Attendance and contribution describe different parts of the account
Twenty-four free public events at twelve shops recorded 960 attendances in our 2024 programme. Associated direct book gross contribution was ₹7.6 lakh, while direct programme expense was ₹32 lakh. The ₹24.4 lakh gap appeared before shop costs. Those facts did not establish that the programme financed itself. They also did not, by themselves, decide whether a bookselling enterprise should continue to support it. We had to separate the account of what happened from the choice about what we wished to fund.
I had allowed attendance and the community narrative to make the financial question feel less urgent. The programme gave colleagues something worthwhile to discuss, and the events fitted an understandable idea of what a bookshop could be. Neither observation changed the expense. If we wished to retain the programme, owners deserved a clear proposal rather than a suggestion that the associated sales had already paid for it. The purpose would be stronger if we explained the funding honestly.
The attendance figure required care too. Nine hundred and sixty attendances did not necessarily mean nine hundred and sixty different people. A person could come more than once. Repeated participation might itself be interesting, but we had not measured it in that count. Nor did attendance establish a lasting change in reading or learning. A public programme can be described positively without giving a simple count the authority of a much broader outcome study.
The commercial figure was associated direct book gross contribution, not proof that the events caused every related purchase. Some purchases might have happened anyway, and the account did not settle that alternative. I therefore would not call the ₹7.6 lakh incremental profit. The direct expense and the excluded shop costs also needed to remain understandable. Clear labels were not an exercise in making the programme look worse; they were necessary to explain what the available evidence actually represented.
Once those distinctions were visible, we could stop using one appealing number to answer several different questions. Attendance described participation occurrences. Associated contribution described a bounded commercial measure. Expense described resources used. None was a substitute for the others. The leadership task was to bring them into a decision that acknowledged both the purpose of the programme and the cost the enterprise would have to carry if it chose to continue.
A funding decision can be explicit without becoming unlimited
Some colleagues saw the direct gap as a reason to stop. Others felt that requiring immediate commercial coverage would narrow the role of a bookseller too far. Both positions deserved consideration. I took a proposal to the board for a defined following-year programme rather than ask it to endorse either an unsupported self-financing claim or an open-ended commitment. The approved allocation was ₹25 lakh. That was a new resource decision, not recovery of the earlier ₹24.4 lakh gap.
A defined budget made the choice more accountable. It required us to decide what could be delivered within the allocation and which purposes mattered most. It did not mean that every event request should be accepted because the enterprise had declared support for public programmes. Nor did it mean that the programme could never change. The budget created a basis for examining scope, cost and delivery instead of letting a broad statement of purpose substitute for those decisions.
I would not describe that choice as a universal rule for retailers. Another enterprise might have different obligations, capacity or reasons for supporting events. Our decision belonged to our circumstances and the owners' approval. The useful lesson is that a programme can be proposed on its actual terms. A leader does not need to invent a short-term profit claim merely to explain why the institution wishes to devote a limited amount of resources to a purpose it considers relevant.
The teams delivering the programme also benefit from an explicit account. If leadership tells them the work must secretly pay for itself while publicly describing it as a broader commitment, they inherit conflicting expectations. A defined allocation and purpose allow a more honest conversation about delivery. Commercial effects can still be examined, but they should not be assumed in advance or quietly used to justify spending beyond the amount the enterprise has actually approved.
This approach leaves the financial responsibility intact. Rohan and finance retain their reporting work, and the board retains the material resource decision. My role is to present the proposition, identify the claims the evidence supports and explain the trade-off. I cannot use a community narrative to erase cost, but I also should not pretend that a direct gap is the only fact a board may consider. The decision needs both the numbers and an intelligible account of the purpose.
The next review needs questions suited to the programme
After approval, the next review should examine whether the programme delivered the work and reach it intended within its resources. The appropriate evidence depends on the question. Counting attendance may help describe participation, while understanding who returned would require a different account. Examining the quality of the event requires more than a sales figure. Any claim about lasting educational benefit would need evidence we had not established in the case, rather than an optimistic interpretation of people being present.
There is a similar distinction in commercial review. A future evaluation could examine how events relate to purchases, but its method and limits would need to be explained. The existing ₹7.6 lakh measure should not be retroactively relabelled as a causal finding. A leader can welcome further enquiry without pretending that the answer is already known. That stance lets evidence improve the programme instead of making it serve a success story decided before the review began.
I would also preserve the possibility of changing or stopping work that does not justify its resources on the terms originally proposed. An explicit purpose is not immunity from scrutiny. The budget was a commitment to a defined programme, with the responsibility to examine what was delivered and what should follow. Treating that review seriously respects both the people attending and the enterprise funding the activity. It avoids asking either group to accept a vague promise that cannot be assessed.
The decision I would put in my leadership profile is therefore modest but meaningful. We stopped calling the events self-financing, retained the direct gap and obtained approval for a bounded following-year allocation. We did not prove a reading improvement, recover the earlier expenditure or establish that every associated sale was incremental. We made the enterprise's choice visible. For a CEO, that can be a stronger account of purpose than a more flattering story built from evidence that never measured it.