Citizen SBI will change the social dynamics of India

By JAGAT SINGH BISHT

The Enlightened Citizen Movement in SBI is a silent revolution and one of the greatest human and social interest stories of recent times. The quintessence of this programme is making positive contribution in all walks of life. I am a daily witness to employees imbibing the ideal, realizing value in it and taking the first step in practising citizenship which is by no means an easy thing to do. I have myself evolved as a human being, my engagement has become intense as the intervention progressed and I have developed delightful inter-human relationships. Citizenship is now a way of life for me.

Citizen SBI is a self discovery and transformation initiative covering two hundred thousand plus employees of the Bank. The Bank has undergone a lot of changes during the last 2-3 years post Parivartan which is a matter of pride for us and a matter of envy for our competitors. Project Citizen SBI is the next step to carry forward this Change. The formulation of this Project has taken a very long time to build up – more than a year and a half. It is fairly well researched.

Let us distinguish between the two terms – political citizen and enlightened citizen – to appreciate the meaning of Citizen SBI. A political citizen is concerned about rights and individual freedom of action, an enlightened citizen is concerned about the welfare of the collective (abhyudaya) and at the same time, ensuring that each individual achieves life fulfilment (nihsresyaya). The concept of a political citizen has been used since the days of Greeks and Romans. Enlightened Citizenship has been proposed by the famous scholar-saint Swami Ranganathananda who has translated the ideas of the Bhagvad Gita into a modern ideal for action at work.

Inner Fulfilment

According to Mr O. P. Bhatt, Chairman, State Bank of India, “There is enough empirical evidence to establish that in a higher state of realization, people perform differently. We can become better human beings. We work with more energy, our values shift, our focus shifts and our attitudes shift – all for the better. This happens when we operate from, what we are calling a ‘Citizen state of mind’. This ‘Citizen state of mind’ can be achieved by practising enlightened self interest (expansion of self) and consciously seeking deeper fulfilment through one’s duties and responsibilities. Marrying this ideal with the context of our roles in State Bank of India, which involves numerous interfaces with colleagues and customers alike, has led us to the concept of Project Citizen SBI.”

Here the focus is not so much on what will happen to the Bank as an entity. The focus of this Project is to transform the Bank into a platform that provides inner fulfilment to its employees and tries to transform the communities around by going beyond institutional and personal success.

The ideal is uniquely Indian

The Citizen SBI ideal has emerged from more than 18 months of thinking and discussions with more than 700-800 people across SBI. Mr V. Srinivas, CEO and Lead Researcher of Illumine Knowledge Resources – the Consultants for this programme - has succinctly put it down, “The shared ideal in SBI is not a “material” ideal – one of chasing profits and growth at the expense of all other aspects; the shared ideal is a “spiritual’ or “fulfilment” ideal – i.e., seeking the welfare and happiness, inner and outer fulfilment of State Bankers, their customers, society at large, and the stakeholders of SBI. The ideal is uniquely Indian. It is an ideal where profits and growth are not excluded – but are seen as a consequence of inner strength, commitment, and involvement with work. In this ideal, the inner development of individuals is the cause, and outer material growth the effect. This ideal is not always explicit, i.e., it is not necessarily the way in which we experience relationships and activities on a day to day basis. But the ideal is deep and “tacit” – unsaid, but closer to our aspirations as State Bankers. The purpose of this Citizen SBI programme is to make the ‘tacit” into “explicit” – the unsaid and closer to the heart, into said, and close to the mind and actions.”

A live chronicle

Some enthusiastic Citizens-SBI have created the CitizenSBI Blog which is a forum for all Citizens-SBI to share their experiences and opinions. They may also share their progress in the Journey of Citizenship and it is great when they write in to say how the programme has made them do something, anything, differently.

The blog is full of fascinating moments from the lives of brave-but-hitherto-unknown citizen-employees, inspiring incidents and quotes from the lives of great achievers around the globe and tales of transformative contribution in the Bank and the communities around. It has soul-stirring moments captured from the classrooms on audio-video as also links to valuable readings on Citizenship. And yes, it has beautiful photographs, several posts in Hindi and a continuous stream of feedback on the programme. In brief, it is a live chronicle of the Citizen-SBI Movement.

The most astonishing aspect of the blog in these turbulent times is that it is all positivity and you will not find a single negative vibe on the entire blog. It is a vibrant blog on the web with an ever-growing stream of visitors and can be reached via any search engine by simply keying in the words “CitizenSBI Blog” inside the box or it may be directly reached at http://citizensbi.blogspot.com/. A visit to the site will be worth its while.

It will change the social dynamics of India
Citizen SBI is a two year long programme divided into four interventions namely Citizenship Orientation Programme, Customer Fulfilment Programme, Market Engagement Programme and Citizenship Enablement Programme. The Citizenship Orientation programme began on the 1st September 2009 and is almost on the completion stage and the Customer Fulfilment intervention has just begun. The response has been encouraging and the staff has not minced words in expressing their gratitude to the Institution which cares so deeply for the growth of its employees.

Mr O. P. Bhatt, Chairman commented recently, “This programme is being run for two hundred thousand people across the Bank. We are trying to provoke them, ignite them in many ways. Our role is to constructively guide them in the right direction which will help them to reap more and more of the inner fruits, which will in turn help them to get more and more of the outer fruits. If the quality of interface between people at the Bank and customers changes, it is going to have some kind of cascading effect. If it happens to one person it is a big gain; if it happens to one hundred persons it is a huge gain; if it happens to two hundred thousand people in the organization, it will change the social dynamics of India because these two hundred thousand people interact with one hundred forty million customers.”

The author is an Intervention Leader Citizen SBI. The views expressed  are personal.

courtesy: ScratchMySoul.com