Nervously, the youngest person in the room describes her struggle to face death, and then, eye donation. If she suddenly dies tomorrow, who would organise the donation? Could she trust her parents to contact the eye-donation doctors within minutes of her death? Would her father be able to bear the pain of doctors gouging out his daughter's hazel eyes in the next room? Would her mother survive the shock of seeing hollow eye sockets?

Deepa is trembling now, her composure frail. Still, she manages to explain the myths and realities of eye donation-and how she convinced her parents to donate her eyes after death. As she walks back to her seat, she is no longerjust another junior employee. The audience -- some of them board members and directors -- looks at her with new respect. Together, they pay her presentation the ultimate compliment: a long moment of silence.

It's Friday, June 26, at Mehtab, Taj Mansingh, Delhi. It's important to remember the date and place, for this day marks a turning point in the lives of 36 Ranbaxy employees attending a workshop on Going L.I.V.E-Leveraging Energy through Values and Enrichment. Sorry, make that 42-moved by Deepa's story, the entire banquet staff at Mehtab pledges to donate their eyes, on the spot.

It's a powerful movement that is now rolling across one of Ranbaxy's four divisions, the Corporate Office. Between May 28 and July 3, all 230 employees -- from the chairman to the junior most staffer, from the policy committee, to the legal department-have been Going Live in series of workshops conducted by Denmark-based Time Manager International (TMI).

Their goal: to fulfil the corporate mission for 1998 of internalisingtwo of Ranbaxy's seven core values. After having focussed on product quality and partnership programmes with business partners in the last two years, this year, the core values under focus are: one, achieving internal and external customer satisfaction and two, being a responsible corporate citizen. The eye donations are obviously part of the latter.

It's a life-saving initiative for Ranbaxy. The company has set itself a target of boosting per capita productivity to $150,000 by December 31, 2000. By then, the manpower ratio will also be down to 1:1 -- one marketing person for every one non-marketing person, excluding R&D. Says Rajendra Sinh, director human resources, ``Therefore, issues such as efficiency, team work, commitment, delivery of project goals and sticking to a timeframe are going to be critical for us.''

Catalysing Ranbaxy's culture change are breakthrough projects-planned projects that achieve a tangible bottomline result in a short period of time. Says Elena Asgar, a trainer/consultant atTMI: ``These projects have to be carried out in ways that express the values and guiding principles of the company and generate new management skills essential for further progress.''

Each project team consists of a motley mix of people from different designations and departments. For the next few weeks, everyone comes together on an equal platform, to work at breakneck speed on breakthrough projects -- on planning and implementation, to delivery against measurable targets.

Eventually, it's the skills learnt in the breakthrough projects which will get translated into the very way that Ranbaxy functions. Says Arun Malik, director, culture change: ``It's a learning experience in managing performance through value-driven systems.'' Besides Roshni, consider some of the other breakthrough projects currently on: