Today when many institutions start crumbling within a few decades, need for building sustainable institutions is very widely felt. When Kurien left Amul, it was at about 6000 Cr, today it is at almost 34009 Cr, the biggest brand. Ask the MD, and he will tell u that systems built by Dr Kurien still serve new goals. Technological advancements have helped in scaling things better. When Nif was founded by the honey bee network in 2000, with on-farm rat two years with very limited funds, 1400 innovations and practices were polled in the first year. Then Sristi and Gian contributed 10,000 innovations and practices to Nif’s Database that helped it take off. Even today more than 50,000 ideas were contributed by SRISTI at its own cost. Nif has pooled more than 300,000 ideas, innovations and practices, though not all unique through Seva, Palle Srujana, Amma pakha, Sujhbhuj, Lok Sarvani, Honey Bee newsletter etc., and numerous other collaborators in north-east, J&K and rest of India. The Network helped Organization and awards by the President gave a distinctive edge to the movement which is most unique and respectful value add. When the last four Heads of State honored innovators and even hosted them at Rashtrapati Bhavan, a new idiom of celebrating the uncommon creativity of common people was created. It was a global benchmark as WIPO head said in so many words at FOIN last year. The current President of India took the celebration to new level by adding Entrepreneurship as a major dimension of the festival -FINE.

Institution building worked because of wider stakeholding, openness, sharing of credit with all contributors, and accountability of entire platform towards grassroots innovators and knowledge communities.

Techpedia.in has pooled data of 200,00 plus engineering projects by 500,000 students through voluntary contributions of technical education institutions, student volunteers, and others. It was a memorable experience for Gandhian young Tech innovation Awardees this year when honorable President of India, Shri Ram Nath Kovindji honored them and interacted with them. He even asked some of the innovations to be used at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Without his blessings, how will movement sustain the energy?

Can any one person, institution or network take credit for all this benevolence of society? No. Triggers can certainly be sustained by the Network but momentum will need continuous support of all partners. A few lessons follow from this journey- only a few are summarised here

1.       Building institutions for solving long term societal problems requires a confluence of social movements, network, organisations and an institutional process of keeping them connected and on course.  Many times, when public institutions have to renew themselves, they lose sight of the importance of building movements and the networks.  The result is the organisation is not able to produce internal and external pressure to create a dynamic impulse for moving forward.  Instead of an internal engine creating conditions for external wind to provide lift and momentum, we get caught in the whirlpools.  How can we learn from good models of institution building so that individuals and organisations create and nurture the networks, spawn and support the social movements and create enough paradoxical energy in the organisation for debate, diversity and dynamism.  The first lesson for the Leader is to induct and /or invite people who can disagree with her/him without being disrespectful.   Authoritarian tendency seeking compliance and conformity does not take any institution too far.

2.       A distributed network of excellence suggests building distributed leadership.   Let us say that you are running a programme for maternal and child health and nutrition.  You are monitoring large scale data, you are happy with the progress but you still don’t know what is that which should be done to telescope the target.  Rather than monitoring an average decline in mortality or morbidity, look for the location where the team has registered the maximum decline.  While there is an average of 20 per cent decline, the maximum may be  50 per cent and minimum may be two per cent or no decline.  The planning meeting for the future should take place at a location where most outstanding performance has been achieved.  The strategy will emerge from the practices of outstanding team/network.

3.       Not everybody in any team is equally good in everything.  Recognizing individual and institutional Expertise distributed all over the country or the world is the first step in becoming a humble, learning organisation.  Allowing this expertise to be articulated  and shared with others will create energy for everybody to learn, reflect, restore and rejuvenate.

4.       Teams which perform outstandingly well often require far more autonomy than an average team.  A leader who is not willing to give such autonomy to such team is likely to stifle the spirit of taking initiative, experimentation and innovation.

5.       It is often said that the best leader is the one who leads less and is led more.  He knows how to empower achievers without demoralizing the strugglers.

6.       Optimal coercion is often not zero.  No relationship can hold together without some coercion and question is not whether, the choice is about how much, when and where.  Child coerces the parents and vice versa.  Leadership lies in finding out the limits of coercion; if it is too much, the system may become defensive, closed and develop a lot of inertia.   If it is zero, then there are no norms and rules and free for all may lead to anarchy. But one should not confuse leadership with hierarchical positions.

7.       Institutions take long time to build and can be destroyed very easily.  However, if norms, values and ethical belief systems are strong, then the destruction is not very easy.  Institutional transition can be very healthy and harmonious to help propel the institutions to the next orbit.  It requires synergy and singular commitment to selective deflection.  Farther the goal, the impact of small deflection can be very large.

8.       We get more credit when we share more credit.  Culture which appreciates creativity and innovation by others, related or unrelated actors always get more credit than is due.

9.       Lastly, in the age of reducing span of attention, shortening of time frame and individualization of human endeavor, bringing synergy between movements, networks organisations and individuals is not going to be easy.  But, if future generation has to benefit from the fruits of the vision that is to be designed today, then social, ecological and cultural embededness of our spirit and structure is inevitable.    Let us preserve the institutions we have built and infuse new energy and inclusiveness in the institutions of future.