The Third Eye of Enterprise: Wisdom-Led Leadership In The Age Of Intelligence

In an era dominated by data, disruption, and digitisation, business success still hinges on five eternal truths. Drawing parallels with the Panchatantra, this piece unpacks essential management principles—from the human essence of enterprise and knowledge-driven decision-making to collaborative teams, ethical leadership, and purposeful communication. It’s a timely guide to thriving in the ‘Age of Intelligence’ with empathy, ethics, and imagination at the core

Of the five basic principles governing business management, the first flows from the reality that all business is a 'human' activity as it is an operation 'by the people and for the people'.

Various facets of business-promotion of a 'product' or 'service', the role of an investment banker or a regulator, and customer outreach- all involve human interaction and even the 'return on investment' or 'profit and loss' worked for individuals who owned the business and the shareholders who had stakes in the corporate entity.

Business depends a great deal on the concept of 'productivity' leading to 'profitability' and this is connected with the 'efficiency' of individual employees. Efficiency was, by definition, a measure of the 'output per unit of time' and was, therefore, a test of the ability of the organisational leadership to produce a stress-free work environment that enabled the members to work with a greater concentration of mind-'concentration' being a prime determinant of the time-output ratio.

Business seeks customer loyalty by enhancing their 'brand' appeal, offering incentives, and utilising feedback from the people who came in contact with it at any point in time. Any business is, in the ultimate analysis, run by a set of individuals who make decisions for it.

The second principle of management that must be followed by any business is that knowledge-based decision-making is the 'anchor of success' there and that the relevance and reliability of the information used for it would largely decide if the right pitch had been laid for achieving the organisational goal.

A couple of guidelines about accessing information would be helpful. Since most information is publicly shared no sooner than it was produced, giving rise to large data thanks to the Information Technology Revolution- the importance of 'data analytics' for producing futuristic readings, has sharply increased.

A certain 'completeness' of information was desirable since 'knowledge comes in integral packages' -an employer with a large workforce of men and women, for instance, had to know the laws relating to gender harassment at the workplace.

Also, since businesses had to have coverage of a large number of knowledge points ranging from government policies to socio-cultural trends of the times and since all competitors by and large had access to the same information in the present, an advantage would come to those who could have a peep into what lay ahead. This is what Intelligence provides making it clear that 'all Intelligence is information but all information was not Intelligence'.

Business Intelligence gives an idea of the opportunities and risks in the future and by availing of the former and averting the latter, a player could secure a competitive edge.

Corporations invest substantially in establishing an internal unit for producing insights through 'data analytics' and using Artificial Intelligence and 'Machine Learning' to enhance productivity and evolve new products and services.

The third guideline of management relates to the changed character of the business organisation, itself. In the era of the 'knowledge economy' the traditional concept of an 'organisation' that had a hierarchy of leadership, a one-way flow of orders 'from above', and a marked divide between those who took decisions and the compliers who constituted the bulk of the pyramid, has changed.

While constituting teams it had to be remembered that 'diversity' could be a source of strength, that the team leader and members should act as one without getting distracted by concerns of credit-sharing, and that the team had to be enthusiastic enough about 'beating the deadline' rather than just meeting it.

A successful organisation is known for three things- that there was a clear understanding across all its members, of the Mission of the collective body, that the boss-subordinate relationship was 'nurtural' in the sense that the senior was free to 'task' the junior but was available for guiding the latter when asked for and finally that its management was ethical in the sense that it believed in merit-based evaluations and placed emphasis on the integrity of its employees.

Fourthly, business 'leadership' has a new mandate in the Age of Information regarding the responsibilities of the organisation, the employees, and the productivity.

Today's leaders have to be information savvy- actively seeking the information they wanted and believing in the dictum that 'information does not reach you, you have to reach the information'. They were adept at devising a system by which whatever information existed within the organisation was mopped up and utilised along with the data built by the 'business intelligence' unit. Finally, of all the principles of management, it is the quality and adequacy of communication within the organisation that has now emerged as the most important factor determining the prospects of its success.

(The writer is the former Director of Intelligence Bureau)