Enterpreneurial DNA
306-232. Trump is yet to concede. Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Polls nominations filed. Getting ready for polls on 1 December.
We write for ourselves. For our pleasure and joy. For our thought, word and act clarity. For our learning.
Let us pause. Close our eyes and relax the body. Relax the parts of the body, senses, heart, mind.., where tension is building up.
Breathe out fully. Take a few deep breaths, slowly. Watch the thoughts. Several times, say 7 times a day. Pausing, slowing down, watching the breathes, reflecting has to become part of daily routine, for our wellbeing. Like air, water, food, nutrition, clothes, shelter, engagement, entertainment, relationships.
Sunita Narain gets Edinburgh Medal 2020, for contributing significantly to science, technology, understanding and wellbeing of the humanity. For championing climate justice for the poor and disenfranchised.
A friend, Namgha et al has dicussed about Tibetan Refugees in India across 41 settlments across. Remittances seem to have significant impact on the families in improving living standards. The familes could incur education and helath expenditures. They could invest in small businesses.
Ruskin’s Unto This Last and Gandhi conclude: Good of the individual is contained in the good of all; This translates as – all livelihoods stand on equal footing (lawyer, or barber); life of ‘labour’ – farmer, craftsperson – is the life worth living. Can we move towards these? Can we list these enterprises? Can we see existing occupations as? Can we realize that we are ‘krishi’- enterprise country? Self, Family, Group,Community enterprises. 90% of us are here. We pursue opportunities relentlessly, with limited resources, taking Calculated Risks. We are quintessential entrepreneurs, leaders. It is in our DNA. We lose it with passing days of life, if not used.
We know for many of use life is an enterprise. Family is an enterprise. Team is an enterprise. Local Government is an enterprise. India Inc itself is an enterprise. Most Institutions striving to be self-reliant are enterprises. All are not new. Not all are equally adept. Margins are not similar. Volumes are not similar. Today’s demand may not be there tomorrow. Possibilities may vary from area to area, tribal to rural to urban. However, all of us have the same values: Hope (useful), Faith (capacity), Promise (reliable, long-term), LOVE (Care – practice, discipline, concentration). Most of us withsatnd unsteady income flows. Most of us work with a portfolio of works, working hybrid. Most of us use FFF – fish, fishing, metafishing – all 3 metaapproach.
Enterprises are wedded to purpose, not activities. They need company. They come together. They partner.
Some of us more entrepreneurial than others. Enterpreneurship is learnt with interning with senior/best practitioner entrepreneurs. The mentoring, inspiration, troubleshooting, role models help. When the crunch comes?
Air, Water, Food-Nutrition-Health, Clothing, Shelter, Engagement, Entertainment matter. The Crunch has come. Through Bigger Crises – Air, Water, Soil, Energy…. Climate window is small, 10-15 years minimum, may be 30 years maximum. Blurring TRUE – Tribal-Rural-Urban-Emerging. Pacing up VUCA – Volatile-Uncertain-Complex-Ambiguous. Confirmed paradox – Ours not in demand; whatever we want, no/less supply, high rate.
Some of us be with an enterprise, a portfolio. Some of us keep closing, changing, adding ‘enterprises’. Some keep expanding the portfolio. Some of us are conservative, traditional, ethnic. Some of us are able to take the new technology to support. Some of us work with totally new enterprises in new ways. Some of us make them hybrid, with risk spread across. We use our resources. We borrow. We seek equity. Sweat equity. Angel investment. Venture Capital. Crowdfunding. We partner. We collaborate. We sell into future. We aggregate. We come together as a collective of enterprises, or start a collective enterprise. We initiate, work with supplementary and complementary ventures.
Further, we have enterprises that provide services to us in education, health, care etc., based on the emerging ways of life. Women, as mothers, partners, have established them as better entrepreneurs.
Many teachers have. Many doctors have. Women have proved better entrepreneurial owners, co-founders, proprieters, partners. But, the numbers of other enterprises with women in the lead are still small. Women in the entrepreneurial teams make a huge difference and yet, we do not have many women members. Particularly in socially responsible enterprises. Can we have more and more PVM – poor, vulnerable and marginalized – taking the lead? They can do better than the others, if they get break, and get going. We need ecosystems in favour of PVM entrepreneurs. In favour of socially responsible enterprises. And the enterprise collectives.
Do we have an ecosystem that helps in taking the Producer Organizations forward, beyond the rhetoric? Dairy Cooperatives, Producer Companies on scale may be the notable exception. 10000 FPOs can they be really vibrant? Will they be In the hands of their member farmers? How long do they need to be nurtured? Do we have an idea of the portfolio of works in the FPO? Will they do all the activities of the value-chain up to the consumer? Will they just be aggregators? Will they extract entire nutrion out of the farms to the world outside? Why do we not call cooperatives in farm sector as FPOs? Is not 5000-10000 number wrong, because many producer organizations, informal and formal, are not counted in this? What is the status of these 5000-10000 NABARD-SFAC FPOs? Why can’t they work with multiple commodities? Are we thinking 150 Million Farmers in FPOs? At least a lakh of them? Can we think of their federal structures at sub-district, district, state and national levels? We need local value-chain centricity, local consumption, nutrition centricity. Why can’t we look at women SHG Federations as FPOs?
Can we etsablish the business models, a number of them, that can be worked with various communities and farmers’ organizations can be taken forward?
Let us be enterprising. Let us continue. Let us be, continue, stretch, extend as life-friendly entrepreneurs in N, with N. For 7L.
Join us in the world of yoga of active living in, flowing with, leading coexisting useful enterprises – outsaahikayoga for 7L.
G Muralidhar