pageTracker._initData(); pageTracker._trackPageview();
« Why did I lose my temper today?
Gurgaon goes online, good job »

Dashavtaar as a tool to gauge your company’s maturity level

 

Author:               Gunwant R Agarwal (B.E, Electronics, MBA)                    

 Contact Details:  B-405/406, Hira Dham, Sundervan Complex, Link Road,  Andheri West, Mumbai 400058, India

 Mail:                    gunwant.agarwal@hewitt.com ; gunwantagarwal@yahoo.com

 First published with print media: April 2008 

Introduction: 

Hinduism is one of the major religions of the world. It has a plethora of streams suiting an individual’s liking to follow the stream of his choice. A Hindu can choose to have his God as formless or with form. There are 33 crores Gods and Goddesses in Hindu religion. Many Hindu religious texts such as Vedas, Bhagwad Gita, Puranas, and Upanishads prescribe numerous ways of self realization. There are many interesting mythological stories in such books which have Hindu Gods and Goddesses playing the protagonists.

One of the most popular concepts is the one of “Trideva” or the Holy Trinity comprising of three Gods namely Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.

 Brahma is assigned the portfolio of creating the universe. Vishnu is the one who sustains the Universe and Shiva does the termination of the same.

 There has been many an attempt to scientifically explore Hindu mythological concepts.

 One such concept that has been analyzed is the “Dashavtaar” or “The 10 avatars (incarnations) of Vishnu”.

 This concept can be used as a tool to understand the growth and maturity level of an organization. Using this tool, an organization can easily where it stands at present and what are the achievable milestones waiting on their way ahead.

An organization cannot transform itself suddenly. The metamorphosis happens in a phased manner. The tool will help the organization in transforming itself step by step logically so that the change is gradual and acceptable by the stakeholders in the organization.

 What is the Dashavtaar?

 Time after time, the world saw many threats of destruction. For removal of the major ones, divine intervention was sought. Vishnu, the preserver he is, came to the rescue of the world. For this, he came in different forms to save the world. Each form of his descent to the world was his incarnation or avatar.

Let us take a look at each of these avatars:

  1. Matsya: Fish.
  2. Kurma: Turtle
  3. Varaha: Boar
  4. Narasimha: the Man-Lion (Nara = man, simha = lion).
  5. Vamana: Dwarf Brahmin (priest).
  6. Parashurama:  Axe-wielding Brahmin(priest)
  7. Rama: Prince and later king of Ayodhya kingdom.
  8. Krishna:  A cowherd turned king of Dwarka kingdom
  9. Buddha : Prince Siddhartha who later became “ the enlightened one’
  10. Kalki: A warrior king yet to incarnate to  destroy all evil in the world

  

Dashavtaar applied to the context of maturity level of an organization: 

The avatars took place in a chronological way and can be easily perceived as evolutionary development.

 

Sr.No.

Avatar

Key points about the Avatar

Organizational characteristics as per it maturity

1

Matsya (Fish):

·      The fish can stay only in water and therefore has restricted movement due to this limitation.

·      Single skilled 

·      The organization has just started and begun with very basic offering of services or goods.

·      It has few offerings and therefore restricted to a few markets.

 

2

Kurma (Turtle):

·      The turtle is amphibious and can live on land as well as water.

·      Multi skilled

·      The organization has diversified its service portfolio and has a variety of offerings.

·      This has created a bigger market for the organization and it therefore gets more business.

3

Varaha (Boar): 

·       The Boar is a terrestrial animal.

·       It was so strong that it rescued earth from downfall

·      Power to sustain

·      The organization is now strong and able to sustain itself.

·      It is now firmly established.

4

Narasimha

·       Here Vishnu appeared as half man-half lion. Until now, the avatars were in animal forms

·       Now a part of human element has also appeared.

·      Innovation ability.

·      The humanoid feature of the avatar symbolizes the ability to think.

·      This depicts the organization’s development as its ability to innovate.

·      Organization has started thinking in the direction of new strategies and is looking beyond routine business activities

5

Vamana

·       Vishnu incarnated as dwarf and achieved an unparalled victory through a new approach.

·      Achievement of innovation.

·      Organization has complete ability to implement innovation although of small magnitude.

 

6

Parshuram

·       Parshuram cleansed or purged the system off the world from evil elements in a massive killing spree

·      Institutionalization of innovation

·      The organization decides to do away with excess fat and re-strategize itself to align itself with its mission.

 

7

Ram

·       Peace and harmony prevailed in the kingdom of Ram.

·      Now the organization is not only stable, secured and growing organization but it is also employee friendly.

·      All employees are happy and attrition rate is zero.

·      Organization is one of the best employers in the industry.

8

Krishna

·       Krishna came with a big mission for the country and was a diversified personality.

·       His region of action was vast and various transformational events manifested across the subcontinent.

·      Country centric

·      Until now, the organization has worked only for itself.

·      Now it has a nationalistic outlook.

·      It takes initiatives to set up branches in smaller cities and towns to generate employment and work towards nation’s prosperity.

9

Buddha

·       Buddha was a picture of nobility, kindness and sympathy.

·       Buddha continuously and selfless worked for the upliftment of downtrodden souls.

·      Humanity Centric

·      It takes up social causes and works for them selflessly.

 

10

Kalki

·       Vishnu is yet to incarnate as Kalki.

·        In this incarnation, he aims to destroy evil through the power of sword.

·      World centric

·      Organization has become very powerful and can influence powerful people.

·      It should use this power for noble causes and contributes towards issues in the world’s interest.

·      One such example is supporting Tibet’s cause against Chinese aggression. The organization is powerful enough to exercise political control in the world and by boycotting trade with China; it can change the political situation.

 

Conclusion:

Companies like Infosys, Tata Group are in “Buddha” Stage. They have evolved over the years and are silently working towards the welfare of mankind selflessly by supporting many charitable causes, building hospitals etc. If a small company is generously donating to social causes, it is not enough for it qualify to be a “Buddha”. It has to pass through all the above stages to reach the stage of “Buddha”.

There are lots of “Buddha’ companies which have the potential to reach “Kalki” level.  Oil companies play an important role in world politics. All major oil companies are Fortune 500 companies and can influence the world politics for taking control of oil reserves in the Middle East.

If a mid-sized enterprise is firmly established, it is now in the “Varaha” stage. It must now think innovatively and come out open up new ways of doing business and work the smarter way.

Using this model, a company can analyze its current growth stage and plan accordingly. This tool is simple and easy to use and understand the organization’s maturity level.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 1st, 2009 at 2:03 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

7 Responses to “Dashavtaar as a tool to gauge your company’s maturity level”

  1. Nishant Verma Says:
    December 2nd, 2009 at 3:23 am

    Interesting thought and deep too….

  2. Mythily Iyer Says:
    December 3rd, 2009 at 5:40 am

    Great comparison - I really liked the analogy used in your article.

  3. Lakshmi Narasimhan V Says:
    December 3rd, 2009 at 6:43 am

    Interesting thoughts comparing Dashavtaars to organizations’ activities and growth. A novel way of gauging the maturity level of an organization. In a lighter vain, this concept may compete with CMMi, wo hoo!!

    Only one thing I am curious to know is how ‘Buddha’ incarnation comes into Hinduism’s concept of 10 Avataars, which are the reincarnations of Vishnu.

    Good atempt !!!

  4. Sarama Pani Says:
    December 3rd, 2009 at 3:52 pm

    Innovative and excellent thought process behind the comparison.Do we need to explain as to the word “maturity” refers to what parameter of the organization (eg: size, service offerings etc)?
    The explanation will give better clarity and secondly metrics to measure the level of maturity need to be defined to make the subject matter more objective.

  5. Sandesh Sawant Says:
    December 9th, 2009 at 8:37 am

    This is been compared very deeply and correctly as well.
    I think we are at the state of ‘Varaha’. The way we stand tall in financial crisis shows that we are strong and firmly established.

    Now its time to become ‘Narasimha’ and bring innovation into picture.

  6. Boris Says:
    December 12th, 2009 at 9:49 am

    The dashavataar has been used in the same way by ayurvedic practionners, to describe growth stages in the womb, the matrix. This is a puranic system, not strictly vedic, however. Organisation size does not necessarily parallels inner growth, as implied here. Vamana was certainly smaller than narasimha. And there are certainly no large companies, Indian or any country, that have passed beyond Ram stage. Few groups there and here reach the vision beyond. Then: the power to sustain comes before the ability to be multi-skilled. otherwise, multi-skilling is a dilution of resources, and is not the path for all. do one thing and do it well. Say I won’t try to learn playing sitar and santoor at the same time if I want to excel in any of two. sequential learning is more efficient. multi-skilling is rather Rama stage. Ram as Prince, traveller, brother, Dharma leader, bridge builder, and what not. Other things are not all agreeable, however Gunwant gets credit for demonstrating how to use heritage lore into practical business structure development, that are affecting our lifes now. Many business leaders are using this already. Next, for example with more businesses in Mumbai reaching at the Vamana stage, traffic Jam dissolves. The roads can become more fluid, all businesses benefiting from it, gaining time. incidentally, being the financial hub, it affects all other cities. and througth self-imposed organisation and structure, all can ready for the next stage. Is getting organisations to be organised wishfull only ? If we think so, we’ll get only that much from it.

    Gunwant we want to read more of it.

  7. Sagar Says:
    December 13th, 2009 at 8:30 am

    The concept of designing such a tool is quite novel and I feel that the same would help upcoming organizations in their quest to become successful in the days to come.

Leave a Reply