Rise of Applied Behavioral Science (ABS) in India: As experienced by T V Rao

 

 

Rise of Applied Behavioral Science (ABS) in India: As experienced by T V Rao

Applied Behavioural Science is many times equated with Laboratory Education and T-Group Training. While this misconception comes from programs offered by ISABS and their certification to be professional members of ISABS, in recent times they have done a lot of work in OD, Social Development, Coaching and amny other areas. Many may not be aware that ISABS had from time to time trained trainers from various agencies on instrumented feedback, simulations, role plays, creativity, role stress, extension motivation, power labs, 360 Degree feedback, social development etc.  T-group or L-Group methodology was used as a part of many OD or change management programs from early years. The books by Dharni Sinha on T-Group Training, Somnath and Udai Pareek on OD in Hospitals, Pulin on Profiles in Identity, Francis on Dreams, Manohar on happiness etc. indicate the same. They come from Psychology, Education, Anthropology and such other disciplines and applied themselves to many different sectors. My own work is indicative of the broad spectrum of ABS and its application cross sectors. This essay is an attempt to paint the canvass of ABS taking my own case as an illustration.

My Initiation into ABS:  Observer and Student:  During my MA in Psychology at Osmania University, in 1966, we (my classmate Harigopal and me) were given a research project to work with Dr Somnath Chattopadhyay, Director Behavioural Science at SIET institute Hyderabad. The topic was on studying organizational climate and correlating it with productivity in small industries. In our first meeting Somnath offered us black coffee. As it was the first time I heard “Black Coffee” I wondered if Somnath was testing us by making us drink black coffee!!! That was my first impression of Behavioural Scientists as a beginner of psychology. At SIET I came to know about the work of Lynton, Pareek, and McClelland 1966-67. Also interacted with K J Christopher and Sujit Bhattacharya and many others.  SIET work put me in touch with organizational climate, measurement of productivity, study of hopes and fears using a technique designed by Cantril and Free on hopes and fears for self and country. It was Somnath who inducted me to read a lot and discover for myself ways of measuring organizational climate and productivity in small factories doing different things. That was the time I became familiar with Likert and his work on "New Patterns of Management". Little did I realise at that time I will be specialising in measurement of individuals and organizations. Udai Pareek was in USA at that time and took one of my seniors Mr. Kothandapani as a Ph. D. student. My efforts to work with Udai for my Ph.D. in the USA did not materialise as he was returning to India. Though he put me in touch with Rensis Likert to explore my Ph.D. it did not work out (due to my ignorance I applied to Michigan State University instead of the University Michigan). At Andhra University where I joined to start Psychology and Parapsychology department, I registered for Ph. D. with Dr. K. Ramakrishna Rao on the effect of exposure to subliminal stimuli on dreams. I met Udai and Suresh Srivatsava in ASCI in December 1968 and both of them offered me to join IIMC or NIHAE as a Research Associate. I preferred to join Udai.

By the time I joined Udai Pareek in NIHAE in early 1969, I read enough on T-groups and fascinated by it. The ICMR project on which I was recruited dealt with developing tools to measure children’s mental health and study the impact of teachers' classroom behaviour. This project exposed me to measurement, psychometric tools, observation of classroom behaviour, studying the impact of feedback on behaviour change. We used to write a number of articles in NCERT’s Indian Educational Review (IER). It is during this period while I was going through a certificate program on programmed Learning organised by NCERT, I met Zahid Gangzee and S. Purushotam from Calcutta and and Coimbatore and got them to survey mental health of children in Calcutta and Coimbatore. These articles were also published in IER. 

In 1970, Suresh Srivastava from IIMC, Sujit and Somnath from SIET and Udai conducted a T-group lab for NIHAE faculty. A few months later we persuaded Udai and Somnath to do a lab for research staff and new faculty. After going through it, some of us planned to start an Applied Behavioural Science Society for young professionals. K G Agrawal was leader. Mohan Advani, BR Sharma and Mrs. Ramalingaswamy decided to do join and formulated a note but it never took off. A few days later Udai started Indian Behavioural Science Abstracts published by Manasayan (J M Ojha) and brought out the first issue with me as Associate Editor, something which I never expected at a young age. We also started some OD work with Dr Abad Ahmad, Udai and Somnath at Holy Family Hospital Delhi. To he best of my recollection Anthony D'Souza was the administrator at the hospital. Pandit Pathankar one of the promoters of BSC published out r papers. My first publication was Sales Style Diagnosis Exercises in which I extended Blake and Mouton’s grip to four dimensions and experimented with it at DCM. This lead to my teaching a course on consumer behaviour at IIMA which I did not pursue beyond a year. It was at Delhi I attended programs by Manohar Nadkarni, K. M. Thiagarjan (MITRA Exercises) who introduced us to Simulation exercises and Sharu Rangnekar and N S Ramaswamy who introduced us to management games while starting the ISTD chapter of Delhi. Udai used to take me with him to all these meetings or programs. It is during this period I was also introduced to K K Anand from L&T.

A year later Both Udai and I left for Udaipur due to high impact youth lab done by Udai and Prayag Mehta at Mount Abu and student leaders persuading Udai to start an Applied Psychology Departmentt at Udaipur. These student leaders kept in touch with us for many long yeas and one of them became a Union Cabinet Minsiter for Rural Development and Railways. Others also had a distinguished career. While Udai was at Udaipur Manohar Nadkarni used to visit and conduct labs at various places. This is 1971-72 when ISABS was conceptualised during various meets at Pune and Udaipur and perhaps other places. During this period and prior to my joining IIMA, I had the opportunity to observe and evaluate AMT lab by Anil Trivedi trained by Udai, Manohar and Prayag by Behavioural Science Center (BSC) started after Manohar returned from USA.

ABS at IIMA: As soon as I joined IIMA in 1973 I was involved in a research project to measure the impact of Achievement Motivation Training (AMT) and Behavioural Sciences Interventions in Gujarat initiated by Manohar Nadkarni, Prayag Mehta, Udai Pareek and J M Ojha for Gujarat based Industrial corporations (GIIC, GIDC, GSIC, GSFC). The project was coordinated by Pro. B G Shah a Professor of Finance and had V R Gaikwad, V K Gupta, and some others from ICICI Bank. Our  study indicated that BS training (specifically use of BS tests and AMT) resulted in increased entrepreneurial movements. It is on the basis of this study presented in a seminar at India International Centre Delhi, McClelland was present, he invited me to work with him a for three months to adapt Stewart Maturity Scale to India.  I think the first program of ISABS was started in 1972 or 73 with Dharni as Executive Director and Pulin as Dean. In 1973 December I attended Pulin’s sensitivity campy at Ubrhat, in Gujarat. It was different than the T-Group training I heard of and experienced. I was admitted to the first phase of ISABS and we had a great time at Hotel Harsha for two weeks. Indira and I were in the same group with Oriol Pujol and Ivan Mathaias. Aroon Joshi was from the first batch. At Harsha I witnessed a lot of heated exchange between some of the ISABS faculty including Francis, Dharni and Pulin. I could not follow most of it. One of the issues was whether we should allow Transactional Analysis as a part of ISABS labs and interventions. The fights did not fit into my image of Behavioural Scientists whom I held in high esteem. This followed by many noises about OB area faculty in IIMA corridors always left a bitter taste in my mind about Behavioural scientists in ISABS. Self-expression and open display of feelings, and anger, mutual accusations etc.to me appeared to be anti-thesis of case method where we used to maintain that  there is not one way of looking at any issue and there are multiple ways and one should understand examine them all. I was attending Pulin’s sensitivity camp and was also a co-facilitator of IPR labs for students. Given my nature I ended up more as a passive observer. In contrast I was conducting a Laboratory in Entrepreneurial Motivation which was big hit and some of the students who go themselves tested and came close to me have either become entrepreneurs for academic leaders. Raj Sah, J. V. Singh are two names from these labs.

In 1975 Pulin became ED and Somnath Dean. Somnath joined IIMA and the amount of work put in by Pulin, Somnath and Udai from IIMA, Francis from TMTC joined by Aroon Joshi from Cadburys, Dharni from IIMC were solid pillars on which ISABS was built. This account is from my memory and is subject to my missing out many actors like Nitesh De and many others from IIMC and other institutions. Independent of ISABS, Udai and I were actively using case studies and instrumented feedback using Locus of Control, FIRO-B, TAT, Achievement Motivation Tests, Interpersonal Trust and such other tools. In fact Udai and I compiled a Handbook of Psychological Social Instruments. My Achievement Motivation Laboratory was filled with games, exercises, tests, feedback and goal setting. I always enjoyed structured experiences. This was further reinforced by my collaborative work with Pradip Khandwalla from whom I learnt a lot Creativity. It is at this point of time Udai and I wrote on designing and conducting micro labs and published in University Associates. Our two-day labs became very popular and we jointly conduced many Motivation development Labs at IIMA. These were also done in two phases where six months after the first phase the participants returned for a short lab of two to three days to review their motivational experiences and reformulate goals. Using what I learnt with McClelland and Abigail Stewart, I formulated a leadership styles inventory based on Stewart Maturity Scale (published by Manasayan with a foreword by McClelland) and started using it for understanding the leadership and supervisory styles of Indian Managers. This was based on the scores of TAT stories I carried to Harvard in 1975 to study psycho-social maturity reflected in these stories. The framework is popular even today we extensively use it in our 360 Degree feedback...

Backdrop for growth of ABS: In 1955 India’s population was around 400 million and grew to 430 million by 1960 and around 650 million by 1975 and today we are nearly 1400 million. In the fist decade after independence India had about 5000 Blocks and Block Development Officers assisted by various types of extension workers who were facilitating development. Each BDO had about around 10 field staff to disseminate information to people on agriculture, animal husbandry, cooperatives, panchayats and other matters. They all needed to have communication and leadership capabilities oriented to action and community building. India needed expertise from various sources. Understanding the need for young people to be developed as leaders and experiment was started by Rolf Lynton and Ronnie Lynton as a part of the assignment by World Assembly of Youth to start a residential training center for Youth in India and Ceylon (Sri Lanka). The experiment lasted for about three years and large number of youth were trained using experiential learning methodology that focused on action and personal, interpersonal and group dynamics and community building. This methodology when discussed by Rolf Lynton, Dr. Vikram Sarabhai offered to the Lynton to start program for youth in Urban India at ATIRA, Ahmedabad. The process of this work in my view started the foundation for use of Applied Behavioral Science (ABS) based on self-discovery, laboratory method, interpersonal dynamics and group processes and community building. (Lynton, Kiel and Lynton 2022). I assume that it is in this backdrop Udai Formulated the concept of Extension Motivation and its role in Development (Pareek, 1968).

Rolf Lynton and his Work: Besides the Aloka methodology that started what may be called as a laboratory in human relations and community building, it is a methodology brought in by the Harvard trained Rolf and Ronnie Lyntons. As observed by Udai Pareek in his essay on Rolf:

“Imagine a professional who records all work-related interactions regularly, religiously, and meticulously for half a century and uses those notes for learning, action, and developing new models. This is Rolf Lynton, a recorder of all such interactions. I have not known nor do I know of any social scientist so meticulous in keeping records; during one 5-year period, Rolf produced 4,300 typed pages of records of interactions and events! And he has used this record-keeping very well in the study of the dynamics of institution building (Lynton, 1970) and in taking a big insightful sweep of his professional journey of studying and building individuals, groups, institutions, and large social systems (Lynton, 1998). In fact, the discipline and art of recording is itself an important contribution to social science methodology (so well discussed in Lynton, 1998, chap. 3, pp. 85-111), which many have followed and benefited from”. The focus of his work in Aloka was the development of community leaders who were sensitive to social reality and human dignity. As the CEO of this innovative institution, Rolf obtained insight into process at all levels—individual growth, group development, and institution building; the hub remained the learning processes reflected in the title of his book The Tide of Learning: The Aloka Experience (Lynton, 1960).

Foundation for Formation of ISABS by Somnath: Somnath Chattopadhyay in his essay on “An Ideology Based Institution: Some Values and Dilemmas – An ISABS experience” (pages 231-256) in HRD, OD and Institution building edited by T V Rao and Anil Khandelwal (2016, Sage India) outlines a good part of the events that lead to starting of ISABS finally in 1971 (registered in 1972). Presents various events that lead to the formation of ISABs as follows:

1.      Stephen Max Corey at National Institute of Basic Education (NIBE) in Delhi in early sixties emphasized Action Research, psycho-dynamic teaching, workshops for teachers, and the formation of facilitators’ groups. The development of laboratory education saw, briefly, Stephen Corey conduct L-Group sessions in the evenings at his home at NIBE, New Delhi, with Udai Pareek, Prayag Mehta, and four others.

2.      Foundations of training laboratory and L-Group in India: SIET Institute (now National Institute of Small Industries Extension Training [NISIET]) provided a venue for one of the seeds of change. SIET Institute, with its cluster of cottages, at the outskirts of the city of Hyderabad was an idyllic setting for the labs, surrounded as it was by rocky hills, a large tank, vineyards, and distant palm trees. SIET could be credited with at least two major initiatives in training; one of them was Training Laboratories and the other the T-Groups in India. These were the creations of three colleagues and intimate friends—Rolf, Udai, and Somnath. The principal director, R.N Jai, of SIET institute provided the patronage and administrative support for this work. This was the initiation of the lab movement (L-Group and Laboratories education) in India.

3.      Rolf Lynton founded Aloka for youth from Asian countries for training future leaders of developing countries. One of the foci was to stimulate awareness about the problems of individual behavior in a group (Lynton, 1960). Rolf, Udai, and Somnath worked together almost serendipitously, and evolved and founded the Training Laboratory and Learning Group (L-Group synonymous with T-Group) in India. As there was a need to increase the resource base—the original three were joined by Manohar S. Nadkarni, K. J. Christopher, and, subsequently, Sujit Bhattacharjee and SG Raghu from SIET institute. Occasionally, Abad Ahmad and Prayag Mehta from Delhi came to SIET for taking some part in this new venture.

4.      Spread of L-Groups in India: The first lab was organized in SIET in 1962. A series of labs followed that year. In 1965, to create a nucleus of 10 to 12 faculty members, who may develop into laboratory trainers, an inter-institutional Faculty Development Program was organized by Rolf and Udai in Dalhousie. In this program (April 14–May 2, 1965), the first part was a lab facilitated by Warren Bennis and Rolf. Some of the participants were from IIM Calcutta (Nitish De, Gouranga Chattopadhyay), University of Delhi (Abad Ahmad), SIET Institute (R. P. Lynton, Adhikari, A. V. Nagaraj, Ghiara, and myself), and Vohra Foundation Bombay (Shipchandler). Most of these people carried forward laboratory education in India. A few members from different institutes such as IIM (Ahmedabad and Calcutta), IRHFP (Gandhigram), and others got their selected training at NTL. In 1966, Abad Ahmad, Ishwar Dayal, Raja Deolalikar, Francis Menezes, Suresh Srivastava, and Somnath met at the conference center at NTL, Bethel to consider whether we could build an institution like NTL in India. At the end of the meeting, Somnath told Abad Ahmad, “Abad, we will build our institute in India. With Udai and Rolf, we will be able to make it. Let us resolve it here and now. Our people do not have to come this far to get trained.” We grasped each other’s hands and Abad agreed. I. On our return from NTL, Somnath maintained contact with Abad in Delhi and Francis Menezes (at Tata Management Training Center [TMTC], Mumbai) and spoke about the intent to Sujit Bhattacharjee, K. J. Christopher (SIET Institute), and Nitish De (Kolkata). Fred Massarik and Howard Baumgartel showed keen interest in this development.

According to Abad, “ Fred Massarik had played an important role in the establishment of ISABS. In fact it was he whom we had met at the conference of Western Academy  of Management in 1965, when three of them (Francis, Somnath and Abad) were attending a one year program of the International Centre of Advancement in  Management Education (ICAME) at the Stanford University. Knowing the development of Sensitivity Training at UCLA, they met him and shared interest in the ABS.  He invited all three of us to the NTL to attend different labs. It was this chance meeting of many colleagues from India, and the meeting about which Somnath has described that led to our joining hands to start NTL like institution in India. I had the privilege of doing Post-doctoral work with Prof Craig Lundberg in Experiential Learning and getting training in T-groups. On my return to India and joining the Management Department of the Delhi School of Economics in 1962, I started a T-group based course called Interpersonal Dynamics. I got in touch with Rolf and he kindly invited me to the SIET institute about which Somnath has mentioned. I was closely in touch with Fred and invited him to Delhi University several times, where we also organized a conference on Experiential Learning in which many colleagues including Francis Menezes participated. Fred proposed that we should establish a Society for development of ABS and conduct T-groups in India, and took an active role in the program organized by Francis in Pune, which led to formation of the ISABS.” (” (personal communication from Abad to T V Rao, April 16, 2024) 

I was fortunate to meet Fred Massarick in his house in California while I was working with David McClelland. We had a long chat about applied behavioural science. Udai introduced me to him and I stopped over a Los Angeles specially to meet him I my first visit to USA in 1975.  I also had the opportunity to meet Rensis Likert. Ron Lippit, Mathew Miles at Teachers college. Udai introduced me to Chrys Argyris he was not available at that time.

 

Registration of ISABS: The Indian Society for Applied Behavioural Science was formally registered in 1972 in Pune by Francis Meninzes of TMTC with the document for registration signed by Francis (TMTC), Fr. Don Beilby, (Mumbai); Dharni Sinha (IIMC); Pulin Garg (IIMA), K K Anand (L&T), K. J. Christopher (SIET) Fr. Jim Filela (Xavier Institute, Mumbai). The team according to my perception and experience included many others as indicated in Somanth’s description above though may not have signed the document as the registration required six people (those closer to Pune). These in my view include:  (Dharni Sinha (IIMC) Pulin Garg (IIMA), Udai Pareek IIMA), Abad Ahmad ( Delhi University) Somnath Chattopadhyay (IIMA), Ishwar Dayal (IIMA); Paul Siromani; Ed McGrath (XLRI), Jim Filella (Mumbai), Sujit Bhattacharya (SIET) Manohar Nadkarni (BSC), Prayag Mehta (NCERT), Ishwar Dayal (IIMA), Nitish De (IIMC), Gouranga Chattopashyay (IIMC)   etc.) It was being conceptualised in 1971 or even earlier as many of those who got trained at NTL were planning to form this body. Rolf Lynton played a significant role in introducing T-group training (sensitivity training) and getting faculty from SIET and IIMA and IIMC to NTL.

ISABS Today: ISABS recently celebrated its Golden jubilee. As a Society it continues to impact the spread of laboratory education and OD and Change Management in India. A visit to its website (www.isabs.org) gives an update about its members, programs and so on. Several Individuals and professionals have contributed to its growth including various Presidents, Deans, and professional members besides Industry, government and NGOs.

 

 

 

 

 

References

Chattopadhyay, Somnath; (2016) “Än Ideology Based Institution: Some Values and Dilemmas – An ISABS experience” in “HRD, OD and Institution Building: Essays in Memory of Udai Pareek; edited by T V Rao and Anil Khandelwal, 2016, Sage India; pages 231-256)

Lynton Rolf, David Kiel and Nandani Lynton (2022); Building Inclusive Collaborative Organizations: A Career on Four Continents, 2022, NTL Institute & Libri Publishing, U.K.

Lynton, R. P. (1960). The tide of learning: The Aloka experience. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Lynton, R. P. (1998). Social science in actual practice: Themes on my blue guitar. New Delhi, India: Sage.

Pareek, Udai (1968) A Motivational Paradigm for Development, Journal of Social Issues, 1968, 24(2),

Pareek, Udai (1999); a Biography of Rolf Lynton, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, December 1999, 398-400

Sinha, Dharni, (1976) T Group and Team Building and Organization Development, New Delhi: Indian Society for Applied Behavioral Science (originally published in 1976 but republished by ISABS in 1986)

 

Appendix:

My Professional Journey as an Applied Behavioral Scientist

T V Rao

1.       The Foundations: Science, Education and Psychology (1961-68)

2.       Studying organizational climate and measuring productivity of employees is 8 small factories: SIET Institute (1967-)

3.       Abandoned Dreams in Experimental Parapsychology at Andhra University (1968)

4.       Learning to Observe, develop tests and Feedback based training with teachers and children(1969)

5.       Developing Auto-instructional materials at an early age: NCERT (1970)

6.       Assistant Professor at Young Age: Training Senior Faculty registered for their M.D. Community Health (1969-71)

7.       First exposure to T-Groups (1969)

8.       Editing Indian Behavioral Science Abstracts (1970-71)

9.       Starting Applied Psychology Department (1971-73)

10.   Collecting Psychological Social Instruments; Students are co-learners (1972)

11.   My work on  Doctors in The Making (1973)

12.   Status Study of Behavioral Science research in Population: Exposure to IIMA (1973)

13.   Digging deeper into Entrepreneurship: Evaluating Gujarat Experiment, LEM and Visit to East west center Honolulu (1973-74)

14.   Learning from David McClelland and Abigail Stewart (1975)

15.   Teaching Consumer Behavior: Sale Style Diagnosis exercises and Communication strategies for Population programs- ISRO paper (1974-75)

16.   Starting of HRD and Work with L&T in Implementing it (1974-78)

17.   Laboratory in Motivation Management Programs at IIMA (1974-76)

18.   Engagement with selecting Project Leaders using Assessment center approach for Parishram (1974)

19.   Conducting OB Labs in IIMA using Feedback on instruments (1973-82 )

20.   Experimenting with Worker-Client transactions in Amethi and Kurebhar Blocks of Sultanpur District: IIMA Population Project (1975)

21.   Linking education with Rural Development: Jawaja Project (1975-78)

22.   Extending studies of Institutional environment and professional socialization to other professions: ICSSR study (1974-76)

23.   Implementing HRD in BEML while on leave from IIMA (1978)

24.   Observing and experiencing sensitivity camp with Pulin at IIMA and co-training experience with Pulin, Indira, Somnath and Udai (1973-77)

25.   Self-renewal and Process consultation with Lawrence School, ICM Sisters (1974-76)