s First Law of Motion: “An object will remain at rest or in uniform motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an external force.” For corporate, the external force is the antimatter. It resides with people, who are the repository of pulsating energy. It is up to them to kick-start the matter surrounding them, from transforming raw materials to end products directly in the consumer’s hands. Just-in-time (JIT) is made simple by making subatomic particles dance all the way. If corporate wants subatomic particles to dance, the external force has to work. In nature, this force is never static. Neither is society, whether the consumers or creators within corporate. Yet, we assume that nature functions naturally and without particular effort. It is not so. The very existence of the universe depends on its continuous cycle of energy creation, in a precise and stately manner. It is possible for corporate to replicate this cycle of creation precisely as nature does, with unchallengeable benchmarks for another four-and-a-half billion years! In the case of corporate, subatomic particles tend to rest, leading to the loss of energy creation. In other words, an inactive antimatter. The principle is the same: Collide objects with pulsating energy. Simply put, make an effort to move the object from one plane to the other. Energy creation is thus the very essence of corporate affairs.

The missing antimatter should be found out. When IL&FS goes down sinking the Indian economy with it after several years of mismanagement or Volkswagen implants cheat software for over 11 million vehicles, check your premises—search for the missing antimatter. This means corporate is in a bullock-cart stage, with square wheels fitted onto the cart. We exacerbate the situation by churning out ineffective data. The data explosion has indeed been mind-boggling and inexplicable. Let us find out the corporate data explosion and compare it with the data the universe has. Carl Sagan simplified that calculation. He said the total number of stars in the universe is greater than all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the earth. Corporate data does not even count for square yard of a beach. The universe undoubtedly has infinite matter beyond a mathematical calculation. That settled, if we take a cue and recall the earlier posture toward antimatter, which was in equal measure at the time of the Big Bang, we shall surely wonder of the disappearance of antimatter from the universe. In this respect, corporate should take a cue from nature.

“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of star-stuff,” Carl Sagan said.12 Corporate is full of people with pulsating energy and who are made up of star-stuff. The behavior pattern of corporate is no different from that of the universe. Corporate management largely ignores this and only occupies itself with objects, the tangible, matter. The subject has disappeared like antimatter whereas it is that which creates energy. It is thus worth our while to locate the antimatter within a corporate entity.

The search for antimatter within corporate reveals some stunning information. Professor of computational neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sebastung Seung says in a Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) talk, “Your brain contains 100 billion neurons and 10,000 times as many connections.” Professor of molecular cellular physiology at Stanford, Stephen Smith says of brain imaging: “In a human, there are more than 125 trillion synapses just in the cerebral cortex alone.”13 René Marois from the Center for Integrative and Cognitive Neurosciences at Vanderbilt Vision Research Center states, “The human brain is heralded for its staggering complexity and processing capacity: its hundred billion neurons and several hundred trillion synaptic connections can process and exchange prodigious amounts of information over a distributed neural network in the matter of milliseconds.”14

Scientific analysis provides the foundation for comparison of intangible processes with tangible objects, with matter that takes up space and has mass. Astrophysicist Jayant Narlikar when asked to describe what existed before the Big Bang replied that it was beyond human imagination. That’s our limitation. Limited by the three-dimensional aspect of the universe. Yet, it’s so vast, impossible to figure out space and time. Matter in its form of galaxies, stars, and planets is said to add up to only 4 percent and the balance is made up of dark matter (23 percent) and dark energy (73 percent).15 Our human brains have that neural network functioning well in exploring space, but need to attend to exploring a corporate entity.

Spacecraft Voyager 2, launched in August 1977, provides us not only with an idea of the vastness of space but of the foresight of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) scientists. Voyager 2 has set a course for Sirius—the brightest star in the sky. It went past Jupiter in 1979, Saturn in 1981, Uranus in 1986, and Neptune in 1989, a 12-year grand journey through the solar system. Voyager 2 had already covered 16 billion km from the earth when NASA engineers sent a coded instruction to change course. Even traveling at the speed of light, the instruction took 14 hours to reach the satellite. In about 296,000 years Voyager 2 will pass 4.3 light years (25 trillion miles) from Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. The Voyagers are destined, perhaps eternally, to wander the Milky Way.16

Align corporate with the universal law of physics. The joke goes, during a lecture explaining the birth and death of stars, a space scientist said that “Earth would last for another 4.5 billion years.” Shocked, one person got up and asked “whether the earth would disappear in 4.5 million years.” The scientist replied, “No, 4.5 billion years.” “Thank God, I thought it was 4.5 million years.” The alarmed person sat down visibly relieved. When we deal with space, we are able to deal with a long-range planning of 296,000 years. The difference between 4.5 billion or million makes no significant difference to an individual. Yet, it does when we undertake a journey that is set and predictable. Corporate long-range planning is hardly for five years. When a mishap like a cheat software happens, the group’s strategy for the year is set back by 7 years. Corporate struggles to get through a 5-year plan without a hitch. The unpredictability factors are one too many. Sustainability of elements is indeed a challenge. A long-term vision for corporate is incomprehensible while the plan for scoping the universe seems comparatively simple. Issam Sinjab, a theoretical astrophysicist, Alumni University of Leicester & University of Sussex, Department of Physics and Astronomy, has to say what Cambridge University Professor Martin Rees said when asked ’What do we mean by law of nature’:

“One of Einstein’s most hackneyed sayings is, ‘The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.’ What Einstein meant is that the laws of nature seem to apply not just here on earth, but everywhere in the universe. We could imagine a universe where there were no laws at all, completely anarchic, every atom being different. And were that the case, we’d make no progress at all in making sense of the external world.”

“The progress of science has been understanding that there are patterns in nature and discerning successive unifications of these patterns,” Martin Rees says. “And this, of course, makes it possible to make predictions, which means that we don’t need to remember so much—we needn’t record the fall of every apple because we know how it happens.”17

Whereas the universe functions in an organized manner within the scope of the laws of nature, corporate does the opposite. It does not conform to nature’s laws. No two persons are the same. Managerial talent is attributed to the unique nature of the individual. No platform, within the laws of nature, is being created. For decades, the structure has remained the same. The platform is a unidimensional organization that runs through procurement to manufacturing to sales and every other structure. It comprises the board of directors, CEO, vice presidents. All form part of a flat organization, with all the eggs in a single basket. The results are completely anarchic. Where every individual is different, each is different in different places. In any organization, you see how each individual is governed by their own idiosyncrasies. There is no corporate goal congruence. What is comprehensible in an organization is how incomprehensible it is. Corporate must shake itself free from the “earth is as flat as a trencher” outlook.

Pins to planes, Windows to Android we have operating systems, but not for individuals. Corporate history since the Industrial Revolution has been an enormous growth in freedom of enterprise, economic prosperity, innovation, technical and intellectual advancement but it has also furthered the stoking of greed, a slow and sure decay of morality and social order culminating in high unemployment.18 Movements such as Occupy Wall Street exemplify the recognition of this. Had the progress occurred within the framework of organic laws, it would have been far more equitable.

The science of metaphysics is an interesting subject for corporate managers. Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) raised the question of whether a science of metaphysics with a logical structure, like that of the well-established mathematical and natural sciences, was possible. That call was made nearly 300 years back. There’s no attempt to sync the two. It’s a materialistic world of what you see is what you get (WYSIWYG). We even have made inquiries into Shiva’s abode and found an available solution. In the domain of the intangible, corporate shall search for an answer to the many mind-boggling, unpredictable human endeavors. A structured approach to understand and apply principles that would alter how we look at corporate, which has been the tangible domain of unused capability and wasted efforts. In the context of neurons and synapses that have the potential to be activated a trillion times, we are aghast to realize we occupy the dark ages, not using even a fraction of human capability.

The principle of Advaita would help in understanding the science of metaphysics. The Brahma Sutra19 begins from the level of the known external feature, tangible, visible and extends to the level of the unknown. Neti, neti or na iti, na iti (not this, not this) is the rejection of whatever is known and perceived by the laws of physics. It is most difficult to know what was there before the Big Bang. By neti, neti, the cause of this universe is identified—retrogressus ad infinitum (the process of returning to an earlier state, again and again in the same way).20 Retrogress to the point where everything tangible is rejected. That point is the culmination of identifying the level of energy force, from the known, phenomenal level of diversity to the unknown, non-dual, transcendental level, where there is no cause but remains the cause of all causes. That’s the domain of the intangible, where there is no duality, no paradox, no plurality, and no opposite values, which are the characteristics of the tangible domain. That is a stable parameter by which the rest of the universe is calibrated. That is intangible. Corporate too is evident as pulsating energy making subatomic particles dance.

“Know Thyself”21 was the message in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo. It is said to be for every individual who is in pursuit of self-knowledge. In the context of corporate management, where a single company is spread over many a country, employing thousands of men and women for their business enterprise, knowledge about oneself becomes crucial for corporate development, a stable parameter by which the rest of corporate is calibrated. A wise group of companies would look into this dictum “Know Thyself” for self-governance. Having created the solar system of the sun and the moon and the planets, the universe conducts itself with the least interference. In other words, the entire universe of galaxies and cosmos22 is self-governed. It is about time corporate understands the need for efficient and effective self-governance. Self-governance is the ultimate delegation of authority and independence. It is inevitable at a primal level.

Sebastian Seung, Evnin Professor in neuroscience, professor of computer science at Princeton Neurosciences Institute, talks of the mapping of the brain, what he calls “connectome.”23 It would take a few generations to map all the possibilities of the neuron’s connectomes. David Eagleman, American neuroscientist, author, science communicator, and an adjunct professor at Stanford University, talks of the sheer number of such connections in a single brain, existing in such density that it bankrupts our language.24 We have to invent new types of mathematics to even address this. There are so many connections between these neurons that they number in hundreds of trillions. If we take a cubic centimeter of brain tissue, there are as many connections between its neurons as there are stars in the galaxy. These strange, alien landscapes of neurons and synapses map our decision making. You are irrevocably yoked to the three pounds of tissue, the neural basis of morality and decision making, as David Eagleman refers to it. There ought to be no hesitation on the part of corporate bigwigs to “Know Thyself” as an efficacious dictum. Intrinsic self-governance by people is possible. Yes, we can—self-govern!

It is time we look for where antimatter is. That’s the crux of the whole of the management operating system. In a single brain filled with neurons and synapses, there is no need to look elsewhere for missing antimatter. Carl Sagan says we are made of star-stuff. Neuroscientists say a single brain has neurons and synapses in numbers of as many atoms as there are in the universe. Perhaps we are looking for antimatter in the wrong place.

The neural basis of morality and decision making within corporate has to be given substance and mapped. The energy within each brain needs to be directed toward creating a corporate management operating system that reflects and sustains the immense potential of the brain, for use beyond profits and growth. Finding out the utilized capacity of the brain is very simple, it is zero. In other words, when the brain is inactive, the level of inactivity is 100 percent. We can compute a corresponding collective Index of Inactivity for each corporate individual. The human brain is the decision-making apparatus. We shall map its capability and guide for corporate growth. The corporate denominator becomes antimatter.

The crucial aspect of corporate management is the acknowledgment, from Socrates to Marc Benioff, of the attrition of ethical values as a constant threat to society. Socrates had to teach the unlearned whereas Benioff has to appeal to the senses of the learned. The learned run far more risks than the unlearned.25 Merely professing fiduciary responsibility for the society insincerely but not being ready to avow, acknowledge, and assume the ethical responsibility to act upon, prevents a company from progressing forward. Our entire product range is toward approaching the society, attracting them with fancy advertisements and usefulness, with a customer satisfaction driver as the crux of corporate existence. Charles Ferguson’s Inside Job is a remarkable compendium of unethical practices illustrating how learned men in high places conducted themselves, inflicting the severest injury to other people in society. Risks the learned undertakes correspond to the practices limited to senses, without conscious thoughts. Conscious reasoning would have helped them to realize the consequences of such unethical practices but alas not to be. For such people, a large majority of them, entering into a more mature stage of synthetic and intuitive knowledge does not exist. They want to remain inside Plato’s cave. What we have also seen is the neuroscientists confirming the extraordinary capability every brain has. The synapses and neurons in such brains are never triggered, for they remain sluggish. The neurons and synapses to get activated need deep conscious thought, which ethical message alone offers. Moral degradation or demoralization of society’s ethical structures can be repaired by reconstructing anew the rules of ethical values firmly established and put into practice.

At the same time, deconstructing the senseless practices, of instinctive habits that are truly valueless due to ethical indifference toward the society, is crucial to escape from Plato’s cave. Attrition of ethical values refers to every single learned individual, as to constructing values and deconstructing valueless.

However, in our concern about the degradation of values, corporate holds the key to unraveling the economic benefits of attributing a value system to the sustainability of profits. The profit motive overtakes the ethical motive for an organization when it comes to the crunch. Corporate is not in politics but in business. Declaring the adoption of UNCAC as part of CoBP can pose many hurdles. The first motive is indeed profits, without which society gets no benefit. It is not a stand-alone exercise bereft of a value system. Efficiency brings profits but the sustainability of the value system alone maintains sustainable profits. Companies that started well with detailed anti-corruption internal rules, like SAP Software Solutions ,26 fell on the way side, arriving at a settlement with the FCPA. This is dangerous. It also means we create policies but have no inclination to follow them through. This makes it a “read, laughed and filed code” scenario. Ethical assets have to be created by a continuous check on critical control points (CCPs) on a daily basis. When so effectively operated, the value system exemplifies sustainability, which becomes evident in profits. The language corporate understands is money. Sow the value system, reap the profits. We are at the end of the tether, when auditors have joined the bandwagon of allowing, nay participating in, frauds committed by the top echelon. This book gets into the root of the matter and offers a solution to operate an effective value system.

Never in the history of mankind have so many dedicated people, as of today, served and struggled to establish a humane society around the world. These men and women, including many within the government, have relentlessly pursued transparency, human rights, anti-corruption, environmental protection, whistleblowers’ protection, and right to information. Their grace on this planet, as Swami Vivekananda uttered in his famous Chicago speech, enables “the dumb eloquent and the cripple cross mountains,” we shall be grateful for. For it is they who ask you: Who are you? The cosmos is within you. Nitrogen in your DNA, the calcium in your teeth, iron in your blood, everything you are made of was forged in the interiors of collapsing stars. You are made of star-stuff. You are the only pulsating energy. You have within yourself such capabilities. You trigger your antimatter. You can take corporate to the levels of accomplishments never seen before.

Who are YOU?

Notes

1. P. Polman, L.F. de Rothschild. May 23, 2014. “The Capitalist Threat to Capitalism.” https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/paul-polman-and-lynn-forester-de-rothschild-call-on-companies-and-governments-to-unite-in-the-search-for-an-inclusive-and-sustainable-economy?barrier=accesspaylog.

2. D. Scialpi. 2018. “Paul Polman’s Quotes about Success and Leadership — CEO of Unilever.” https://medium.com/@davidescialpi/paul-polmans-quotes-about-success-and-leadership-ceo-of-unilever-52aff401a105.

3. Inside Job—Written by Charles Ferguson, Co-Written by Chad Beck & Adam Bolt.

4. First Post. 2019. “AgustaWestland Case: ED Links Christian Michel’s Money Trail to Moser Baer, Questions Chairman Deepak Puri about ’Kickbacks’.” https://www.firstpost.com/india/agustawestland-case-ed-links-christian-michels-money-trail-to-moser-baer-questions-chairman-deepak-puri-about-kickbacks-6197431.html.

5. Business Standard. 2017. “Bofors Scam: A Timeline of the 31-year-old, Rs 1,437-cr India-Sweden Deal.” https://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/rs-1-437-cr-india-sweden-bofors-guns-deal-timeline-of-the-31-year-old-case-117102100190_1.html.

6. OECD. “Mr. Joseph E. Murphy (Corporate Compliance and Ethics Professional).” In: Review of the OECD Anti-bribery Instruments: Compilation of Responses to Consultation Paper, March 31, 2008.

7. Companies Act 2013. SCHEDULE IV. [See section 149(8)]: CODE FOR INDEPENDENT DIRECTORS. Guidelines of professional conduct An independent director shall uphold ethical standards of integrity and probity.

8. S. Mcnally. 2013. “The 2013 COSO Framework & SOX Compliance.” https://www.coso.org/documents/COSO%20McNallyTransition%20Article-Final%20COSO%20Version%20Proof_5-31-13.pdf.

9. N. Balu, E.M. Johnson. 2019. “Boeing Board Strips CEO of Chairman Title Amid 737 MAX Crisis.” https://www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-ceo-idUSKBN1WQ2SH?utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+Trending+Content&utm_content=5da13d28594d1700014c20af&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter.

10. ISN ETH Zurich The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money By John Maynard Keynes 1366_KeynesTheoryofEmployment.pdf

11. J. Davidson. 2020. “Bayer and BASF Ordered to Pay $265 Million to U.S. Peach Farmer in Weedkiller Suit.” https://www.ecowatch.com/bayer-dicamba-peach-farmer-lawsuit-2645173076.html.

12. V. Janek. 2014. “What Does It Mean To Be ‘Star Stuff’?” https://www.universetoday.com/117494/what-does-it-mean-to-be-star-stuff/.

13. The Astronomist. 2011. “A Cubic Millimeter of Your Brain.” http://theastronomist.fieldofscience.com/2011/07/cubic-millimeter-of-your-brain.html.

14. The Astronomist. 2011. “A Cubic Millimeter of Your Brain.” http://theastronomist.fieldofscience.com/2011/07/cubic-millimeter-of-your-brain.html. Note although title is millimeter Dr. David Eagleman himself corrects it to centimeter.

15. P. Rincon. 2008. “‘Big Bang’” Experiment Starts Well.” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sci/tech/7604293.stm.

16. P. Baldwin. 2017. “NASA’s Voyager 2 Heads for Star Sirius... by Time It Arrives Humans Will Have Died Out.” https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/567957/NASA-s-Voyager-2-sets-course-for-star-Sirius-by-time-it-arrives-human-race-will-be-dead.

17. Issam Sinjab: Alumni University of Leicester & University of Sussex https://www.researchgate.net/post/A_question_on_Time_as_an_emergent_property

18. Adapted from: S. Radhakrishnan. 1939. Eastern Religions and Western Thought. (London, UK: Oxford University Press).

19. Nature of Upanishads: Vedas are generally considered to have two portions, viz., (1) portion dealing with action or rituals and (2) portion dealing with knowledge (http://vedicheritage.gov.in/upanishads/). Brahma Sutra deals with the knowledge portion, as stated in (2) above: it is a synthetic study of the Upanishads (http://sivanandaonline.org/public_html/?cmd=displaysection&section_id=578). In this book, as the reader would find later, corporate atomic structure also has only two processes: (1) Creative and (2) Action (i.e., policy and practices).

20. “Brahma Sutra—The Divine Life Society.” http://sivanandaonline.org/public_html/?cmd=displaysection&section_id=597.

21. K. Best. 2018. “Know Thyself: The Philosophy of Self-Knowledge.” https://today.uconn.edu/2018/08/know-thyself-philosophy-self-knowledge/#.

22. Cosmos is in the realm of “existence,” where we can observe the orderly system governed by natural laws, whereas universe also “exists” but includes dark matter and dark energy, which we are unaware of as to the very existence. Cosmos adds up to only 4 percent, while the universe, which consists of dark energy and dark matter, adds up to 96 percent. Universe is everything that exists, including time and space, matter, and the laws that govern them. (Read more: “Difference Between Cosmos and Universe,” http://www.differencebetween.net/science/nature/difference-between-cosmos-and-universe/#ixzz6J7d3shLY)

23. S. Seung. 2010. “I Am My Connectome – TED Talk.” https://www.ted.com/talks/sebastian_seung_i_am_my_connectome?language=en.

24. D. Eagleman. 2013. “David Eagleman: Brain over Mind?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWBtT-Gl4vQ.

25. Dr. Radhakrishnan’s interpretation from: Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, Ch. IV—4.10.

26. J.R. Iyer. 2011. “Index of Inactivity Measuring SAP’s #Sustainability Leadership of UNGC.” https://jayaribcm.wordpress.com/2011/03/30/index-of-inactivity-measuring-saps-sustainability-leadership-of-ungc/.

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*ISN ETH Zurich The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money By John Maynard Keynes 1366_KeynesTheoryofEmployment.pdf p.81. https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/125515/1366_KeynesTheoryofEmployment.pdf