The process of developing objectivity falls under two heads:
- Building a strong intellect
- Pursuing an ideal in life.
Building the intellect is not the same as gaining intelligence. You gain intelligence by acquiring information, knowledge from external sources. From teachers and textbooks, schools and universities and other educational institutions. You use these sources to become well-informed, knowledgeable, even brilliant in the subject you pursue. The intelligence thus acquired provides you the means to make a living. You go through a medical school to gain the knowledge of medicine. An engineering school to gain the knowledge of engineering. Etcetera. All these knowledges help you earn to live in the world.
The intellect is fundamentally different from intelligence. Any amount of intelligence acquired cannot per se build your intellect. The intelligence you gain is much like data fed into a computer. All the knowledge stored in a computer is of no use to it. Likewise, you cannot use the knowledge gained without the intellect. The stronger the intellect the greater would be your ability to use the knowledge acquired in life.
To build the intellect you must question, think, reason all through your life. Never take anything for granted. Accept only those that admit logic and reason. By building a powerful intellect you will be able to use whatever intelligence you possess. Mere intelligence without the intellect to apply it tantamounts to gold bars loaded on a mule’s back. Yet people do not care to develop this life-saving, life-sustaining equipment, the intellect. Galileo Galilei, the father of modern astronomy, wondered how humans could ignore the use of their intellect: I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forego their use.
The second part in the process of developing objectivity is to set an ideal to work for. Examine your motive in action. What is it you are working for? Is your interest confined only to the welfare of yourself and your immediate family? Or does your interest go beyond the precinct of your family to cover your company or community? Or stretch even further to embrace the interest of your nation or of all human beings? The larger the circle of your dedication to serve and sacrifice, the greater the cause you work for, the higher is your ideal. In fixing your ideal in life ensure that it is realistic depending upon your present nature and capacity. Of course, your ideal could be increased later as your capacity grows to a higher level of dedication. Keeping your ideal firm, your intellect must channelise your actions towards achieving it. Pursue the ideal set until you reach it.
While pursuing the ideal your mind could slip into other attractions. And your actions digress towards the mind’s attractions. You then lose your objectivity. Hence the intellect must constantly monitor the mind’s transgressions and ensure that your actions are directed to the set ideal. That is being objective in action. As your intellect maintains objectivity you optimise productivity in business.
— Extract from “Governing Business and Relationships” book written by A. Parthasarathy.
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