The reason why India will fail or succeed is no different than why you will fail and succeed.

Last week I had an occasion to address around 70 promoters and CEO's of SMEs at NASSCOM in session titled "Inner Mind of CEO". Given that Indian election fever is on and we are about to elect a new Government which will rule the country, we had a enthralling debate about how similar are Political Governance and Corporate Governance and Individual Governance.

In a Country set up we have four pillars of Political Governance i.e. Law makers, Law implementing agencies i.e. administration, people of the country and finally the judiciary to resolve the conflicts. All four pillars are different and supposed to be independent.Whenever there is a debate, everybody has to be refer the rules and if rules don't give clear answer, you look at the intent. (For those who may not familiar with the law making process every bill introduced and every clause is backed up by a detailed rationale explaining WHY is that rule being framed) and is available in public domain.

In a corporate set up, the promoters and core team i.e. kitchen cabinet are the parliament who decide what they should be doing and why they should be doing that; the business leaders are the administrators who ensure that the in day to day conduct the company doesn't deviate from the direction, the people are the employees who need to follow the rules and laws and the judiciary is independent but is supposed to exist in each of the people because each of the roles require resolutions of dilemmas and trade offs between conflicting choices. So whenever the decision making is not clear, the people go back and refer to the basic rules to understand the intent as to WHY those rules or laws were introduced and then move ahead.

For an individual, all the four pillars are in his head. There is no independence. He is the one who decides what he is doing, why is he doing and he also acts as an administrator, policing himself to follow the laws and rules he has laid out for himself, he is also the people who has to follow the rules and laws and lastly he is the judiciary trying to get to one choice. He is the one who has to resolve the dilemma in his head which is nothing but stepping into the shoes of a judge and deciding whether option a or option B is right for him. Is it not so?

The fact is that Indian Governance system has been working so far and has worked well tells us a lot of what we can copy from that. Where ever the things have not worked well its because the law was too old, didn't keep pace with changing times. the administration did not do its job or judiciary was not fair.

However the best part of the Indian political governance is that the constitution is written, intent is laid out and everyone has to follow that in case of confusion.

In case of an Individual can be said to have good governance system if he has written his vision and also has written why he wants to that. One point here why he wants to do that has to be more lucid and not just one liner. Because it is this document which he will have to refer each time he gets confused or his head goes for a toss. Secondly he administers the rules strictly for himself (discipline) and people he deals with.

When it comes to adjudication i.e. resolving conflicting thoughts in our heads, the individual will need to act like judges do. Unbiased, strictly as per the rules that he had laid out for our self without any emotions. One can only imagine, how difficult it is to act like a fair judge when you are caught in cross roads. You and your emotions have to be kept in two different zones, if you have any chance of getting to the vision that you have set out for yourself.

Basically you need to invoke your Guru who will be your adjudicator who will guide you. If you are not evolved enough then get a mentor by your side who can help you stick to the line and help you make choices with in the framework set out by you for yourself when you started.