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Published: Saturday, Apr 30, 2011, 14:51 IST | Updated: Saturday, Apr 30, 2011, 14:51 IST By DNA Correspondent | Place: Gujarat | Agency: DNA Explaining the connection between Bhagvad Gita and management, Brahmachari Atharvana Chaitanya of Chinmay Mission said, "There are many episodes in Gita which clearly explain pure management concepts. Such topics are, in fact, taught in many top management schools like IIM."
He was speaking at a seminar on 'Management lessons through Bhagvad Gita' in the city on Friday organized by ICFAI. He further said that many people believe management is a modern concept and Bhagvad Gita is centuries old and find it difficult to relate the two. He asserted, "It is important to understand that both Gita and management deal and revolve around ways to channelise a person's hidden capacities in the right way." Citing another situation from the Gita when Gandharva was trying to defeat Duryodhana of Kauravas, Yudhisthira comes and says, 'Though we fight against each other, when any third party interferes and attacks us, we stand together against the outsiders.' Atharvana stressed, "This is quintessential team work. Management lessons teach that despite internal and personal differences, team work and standing united is important." Highlighting the role of Lord Krishna in the Mahabharata as the one who guided the Pandavas in utilising resources in the right manner, he termed this 'optimum utilisation of resources'. Atharvana stressed how Arjun fought with the inner self on the battlefield. He stated, "In the beginning and end of the Gita, Arjun's condition is the same, waiting at the battlefield for the battle to begin. The changes that take place are within him. Krishna makes him identify his goal, his resources and asks him to work towards attaining the goal. This is what event management is all about, setting a goal and working hard towards achieving it."
Introduction
Bhagavad Gita is one of the most popular of the ancient texts not only among the Indians but also among the westerners. In fact Robert Oppenheimer who successfully exploded the first atom bomb on July 16, 1945, at Alamogordo, New Mexico was greatly attracted by Gita. Watching this event from a distance, he
was supposedly uttering a phrase from Bhagavad Gita[2]. Bhagavad Gita has inspired many of our national leaders and provided them strength, moral courage and clarity of thought with which they have led the country in its struggle. Arguably, these are important elements of making a good manager or a leader today. Herein lies the motivation for this article. But what is really interesting is that these ideas are available not only in the Bhagavad Gita but also in the ten Upanishads and for that matter in several ancient Indian texts. Before we look at one or two interesting aspects of management from Gita, it is important for us to appreciate the multi-faceted nature of ancient Indian texts. We need to get this aspect abundantly clear so that the real value of the ancient Indian texts is fully understood. Further it also informs us that only if we approach the ancient Indian texts with such a perspective we will be able to gainfully understand its usefulness to solve todays problems.
When the system attains disequilibrium and shows signs of being unstable and going out of control measures have to be taken to restore the equilibrium in the system. This is a classical systems engineering idea according to which there are regenerative points in the system. If the regenerative points are not there, the system will go unstable. One can easily relate this to well-known concepts in Economics & Management. The demand supply equilibrium, pricing decisions in alternative market structures, the way in which organizations continue to root out bad CEOs or Managers over time, the mechanisms to prevent opportunistic behaviours in the long run (and variations of this such as Prisoners Dilemma) could all be explained by this basic axiom laid out in this shloka.
wisdom opens up. One may locate a number of direct and relevant thoughts in these texts. Let us look at one or two examples from Gita on the issue of relevant thoughts for today. The following shloka from Gita, chapter 3 is a case in point: 3.36. In this shloka, Arjuna raises a question which is very pertinent to most of us. We have had several occasions in our personal and professional life during which we would have internally asked the same question. Who is behind all these bad or wrong things that people do? Although I am not interested it appears I am forcibly involved into this. In fact you ask managers who have erred in their decisions or committed some blunder, you ask fathers who have made blunders of scolding their children or taken wrong decisions about their daughter or son. They will always say something similar to this shloka. There is this feeling I have become a victim of a situation as though somebody is pushing me to do wrong things. We have gone through this frame of mind in our daily life. We are going through this frame of mind every now and then in Management. Krishna offers some explanation as to why this is happening in the shlokas that follow. Gita also offers perspectives on how to manage certain things in life, understand complex things that we go through in simple terms (just as the example of birth and death). It also offers direct ideas and sets us in a state of contemplation. One example will help drive this point. 2.14. The meaning of the shloka is as follows: As long as the five senses are active in gathering the signals that come into contact with them, we will experience the world of dualities hot and cold, peace and sorrow etc. You cannot run away from the world of dualities as they happen continuously and are also impermanent. Learning to handle them is important. Stress management is a big issue today. Most of the knowledge and help we get from the modern day thinking is to suppress or divert our attention from the issue of stress. They implicitly operate with an assumption that stress will be inevitably generated and the solution lies in doing something about it once we are stressed. Let us kill it or run away from it by some means after it happens is the basis for stress management. We do not seem to address why one should get stressed in the first place. On the other hand, this shloka addresses this issue and truly provides us an idea for managing stress. It is all about signal processing. We have to differentiate between signals and noise. That is the idea here. We dont do so because we dont have the capability of signal processing. That does not mean we can turn off the apparatus and stop receiving the signals. That happens only when we are in a state of coma. That is not what Lord Krishna is saying. Gita never recommends running away from problems. On the other hand it seems to suggest that understanding problems in the right perspective is key to managing them. That is the greatest management lesson that one can learn. The idea of managing the world of duality ( ) has been one of the key messages in the Gita and it has been repeatedly emphasized not only in chapter 2, but also in several other chapters. This could very well be the cornerstone of developing superior self- and people management skills and leadership traits.
Further if you enjoy complete freedom of doing work result has to follow. That is the basic line of argument that I see in Gita. Lord Krishna says that it is possible that you can have complete degree of freedom and enjoy work. This is the basic thread of argument I see in the text which I think is very relevant for management.
Axioms of work
As we have already seen, there is no escaping from work. Therefore, let us understand how the axioms of work have been proposed in Gita. There are four aspects to this, which is very well brought out in this famous shloka in Gita: . 2.47. A direct translation of this shloka is as follows: You have the right to work but never to the fruits of the action. Further you do not have the right to the root cause of the fruits of action. You also do not have the right to remain in the society without performing any work. As we notice from the above translation, there are four components of the axiom of work defined in Gita. It is much easier to explain the rationale of the last component. When one is told that he/she has to do the work, he/she does not ask for results or bother about what causes these results, the normal tendency in some cases is to say, well in that case, I am not interested in doing the work. The last component takes away that possibility. Since in Gita, the notion of non-work or inaction is not a feasible alternative, the last component makes sense. The most difficult part is the second and the third component. How can someone do the work and yet not have the right for results? This requires some more articulation and understanding of the idea. Let us see it from the management perspective. The current day thinking and this are in loggerheads. We are told that we need to work for results. Why is then Lord Krishna advocating the antithesis of this? In order to get this clear, let us trace some side effects of working for results. Many of us with some work experience will be able to relate to these side effects: Result orientation can make one wary of failures, we may refuse to undertake great activities (modern risk management issue comes into play). Yesterday I read in the paper that an 8th standard student ended her life because she did not clear the exam. What a tragedy and what a side effect that we need to face? We have a tendency to excessively focus on ends instead of means. This is what most working in Multi-National Companies are busy doing. Modern day managers spend significant time to manager performance reports rather than performance itself. In order to be good in managing the performance report, process orientation must give way for result orientation What are results at the end of the day? They are issues of the future about which we spend our time in the present. Therefore, we may tend to escape the dynamics of present and go after future The apparent confusion that we have in understanding this shloka is that when we say you have no right to the results, it merely suggests that take off your pre-occupation with results and have a process orientation. Results must follow automatically. Is it not what the total quality management (TQM) philosophy is also arguing about? Further, you may ask, why do we want to take the fixation from results and instead concentrate on the work itself? The simple answer to it is that by doing do it lets you literally
get lost in work. When one gets lost into work, the traditional barriers of efficiency and motivation are broken and the individual treads into extraordinary performance born out of inspiration. Perhaps, that is how a Nobel Laureate or a great scientist or a visionary leader would have spent several years of his/her time. We often say when we do very interesting things in life, I never knew how time passed That is a good indication of our ability to practice . This is neither an unknown or impossible idea to mankind. Every day we all practice this when we have deep sleep. We rise from the deep sleep and remark that we had a sound sleep. By that what it means is no matter what sound others made in the vicinity I continued to sleep. Try to sleep with an objective of having a 6 hour sound sleep and work for the result, you will not get sound sleep. Your mind will work very hard to find out how to ensure 6 hours of deep sleep and in the process you will get tired. Maybe after some time when the analytical and result-oriented mind gets fatigued, you will slip into deep sleep. The ancient Indian texts such as Bhagavad Gita are profound and are meant to open up the horizon in the minds of the people. Therefore it is hardly surprising that we can draw such alternative ideas and thoughts from such texts. However, in order to benefit from this immensely, in the domain of management, we need to step out of the world of rationality and tread into unknown areas. Perhaps a nearest reference to this idea in modern day is out of the box thinking or thinking without the box. This in itself is a paradigm shift in perception that we need to make in our own mind.
Conclusions
There are several other useful ideas in Gita for management. There are specific ideas for management that address issues pertaining to self, self-mastery and self-assessment. There are also specific suggestions on the leadership traits. Bhagavad Gita and for that matter in several other ancient Indian texts offer a unique value proposition. We can have spiritual progress, we can have material progress too in a very balanced way. We can have happiness, not only success. This could be one of the good reasons for us to look at some of these and make our own notes. There is a greater promise and potential for much larger perspectives in ancient Indian wisdom and much greater propensity to draw out of it and apply in a variety of situations. [1] This is based on a talk delivered by Professor B Mahadevan, Dean (Administration), Indian Institute of Management Bangalore in a seminar on Towards a New Paradigm of Business management Alternative Perspectives from Ancient Indian Wisdom, held at IIM Bangalore on December 12, 2009. mahadev@iimb.ernet.in [2] http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/ai/aboutopp.htm [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Schumpeter [4] Beer, S. (1994). May the Whole Earth be Happy: Lokaasamastaa Sukhino Bhavantu, Interfaces, Vol. 24, No. 4, 83 93. [5] Swami Ranganthananda, (2000). The Universal Message of Gita, Advaita Ashrama, Kolkatta, Vol. 1, pp. 430 437.
Explaining the connection between Bhagvad Gita and management, Brahmachari Atharvana Chaitanya of Chinmay Mission said, "There are
many episodes in Gita which clearly explain pure management concepts. Such topics are, in fact, taught in many top management schools like IIM." He was speaking at a seminar on 'Management lessons through Bhagvad Gita' in the city on Friday organized by ICFAI. He further said that many people believe management is a modern concept and Bhagvad Gita is centuries old and find it difficult to relate the two. He asserted, "It is important to understand that both Gita and management deal and revolve around ways to channelise a person's hidden capacities in the right way." Citing another situation from the Gita when Gandharva was trying to defeat Duryodhana of Kauravas, Yudhisthira comes and says, 'Though we fight against each other, when any third party interferes and attacks us, we stand together against the outsiders.' Atharvana stressed, "This is quintessential team work. Management lessons teach that despite internal and personal differences, team work and standing united is important." Highlighting the role of Lord Krishna in the Mahabharata as the one who guided the Pandavas in utilising resources in the right manner, he termed this 'optimum utilisation of resources'. Atharvana stressed how Arjun fought with the inner self on the battlefield. He stated, "In the beginning and end of the Gita, Arjun's condition is the same, waiting at the battlefield for the battle to begin. The changes that take place are within him. Krishna makes him identify his goal, his resources and asks him to work towards attaining the goal. This is what event management is all about, setting a goal and working hard towards
Introduction
Bhagavad Gita is one of the most popular of the ancient texts not only among the Indians but also among the westerners. In fact Robert Oppenheimer who successfully exploded the first atom bomb on July 16, 1945, at Alamogordo, New Mexico was greatly attracted by Gita. Watching this event from a distance, he was supposedly uttering a phrase from Bhagavad Gita[2]. Bhagavad Gita has inspired many of our national leaders and provided them strength, moral courage and clarity of thought with which they have led the country in its struggle. Arguably, these are important elements of making a good manager or a leader today. Herein lies the motivation for this article. But what is really interesting is that these ideas are available not only in the Bhagavad Gita but also in the ten Upanishads and for that matter in several ancient Indian texts. Before we look at one or two interesting aspects of management from Gita, it is important for us to appreciate the multi-faceted nature of ancient Indian texts. We need to get this aspect abundantly clear so that the real value of the ancient Indian texts is fully understood. Further it also informs us that only if we
approach the ancient Indian texts with such a perspective we will be able to gainfully understand its usefulness to solve todays problems.
Who is behind all these bad or wrong things that people do? Although I am not interested it appears I am forcibly involved into this. In fact you ask managers who have erred in their decisions or committed some blunder, you ask fathers who have made blunders of scolding their children or taken wrong decisions about their daughter or son. They will always say something similar to this shloka. There is this feeling I have become a victim of a situation as though somebody is pushing me to do wrong things. We have gone through this frame of mind in our daily life. We are going through this frame of mind every now and then in Management. Krishna offers some explanation as to why this is happening in the shlokas that follow. Gita also offers perspectives on how to manage certain things in life, understand complex things that we go through in simple terms (just as the example of birth and death). It also offers direct ideas and sets us in a state of contemplation. One example will help drive this point. 2.14. The meaning of the shloka is as follows: As long as the five senses are active in gathering the signals that come into contact with them, we will experience the world of dualities hot and cold, peace and sorrow etc. You cannot run away from the world of dualities as they happen continuously and are also impermanent. Learning to handle them is important. Stress management is a big issue today. Most of the knowledge and help we get from the modern day thinking is to suppress or divert our attention from the issue of stress. They implicitly operate with an assumption that stress will be inevitably generated and the solution lies in doing something about it once we are stressed. Let us kill it or run away from it by some means after it happens is the basis for stress management. We do not seem to address why one should get stressed in the first place. On the other hand, this shloka addresses this issue and truly provides us an idea for managing stress. It is all about signal processing. We have to differentiate between signals and noise. That is the idea here. We dont do so because we dont have the capability of signal processing. That does not mean we can turn off the apparatus and stop receiving the signals. That happens only when we are in a state of coma. That is not what Lord Krishna is saying. Gita never recommends running away from problems. On the other hand it seems to suggest that understanding problems in the right perspective is key to managing them. That is the greatest management lesson that one can learn. The idea of managing the world of duality ( ) has been one of the key messages in the Gita and it has been repeatedly emphasized not only in chapter 2, but also in several other chapters. This could very well be the cornerstone of developing superior self- and people management skills and leadership traits.
Axioms of work
As we have already seen, there is no escaping from work. Therefore, let us understand how the axioms of work have been proposed in Gita. There are four aspects to this, which is very well brought out in this famous shloka in Gita: . 2.47. A direct translation of this shloka is as follows: You have the right to work but never to the fruits of the action. Further you do not have the right to the root cause of the fruits of action. You also do not have the right to remain in the society without performing any work. As we notice from the above translation, there are four components of the axiom of work defined in Gita. It is much easier to explain the rationale of the last component. When one is told that he/she has to do the work, he/she does not ask for results or bother about what causes these results, the normal tendency in some cases is to say, well in that case, I am not interested in doing the work. The last component takes away that possibility. Since in Gita, the notion of non-work or inaction is not a feasible alternative, the last component makes sense. The most difficult part is the second and the third component. How can someone do the work and yet not have the right for results? This requires some more articulation and understanding of the idea. Let us see it from the management perspective. The current day thinking and this are in loggerheads. We are told that we need to work for results. Why is then Lord Krishna advocating the antithesis of this? In order to get this clear, let us trace some side effects of working for results. Many of us with some work experience will be able to relate to these side effects: Result orientation can make one wary of failures, we may refuse to undertake great activities (modern risk management issue comes into play). Yesterday I read in the paper that an 8th standard student ended her life because she did not clear the exam. What a tragedy and what a side effect that we need to face? We have a tendency to excessively focus on ends instead of means. This is what most working in Multi-National Companies are busy doing. Modern day managers spend significant time to manager performance reports rather than performance itself. In order to be good in managing the performance report, process orientation must give way for result orientation What are results at the end of the day? They are issues of the future about which we spend our time in the present. Therefore, we may tend to escape the dynamics of present and go after future The apparent confusion that we have in understanding this shloka is that when we say you have no right to the results, it merely suggests that take off your pre-occupation with results and have a process orientation. Results must follow automatically. Is it not what the total quality management (TQM) philosophy is also arguing about? Further, you may ask, why do we want to take the fixation from results and instead concentrate on the work itself? The simple answer to it is that by doing do it lets you literally get lost in work. When one gets lost into work, the traditional barriers of efficiency and motivation are broken and the individual treads into extraordinary performance born out of inspiration. Perhaps, that is how a Nobel Laureate or a great scientist or a visionary leader would have spent several years of his/her time. We often say when we do very interesting things in life, I never knew how time passed That is a good
indication of our ability to practice . This is neither an unknown or impossible idea to mankind. Every day we all practice this when we have deep sleep. We rise from the deep sleep and remark that we had a sound sleep. By that what it means is no matter what sound others made in the vicinity I continued to sleep. Try to sleep with an objective of having a 6 hour sound sleep and work for the result, you will not get sound sleep. Your mind will work very hard to find out how to ensure 6 hours of deep sleep and in the process you will get tired. Maybe after some time when the analytical and result-oriented mind gets fatigued, you will slip into deep sleep. The ancient Indian texts such as Bhagavad Gita are profound and are meant to open up the horizon in the minds of the people. Therefore it is hardly surprising that we can draw such alternative ideas and thoughts from such texts. However, in order to benefit from this immensely, in the domain of management, we need to step out of the world of rationality and tread into unknown areas. Perhaps a nearest reference to this idea in modern day is out of the box thinking or thinking without the box. This in itself is a paradigm shift in perception that we need to make in our own mind.
Conclusions
There are several other useful ideas in Gita for management. There are specific ideas for management that address issues pertaining to self, self-mastery and self-assessment. There are also specific suggestions on the leadership traits. Bhagavad Gita and for that matter in several other ancient Indian texts offer a unique value proposition. We can have spiritual progress, we can have material progress too in a very balanced way. We can have happiness, not only success. This could be one of the good reasons for us to look at some of these and make our own notes. There is a greater promise and potential for much larger perspectives in ancient Indian wisdom and much greater propensity to draw out of it and apply in a variety of situations. [1] This is based on a talk delivered by Professor B Mahadevan, Dean (Administration), Indian Institute of Management Bangalore in a seminar on Towards a New Paradigm of Business management Alternative Perspectives from Ancient Indian Wisdom, held at IIM Bangalore on December 12, 2009. mahadev@iimb.ernet.in [2] http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/ai/aboutopp.htm [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Schumpeter [4] Beer, S. (1994). May the Whole Earth be Happy: Lokaasamastaa Sukhino Bhavantu, Interfaces, Vol. 24, No. 4, 83 93. [5] Swami Ranganthananda, (2000). The Universal Message of Gita, Advaita Ashrama, Kolkatta, Vol. 1, pp. 430 437.
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Introduction
Management has become a part and parcel in everyday life, be it at home, office, factory, Government, or in any other organization where a group of human beings assemble for a common purpose, management principles come into play through their various facets like management of time, resources, personnel, materials, machinery, finance, planning, priorities, policies and practice. Management is a systematic way of doing all activities in any field of human effort. It is about keeping oneself engaged in interactive relationship with other human beings in the course of performing one's duty. Its task is to make people capable of joint performance, to make their weaknesses irrelevant -so says the Management Guru Peter Drucker. It strikes harmony in working - equilibrium in thoughts and actions, goals and achievements, plans and performance, products and markets. It resolves situations of scarcities be they in the physical, technical or human fields through maximum utilization with the minimum available processes to achieve the goal
The lack of management will cause disorder, confusion, wastage, delay, destruction and even depression. Managing men, money and material in the best possible way according to circumstances and environment is the most important and essential factor for a successful management. Managing men is supposed have the best tactics. Man is the first syllable in management which speaks volumes on the role and significance of man in a scheme of management practices. From the pre-historic days of aborigines to the present day of robots and computers the ideas of managing available resources have been in existence in some form or other. When the world has become a big global village now, management practices have become more complex and what was once considered a golden rule is now thought to be an anachronism.
Thus Management is a process in search of excellence to align people and get them committed to work for a common goal to the maximum social benefit. The critical question in every Manager's mind is how to be effective in his job. The answer to this fundamental question is found in the Bhagavad Gita which repeatedly proclaims that 'you try to manage yourself'. The reason is that unless the Manager reaches a level of excellence and effectiveness that sets him apart from the others whom he is managing, he will be merely a face in the crowd and not an achiever. In this context the Bhagavad Gita expounded thousands of years ago by the Super Management Guru Bhagawan Sri Krishna enlightens us on all managerial techniques leading to a harmonious and blissful state of affairs as against conflicts, tensions, lowest efficiency and least productivity, absence of motivation and lack of work culture etc common to most of the Indian enterprises today. The modern management concepts like vision, leadership, motivation, excellence in work, achieving goals, meaning of work, attitude towards work, nature of individual, decision making, planning etc., are all discussed in the Bhagavad Gita with a sharp insight and finest analysis to drive through our confused grey matter making it highly eligible to become a part of the modem management syllabus. It may be noted that while Western design on management deals with the problems at superficial, material, external and peripheral levels, the ideas contained in the Bhagavad Gita tackle the issues from the grass roots level of human thinking because once the basic thinking of man is improved it will automatically enhance the quality of his actions and their results. The management thoughts emanating from the Western countries particularly the U.S.A. are based mostly on the lure for materialism and a perennial thirst for profit irrespective of the quality of the means adopted to achieve that goal. This phenomenon has its source in abundance in the West particularly the U.S.A. Management by materialism caught the fancy of all the countries the world over, India being no exception to this trend. Our country has been in the forefront in importing those ideas mainly because of its centuries old indoctrination by the colonial rulers which inculcated in us a feeling that anything Western is always good and anything Indian is always inferior. Hence our management schools have sprung up on the foundations of materialistic approach wherein no place of importance was given to a holistic view. The result is while huge funds have been invested in building these temples of modem management education, no perceptible changes are visible in the improvement of the
quality of life although the standard of living of a few has gone up. The same old struggles in almost all sectors of the economy, criminalization of institutions, more and more social violence, exploitation and such other vices have gone deep in the body politic. The reasons for this sorry state of affairs are not far to seek. The western idea of management has placed utmost reliance on the worker (which includes Managers also) -to make him more efficient, to increase his productivity. They pay him more so that he may work more, produce more, sell more and will stick to the organization without looking for alternatives. The sole aim of extracting better and more work from him is for improving the bottom-line of the enterprise. Worker has become a hireable commodity, which can be used, replaced and discarded at will. The workers have also seen through the game plan of their paymasters who have reduced them to the state of a mercantile product. They changed their attitude to work and started adopting such measures as uncalled for strikes, Gheraos, sit-ins,dharnas, go-slows, work-to-rule etc to get maximum benefit for themselves from the organizations without caring the least for the adverse impact that such coercive methods will cause to the society at large. Thus we have reached a situation where management and workers have become separate and contradictory entities wherein their approaches are different and interests are conflicting. There is no common goal or understanding which predictably leads to constant suspicion, friction, disillusions and mistrust because of working at cross purposes. The absence of human values and erosion of human touch in the organizational structure resulted in a permanent crisis of confidence. The western management thoughts although acquired prosperity to some for some time has absolutely failed in their aim to ensure betterment of individual life and social welfare. It has remained by and large a soulless management edifice and an oasis of plenty for a chosen few in the midst of poor quality of life to many. Hence there is an urgent need to have a re-look at the prevalent management discipline on its objectives, scope and content. It should be redefined so as to underline the development of the worker as a man, as a human being with all his positive and negative characteristics and not as a mere wageearner. In this changed perspective, management ceases to be a career-agent but becomes an instrument in the process of national development in all its segments.
Now let us re-examine some of the modern management concepts in the light of the Bhagavad Gita which is a primer of management by values.
Work Commitment
The popular verse 2.47 of the Gita cited above advises non-attachment to the fruits or results of actions performed in the course of one's duty. Dedicated work has to mean 'work for the sake of work'. If we are always calculating the date of promotion for putting in our efforts, then such work cannot be commitment-oriented causing excellence in the results but it will be promotion-oriented resulting in inevitable disappointments. By tilting the performance towards the anticipated benefits, the quality of performance of the present duty suffers on account of the mental agitations caused by the anxieties of the future. Another reason for non-attachment to results is the fact that workings of the world are not designed to positively respond to our calculations and hence expected fruits may not always be forthcoming . So, the Gita tells us not to mortgage the present commitment to an uncertain future. If we are not able to measure up to this height, then surely the fault lies with us and not with the teaching. Some people argue that being unattached to the consequences of one's action would make one un-accountable as accountability is a much touted word these days with the vigilance department sitting on our shoulders. However, we have to understand that the entire second chapter has arisen as a sequel to the temporarily lost sense of accountability on the part of Arjuna in the first chapter of the Gita in performing hisswadharma. Bhagavad Gita is full of advice on the theory of cause and effect, making the doer responsible for the consequences of his deeds. The Gita, while advising detachment from the avarice of selfish gains by discharging one's accepted duty, does not absolve anybody of the consequences arising from discharge of his responsibilities. This verse is a brilliant guide to the operating Manager for psychological energy conservation and a preventive method against stress and burn-outs in the work situations. Learning managerial stress prevention methods is quite costly now days and if only we understand the Gita we get the required cure free of cost. Thus the best means for effective work performance is to become the work itself. Attaining this state of nishkama karma is the right attitude to work because it prevents the ego, the mind from dissipation through speculation on future gains or losses. It has been presumed for long that satisfying lower needs of a worker like adequate food, clothing and shelter, recognition, appreciation, status, personality development etc are the key factors in the motivational theory of personnel management. It is the common experience that the spirit of grievances from the clerk to the Director is identical and only their scales and composition vary. It should have been that once
the lower-order needs are more than satisfied, the Director should have no problem in optimizing his contribution to the organization. But more often than not, it does not happen like that; the eagle soars high but keeps its eyes firmly fixed on the dead animal below. On the contrary a lowly paid school teacher, a self-employed artisan, ordinary artistes demonstrate higher levels of self- realization despite poor satisfaction of their lower- order needs. This situation is explained by the theory of Self-transcendence or Self-realization propounded in the Gita. Self-transcendence is overcoming insuperable obstacles in one's path. It involves renouncing egoism, putting others before oneself, team work, dignity, sharing, co-operation, harmony, trust, sacrificing lower needs for higher goals, seeing others in you and yourself in others etc. The portrait of a self-realizing person is that he is a man who aims at his own position and underrates everything else. On the other hand the Self-transcenders are the visionaries and innovators. Their resolute efforts enable them to achieve the apparently impossible. They overcome all barriers to reach their goal. The work must be done with detachment.' This is because it is the Ego which spoils the work. If this is not the backbone of the Theory of Motivation which the modern scholars talk about what else is it? I would say that this is not merely a theory of Motivation but it is a theory of Inspiration. The Gita further advises to perform action with loving attention to the Divine which implies redirection of the empirical self away from its egocentric needs, desires, and passions for creating suitable conditions to perform actions in pursuit of excellence. Tagore says working for love is freedom in action which is described as disinterested work in the Gita. It is on the basis of the holistic vision that Indians have developed the work-ethos of life. They found that all work irrespective of its nature have to be directed towards a single purpose that is the manifestation of essential divinity in man by working for the good of all beings -lokasangraha. This vision was presented to us in the very first mantra of lsopanishad which says that whatever exists in the Universe is enveloped by God. How shall we enjoy this life then, if all are one? The answer it provides is enjoy and strengthen life by sacrificing your selfishness by not coveting other's wealth. The same motivation is given by Sri Krishna in the Third Chapter of Gita when He says that 'He who shares the wealth generated only after serving the people, through work done as a sacrifice for them, is freed from all the sins. On the contrary those who earn wealth only for themselves, eat sins that lead to frustration and failure.' The disinterested work finds expression in devotion, surrender and equipoise. The former two are psychological while the third is the strong-willed determination to keep the mind free of and above the dualistic pulls of daily experiences. Detached
involvement in work is the key to mental equanimity or the state of nirdwanda. This attitude leads to a stage where the worker begins to feel the presence of the Supreme Intelligence guiding the empirical individual intelligence. Such de-personified intelligence is best suited for those who sincerely believe in the supremacy of organizational goals as compared to narrow personal success and achievement. Work culture means vigorous and arduous effort in pursuit of a given or chosen task. When Bhagawan Sri Krishna rebukes Arjuna in the strongest words for his unmanliness and imbecility in recoiling from his righteous duty it is nothing but a clarion call for the highest work culture. Poor work culture is the result of tamo gunaovertaking one's mindset. Bhagawan's stinging rebuke is to bring out the temporarily dormant rajo guna in Arjuna. In Chapter 16 of the Gita Sri Krishna elaborates on two types of Work Ethic viz. daivi sampat or divine work culture and asuri sampat or demonic work culture. Daivi work culture - means fearlessness, purity, self-control, sacrifice, straightforwardness, self-denial, calmness, absence of fault-finding, absence of greed, gentleness, modesty, absence of envy and pride. Asuri work culture - means egoism, delusion, desire-centric, improper performance, work which is not oriented towards service. It is to be noted that mere work ethic is not enough in as much as a hardened criminal has also a very good work culture. What is needed is a work ethic conditioned by ethics in work. It is in this light that the counsel 'yogah karmasu kausalam' should be understood.Kausalam means skill or method or technique of work which is an indispensable component of work ethic. Yogah is defined in the Gita itself as 'samatvam yogah uchyate' meaning unchanging equipoise of mind. Tilak tells us that performing actions with the special device of an equable mind is Yoga. By making the equable mind as the bed-rock of all actions Gita evolved the goal of unification of work ethic with ethics in work, for without ethical process no mind can attain equipoise. Adi Sankara says that the skill in performance of one's duty consists in maintaining the evenness of mind in success and failure because the calm mind in failure will lead him to deeper introspection and see clearly where the process went wrong so that corrective steps could be taken to avoid such shortcomings in future. The principle of reducing our attachment to personal gains from the work done or controlling the aversion to personal losses enunciated in Ch.2 Verse 47 of the Gita is the foolproof prescription for attaining equanimity. The common apprehension about this principle that it will lead to lack of incentive for effort and work, striking at the very root of work ethic, is not valid because the advice is to be judged as relevant to man's overriding quest for true mental happiness. Thus while the common place
theories on motivation lead us to bondage, the Gita theory takes us to freedom and real happiness.
Work Results
The Gita further explains the theory of non- attachment to the results of work in Ch.18 Verses 13-15 the import of which is as under: If the result of sincere effort is a success, the entire credit should not be appropriated by the doer alone. If the result of sincere effort is a failure, then too the entire blame does not accrue to the doer. The former attitude mollifies arrogance and conceit while the latter prevents excessive despondency, de-motivation and self-pity. Thus both these dispositions safeguard the doer against psychological vulnerability which is the cause for the Modem Managers' companions like Diabetes, High B.P. Ulcers etc. Assimilation of the ideas behind 2.47 and 18.13-15 of the Gita leads us to the wider spectrum of lokasamgraha or general welfare. There is also another dimension in the work ethic. If the karmayoga is blended withbhaktiyoga then the work itself becomes worship, a seva yoga.
The driving forces in today's rat-race are speed and greed as well as ambition and competition. The natural fallout from these forces is erosion of one's ethics-moral fiber
which supersedes the value system as a means in the entrepreneurial path like tax evasion, undercutting, spreading canards against the competitors, entrepreneurial spying, instigating industrial strife in the business rivals' establishments etc. Although these practices are taken as normal business hazards for achieving progress, they always end up as a pursuit of mirage -the more the needs the more the disappointments. This phenomenon may be called as yayati-syndrome. In Mahabharata we come across a king called Yayati who, in order to revel in the endless enjoyment of flesh exchanged his old age with the youth of his obliging youngest son for a mythical thousand years. However, he lost himself in the pursuit of sensual enjoyments and felt penitent. He came back to his son pleading to take back his youth. This yayati syndrome shows the conflict between externally directed acquisitions, motivations and inner reasoning, emotions and conscience. Gita tells us how to get out of this universal phenomenon by prescribing the following capsules: Cultivate sound philosophy of life. Identify with inner core of self-sufficiency. Get out of the habitual mindset towards the pairs of opposites. Strive for excellence through work is worship. Build up an internal integrated reference point to face contrary impulses, and emotions. Pursue ethico-moral rectitude. Cultivating this understanding by a manager would lead him to emancipation from falsifying ego-conscious state of confusion and distortion, to a state of pure and free mind i.e. universal, supreme consciousness wherefrom he can prove his effectiveness in discharging whatever duties that have fallen to his domain. Bhagawan's advice is relevant here :
"tasmaat sarveshu kaaleshu mamanusmarah yuddha cha" 'Therefore under all circumstances remember Me and then fight' (Fight means perform your duties)
In conclusion the purport of this essay is not to suggest discarding of the Western model of efficiency, dynamism and striving for excellence but to make these ideals tuned to the India's holistic attitude of lokasangraha -for the welfare of many, for the good of many. The idea is that these management skills should be India-centric and not America-centric. Swami Vivekananda says a combination of both these approaches will certainly create future leaders of India who will be far superior to any that have ever been in the world.
1-Feb-2004 More by : M. P. Bhattathiry
am a Bajaj man" instead of "I am working for Bajaj scooters". In one of my workshops Sr. Manager - Corporate Planning of NTPC, P. Purukayastha could not agree more and cited two beautiful examples. The first related to NTPC spending up to Rs. 5 crore on the medical expenses in US for one of its drivers and his wife who were affected by incurable diseases. This incident of humanity has been a motivating factor for all employees for years. The second related to his own experience where he made flexi timing for one of his workers whose wife was ill. This not only removed the troubled look from his face but also made him one of the most motivated workers who was always ready to give more than 100% to his job once his wife became alright. These two incidents can explain how human touch can do wonders on an average Indian psyche. I would even go up to the extent of suggesting that professional studies could be made a part of on the job training like in Japan and not that people first get trained and then wander around for jobs like in the US. It has to be kept in mind that the Japanese without a single business school of repute have produced some of the most successful corporations in the last 50 years, while with so many reputed management schools the US has not been able to stop the entry of one after another of the Japanese organisations into the Fortune 500 list. Again out here I might add that Mr. Purakayastha himself went through a training program after which the company, based upon the results of the test, decided to shift him from industrial relations to corporate planning which has been one of the most motivating aspects of his job. The idea that I want to suggest is that it is high time Indian companies thought sincerely about their people and developed "Indian - people friendly management" practices. They might have some American touch or some Japanese touch but the thought essentially has to be given on what will suit the Indians. The sad part is that successful Indian managers who have developed indigenous styles of management don't end up theoreotising their styles and propagating them through books or articles. In the US almost every semi-successful manager ends up writing a book and thus, today one does know how IBM is managed, but one doesn't know about how an Indian corporation like, may be, the Reliance Group is managed. So, when it comes to learning management the only option is to refer to foreign books and learn foreign management styles.