The Perception Divide Between Corporate & Development Sectors Must Be Bridged – Shamik Trehan, CEO, Dr. Reddy’s Foundation
GoBarefoot, a professional networking platform exclusively catering to the Development sector, by facilitating connections and exchange of ideas and information, has collaborated with Katalyst India and Third Sector Partners to present “Leadership Conversations in the Development Sector”, a series of insightful interviews conducted by Shital Kakkar Mehra, India’s leading executive presence coach and Founder at GoBarefoot. Featuring seasoned and reputed leaders from various verticals of the social sector, the series offers a peek behind the scenes and helps viewers find answers to the most pressing questions facing the sector.
When talking about what the corporate and development sectors can learn from each other, Shamik Trehan, CEO, Dr. Reddy’s Foundation said that the biggest divide right now is in terms of how people perceive and view the work of both sectors. “The development sector can imbibe a strong focus on iterating a product till the product fits the market while the corporate sector can commit to the mission and make it central to the work being done,” he said.
Government Learnings from the Development Sector
We need to appreciate the complexities facing the government as their scale of delivery is much larger than even the biggest private sector organisation. The successful vaccination drive indicates that aligning everyone and everything at the front-line or service delivery level can ensure robust outcomes. The government should provide freedom, authority and decision-making power to front-line workers, at least for grass-root requirements, and focus on decentralization. Building a culture wherein people who deliver services on the ground feel empowered, engaged and supported is imperative.
Initiatives on Skill Training
Everyone who wants to work today can get some kind of opportunity, even though it may be irregular. The challenge is the low pay and the requisite hard efforts, with little opportunity for growth. Ideally, good education is the answer to skilling youth, but many children are already out of the education system and do not have the skills necessary for a good job. We are trying to equip people with core employability and technical skills to enable them to get better jobs through classroom based, hybrid, digital live and digital self-learning models. Our aim is to reach the most vulnerable population in rural low income groups and help them join large corporates. We continue to adapt, evolve and align all the skilling content to the relevant industry.
Evolution in Leadership
Organisations have shifted from direct service delivery models to strengthening government systems and programs to improve the delivery. We are seeing a shift in CSR and technology even as the community work remains the same. The focus in on stakeholder engagement, as complex relationship management is very critical today. Technology has been a big game changer, enabling us to provide credit to micro-enterprises. We are now able to provide premium services even to minor enterprises, thanks to digital banking, APIs and data science.
Proactively Developing Potential Leaders
We need self-driven people aimed at a particular cause and goal-oriented people who are keen on working in a particular area or sector. Young people with no experience have open mind-sets and a readiness to learn, execute things and design initiatives. We must enable organisations with an ecosystem of feedback and positive criticism while offering people the opportunity to grow and learn. Active mentoring programmes, need-based coaching and work opportunities can help shape people better. The most important thing is to understand oneself, ensure a free and calm mind and become better listeners.
Read our previous conversation with Dr. Nalini Saligram, Founder & CEO, Arogya World here.
