Corporates are magicians wearing two hats
Sometimes even as little as four minutes are able to win more hearts and make you think of values, commitments, and responsibilities than would long-winding panegyrics of a politically important nature. The story of Sadanand Ugale from Kannad in Maharashtra brings in multiple hues of human emotions travelling in rickety busses of rural India to come face to face with the beating human heart of a successful corporate. Is it the simplicity of a tale well told that I am talking about? No, it is the simple convergence of technology and education that made my eyes well-up, my lips took the shape of a smile, and the heart went on doing its job with extra pride. I too, like the protagonists in this short film, loved coming face to face with the second hat that corporates wear.
Second hat that corporates wear? We’ll come to that later because you first need to spend four minutes and fall in love with a concept that is worth falling in love with:
Besides all the human emotions, the film made one thing very clear to me… any corporate connecting merit with success has a human heart, and not just a human face. This is why I say that corporates today need to be magicians wearing two hats.
Corporates are magicians wearing two hats
This gem about two hats is what management thinkers have a lot of faith on. Business and increasing a shareholders’ value is one hat and the other is social responsibility. I later realised that it was the Smart Class program that Samsung India runs under its Make for India effort that made Sadanand Ugale jump from a mere character in a film to someone real enough with a real smile and real ambitions. This is what real CSR is all about.
CSR, by the way, isn’t just an acronym for the rather jaded ‘corporate social responsibility’ but has a more vibrant interpretation that brings in Commitment, Success, and Responsibility as the three pivotal points in the triangle that life always is. Commitment to society is what needs to be the natural successor to business success, and this is possible only if social responsibility is understood well.
Corporates are also citizen
Like us, even corporates are citizen and need to bond with others through plans and actions, and Samsung does this by its commitment in the core focus areas of education, employability, healthcare, and sports. The Samsung website spells out the 2020 vision as being: Inspire the World, Create the Future. This is precisely what the four minute film effectively embraces and even the lilting music to the precision of the lyrics have done their job well…
jise khojen naina tere
aayega woh wapas
Samsung is being an able citizen as it does have a number of CSR initiatives going on… though this film just mentions one of them which is the Samsung Smart Class that provides modern education to over two lakh students of Jawahar Navodaya Vidhalaya.
What I get here is what I will get nowhere else
Sadanand Ugale says this towards the end of the film and the line sums up a lot of issues at one go. The line is a perfect representation of wanting to be where the need is acute. Sadanand resolves to come back to the village because that is where the need for a good doctor is felt. Sadanand, in fact, uncannily sounds like Samsung wanting to be there at those sites where their CSR activity is needed most. Like Sadanand, even CSR becomes sweeter when it helps dreams connect to build a stronger and bigger world… and so #SapneHueBade isn’t just a few wild and whirling words coming together to impress.
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Samsung Smart Class ad film
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Arvind Passey
07 November 2016
