Wings of fire - Sir APJ ABDUL KALAM Wings of fire | Page 137
interdependent joint ventures, getting the forces together,
networking people, resources, time schedules, costs, and
so on.
Abraham Maslow was the first person to suggest the
new psychology of self-actualization at a conceptual level. In
Europe, Rudolf Steiner and Reg Revans developed this
concept into the system of individual learning and
organizational renewal. The Anglo-German management
philosopher, Fritz Schumacher introduced Buddhist
economics and authored the concept of “Small is
Beautiful”. In the Indian subcontinent, Mahatma Gandhi
emphasized grass root level technology and put the
customer at the centre of the entire business activity. JRD
Tata brought in progressdriven infrastructure. Dr Homi
Jehangir Bhabha and Prof. Vikram Sarabhai launched the
high, technology-based atomic energy and space
programmes with a clear-cut emphasis on the natural laws
of totality and flow. Advancing the developmental
philosophy of Dr Bhabha and Prof. Sarabhai, Dr MS
Swaminathan ushered the Green Revolution into India
working on another natural principle of integrity. Dr
Verghese Kurien brought in a powerful cooperative
movement through a revolution in the dairy industry. Prof.
Satish Dhawan developed mission management concepts
in space research. These are but a few examples of
individuals who have not only articulated but also
implemented their ideas, thus changing forever the face of
research and business organizations all over the world.
In the IGMDP, I attempted to integrate the vision of Prof.
Sarabhai and the mission of Prof. Dhawan by adapting the
high technology setting of Dr Brahm Prakash’s space
research. I attempted to add the natural law of Latency in
founding the Indian Guided Missile Programme in order to
create a completely indigenous variety of technology
management. Let me use a metaphor to illuminate this.
The tree of technology management takes root only if
there is the self-actualization of needs, renewal,
interdependence, and natural flow. The growth patterns are
characteristic of the evolution process, which means that
things move in a combination of slow change and sudden
transformation; each transformation causes either a leap
into a new, more complex level or a devastating crash to
some earlier level; dominant models reach a certain peak
of success when they turn troublesome; and the rate of
change always accelerates.
The stem of the tree is the molecular structure in which
all actions are formative, all policies are normative, and all
decisions are integrative. The branches of this tree are
resources, assets, operations, and products which are
nourished by the stem through a continuous performance
evaluation and corrective update.
This tree of technology management, if carefully tended,
bears the fruits of an adaptive infrastructure: technological
empowerment of the institutions, the generation of technical
skills among people, and finally self-reliance of the nation
and improvement in the quality of life of its citizenry.
When IGMDP was sanctioned in 1983, we did not have
an adequate technology base. A few pockets of expertise
were available, but we lacked the authority to utilize that
expert technology. The multi-project environment of the
programme provided a challenge, for five advanced missile
systems had to be simultaneously developed. This
demanded judicious sharing of resources, establishing
priorities, and ongoing induction of manpower. Eventually,
the IGMDP had 78 partners, including 36 technology