The central vigilance commission has declared that various government organisations observe a “vigilance awareness week”, every year, including public sector units. It coincides with the birthday of Sardar Vallabhai Patel – the iron man of India. This year, the vigilance awareness week will be observed between 7 to 11 Nov.
Sardar Patel had a very important role to play in the building of modern India by over powering the princely states and uniting them under a central governance once and for all. The same was done by Kautilya in 3 BC. He united the various kingdoms during those days under a central governance to be led by his student, Chandragupta Maurya.
Kautilya was the first person to have systematically given “vigilance” a very important dimension in a state organisation’s management structure.
The oxford dictionary defines vigilance as, “…keeping careful watch for possible danger or difficulties”. From a corporate stand point it gives us two angles to while view the same subject. It is to protect oneself from external threats as well as internal mismanagement.
At the external level, an organisation has to be alert about the dangers such as competition and takeovers. For this, we need to have a very powerful intelligence network. In most companies today, market intelligence is a very important activity. Even technology can be used for getting valuable information.
It is the primary responsibility of the leader to keep continuous check of all important data as well as activities of one’s organisation.
Comments