The Leadership of Yoga

An application

Dr. Sharda .S. Nandram

Feb 9-12, 2009, Pondicherry, India

Address for correspondence

Sharda S. Nandram
Nyenrode Business Universiteit
The Netherlands
Email: s.nandram@nyenrode.nl
The Leadership of Yoga: An application

Introduction

In the business management and psychological literature assumptions about humans

have been changing which resulted in changing leadership styles to motivate employees and
to let organizations develop. One of the most well-known leadership frameworks is
McGregor’s theory X and Y first published in his book the “The Human Side of Enterprise”
(1960). It was based on the work of Maslow’s hierarchy. The assumption in theory X was
that man is a beast, he is evil in nature, biology drives him, competition is the main mode of
interactions and the individual is the important social unit (comparable with the Tamas Guna1
aspect in the Indian personality theory). This leadership style will lead to negative energy.
The assumption in theory Y is that human beings are self-actualizing, in nature they are good,
the driving force is humanism, the modes of interaction is co-operation and collaboration and
the important social unit is the group (comparable with the Satva Guna). This leadership style
will lead to positive drive. Based on the work of Donald McGregor new ideas were developed
like the theory Z which was described by William Ouchi in his book ‘theory Z’ (1981). He
found his inspiration by studying Japanese firms and it occurred to him that Japanese firms
have high employee commitment, motivation and productivity and leaders concern
themselves with all different aspects of the employees’ life. Thus they do not only look at the
employee in the workplace but see them as persons with more life domains that are
interconnected. According to theory Z (comparable with the Rajas Guna) the basic
assumptions about humans are that people have wills, ambition, they are passionate, they are
open to good and evil influences and they let themselves be driven by situations. Interactions
consists of a large interdependency as the important social unit is the interaction which will
lead to synergy.
There are leadership models based on the assumptions about human beings such as
mentioned above, but others are based on the matching ability of the leader’s behavior and the
given situation. One category refers to the contingency models which focus on the fit between
the leader and the conditions of the situation. One famous leadership model is the path-goal
theory model of House and Mitchell (1974). They added the participative attitude of the

1
Gunas are typologies for huma n nature based on Vedanta philosophy. There are three typologies:
Tamas, Rajas and Sattva. The Tamas is the inactive, ignorant type while the Rajas represents the
active, passionate type. The Satvva type represents calmness, wisdom and knowledge.
leader in motivating their subordinates. The transformational leadership model of Bass (1999)
and Burns, (1978) focuses on leaders and followers behaviors as opposite to the transactional
models. In the transformational model often charismatic leadership styles are being included.
Others relate the leadership style to the strategy that is needed for the company in
respect to vision, motivation and values. In more recent discussions about leadership the
distinction is made between leadership as motivation and leadership as management control.
Much more in line with motivation as the main task of leaders, models were developed in
terms of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (Steers, Porter, 1983; vroom, 1964)). These models
stress the cognitive ability of subordinates to think about results driven by their expectations
and values to address to certain outcomes (Deci, Ryan, 2000). As the business society is
becoming more dynamic the need to focus on intrinsic aspects of motivation is increasing.
An integration of the business life with the true self will increase the level of energy. This can
be achieved by exploring the hidden self through Integral Transformational Yoga principles.
These are very powerful as they will give every individual a sense of awakened energy with a
potential to grow their business in balance with their true self. In line with Transformational
Yoga principles, we will suggest aspects of a leadership style. In this paper we will apply the
principles of Integral Transformational Yoga to the multinational Wipro.

Framework
The inspiration for Transformational Yoga hails from the work of Sri Aurobindo according to
whom all life is yoga and who used the term Integral Yoga. The following principles are
rooted in the integral transformational yoga. There are three steps of transformation, the so
called ‘triple transformation’. There is an inward pychicisation where the heart is the inner
guide. One goes deep into his or her existence mainly through concentration and surrender to
the Divine. The second step is spiritual transformation through enlightenment. The third step
is supramentalisation of the entire being which is about bringing down the supramental
consciousness in the human being. All these processes require effort. Although the first step
can be considered the easiest, in practice on average companies’ leaders do not use their heart
as the inner guide often.
The following assumptions are relevant:
1. In transformational Yoga we assume five bodies: the outer four lower bodies
and the spiritual body (the karana sharir) which represents the integration of the
impure and pure bodies.
2. The outer bodies are born and can be developed through several practices of
postures (asanas), and breathing (pranayamas), while the inner bodies are always
present with energy in every one of us and which should be awaken.
3. The five bodies represent the five different states of consciousness that govern
our lives.
4. The physical body represents the physical aspects of life and its survival. It has
the densest form of energy in the solid state, and is connected with the earth element
(Prithvi). The solid state is evident in our muscles and bones. Purifying this body
positively stimulates our healthiness and feelings of security.
5. The vital body represents the sexuality, emotion and vitality and it is associated
with the water element (Apaha). It has a fluid form of energy which is evident in the
high percentage of liquid that constitutes the human body. The vital body houses
powerful emotions such as lust, jealousy, and possessiveness. Purifying this body
helps us to control our emotions.
6. The mental body represents emotions and thought and is associated with the
fire element (Tejas). This body controls our personality and ego and is responsible for
our feelings of security or insecurity, and the power we exert over others. It is present
within us through our intellect. Purifying this body improves our interpersonal
relations and personality. The psychic body represents higher emotions and spirituality
and it is associated with the air element (Vayu). We recognize this body in us through
our spiritual aspirations which represents movement and expansiveness. It controls our
response to love and religion. Purifying this body gives the ability to love
unconditionally.
7. The spiritual body is connected to the highest level of wisdom and forms the
source of pure consciousness. It is associated with the space element or ether (Akasha)
and leads to truth and infinity. Its presence is evident in our constant search for self
realization. Purifying leads to finding freedom in our true self.
8. It is believed that the five elements which are part of every existence are
represented in the chakras. Chakras are like swirling vortexes of energy. Activation of
the chakras results in processing, storing and distributing pure energy around the body.
They are associated with particular characteristics and elements. Although the subtle
 body has thousands of chakras, in integral transformational yoga we deal with the
seven main life-energy centers that are aligned along the spine, starting from the base
and rising to the crown of the head.

An application to the organization

In Integral Transformational Yoga there is a process of integration between the five bodies of
the human being, as well as a process of transformation consisting of the three sub processes,
as mentioned earlier. The leader should understand these in order to help the organization to
integrate and to let transformation happen at the organization level. The idea is that there are
behaviors needed at the physical level, vital level, mental and psychic level in order to work
on the spiritual level. What are the tasks needed at each level if we apply these assumptions
on the organization?
At the Physical level the leader should be clear and consistent about the structure he works
with; it should match with his behavior regarding, fulfilling needs, ethics, integrity, and values
of the organization. This is about a structure that stimulates behaving ethically in the
organization and outside the organization as well. He should offer them a structure where
needs count too and which create the feelings of security and grounding amongst the
employees.
At the Vital level the leader should be able to create a positive atmosphere where the
employees have faith, positive thinking, and confidence, willing to learn from mistakes and
have trust in each other. This is about building relationships and empowering, helping
subordinates to make use of their competences. There should not be jealously or hate or
feelings of inferiority or superiority as people should feel respected and valued for who they
are and what they can deliver. He should be able to create a sphere for unconditional love,
openness, and respect for one’s contribution. He should have the emotional healing power that
is needed to build the commitment of the employees.
At the Mental level the leader should be able to focus on things that are important for the
organization. Even if he has to take decisions under pressure he should be able to use his
mental capacity. Rational decisions are important. He should not forget the circumstances
around him and he should be able to analyze the consequences for the organization and the
other stakeholders in a clear way. He should have conceptual and other skills and knowledge
needed to operate as a leader.
At the Psychic level the leader should be able to connect with different actors in the
organization. He can do this by defining the vision (what is the big picture you want to work
to), mission (why do you aim this vision/ for whom is this important/ whom are you serving),
and the strategy of an organization in a clear way (what are the concrete operations) in order
to connect those who are part of the organization and the community. This is about creating
value for the community too. He should be able to communicate on the organizational values
and ethical behavior as these are elements for employees to connect with by showing a feeling
of commitment, satisfaction and proud. This is about being able to serve all involved in a way
that people feel connected to each other.
Thus there are several steps to the development of a successful leadership style based on
Transformational Yoga principles. The leader should start by showing consistency in his
structure. Then he should create positive energy by showing trust and create an atmosphere of
unconditional love. Some rituals in the organization might help in terms of how to celebrate
success, how to communicate about painful events, how to deal with if there is non-ethical
behavior. He should show optimism, empathy and hope when needed. He should also be
working along rational lines. This should be a continuous process even if there are setbacks.
He can think of re-segmentation of the market, re-differentiation of goals, re-designing
products and trying to create new competitive advantages all based on rational analyses. And
on the psychic level he should connect the different parts by finding the right umbrella in
terms of mission, vision and strategy. These should be clear to everyone involved and
participants should realize that these ideas should be remembered. It should be understood by
everyone that this process is not a one-time exercise. The leader can work with sounding
boards as an aid to reflection, through interactive sessions with employees, dialogues with
stakeholders and by using different communication styles. Assuming that the organization
itself has the five planes of being thus consisting of a physical, vital, mental and psychic plane
a model can be proposed.

In this model we can define certain tasks and processes (see table):
Level of being Leadership tasks Leadership processes
Physical What is the structure to let Build a structure that is
(earth:structure) employees feel secure, grounded consistent in all actions aligned
and motivated: to needs, competences, values
- what are the basic needs and ethics.
 of the organization and
requirements to hold the
organization together?
- What are the needs of the
employees
- What are the
competences of the
employees
- How does these fit with
the needs and
competences of the
organization
Vital What are the relationships Find procedures that create the
(water:relationships) needed to get employees to make positive atmosphere
use of their resources
- What is the willpower of
the employees force
- what are the fears they
face
- how about the ambition
and fears of the
organization?
Mental What are the actions needed? Provide skills that are needed for
(fire:actions) - planning a rational analysis and concrete
- rules actions
- decision making style
- operations
- communication
Psychic What is the real nature of my Connect by communicating
Air: results organization and how does it about the vision, mission and
relate to the stakeholders? strategy
- vision
- mission
 - strategy
Spiritual What is the awareness of my Create an atmosphere and
Ether: harmony organization? facilities for transformations at
- the fit at each level individual and organizational
between employees and level
organization
- how are they integrated
between the levels

The model presented above will be applied to the Indian multinational Wipro.

The Wipro case

Chakraborty talks about the deep-structure ethos of India by referring to words of Sri
Aurobindo who explained this in words of spiritual, intuitive and psychic as a fundamental
tendency but which supports a strong and rich intellectual, practical and vital activity.
Together with the psychic and spiritual body these are the five bodies in the perspective of
Integral Transformational Yoga. The next question is: do we see this tendency at Wipro? Let
me explain this in the following sections which were based on a face-to-face interview with
Mr. Ranyan Archarya, guidance and interview with Mr. Karthik Nagendra, a presentation in
the Wipro Lab, reading the book the Bangalore Tiger, and another interview with Mr. Ranjan
Archarya and Mr. Dr. Mrityunjay Kumar Srivastava. We will describe the main company
figures, highlights in the development followed by examples related to each of the five bodies
based on the Integral Transformational Yoga principles.

The company
Wipro is a business that has been delivering technology-driven business solutions for the past
25 years. It operates worldwide, in 53 countries, with approximately 84.000 employees. In
1999, it was a $400 million company and in March 2006 the company had a revenue of $2,4
billion according to Forbes. The CEO, Premji, has 81% of the shares. According to Forbes
Wipro is worth $10-15 billion. At Wipro the word spirituality does not occur in any written or
spoken communication but everything is aligned with an ethical thinking of doing business as
defined by the CEO Mr. Azim Premji. In my first visit on the 23th of June 2008 the word
ethical business was a better alternative. Mr. M.N. Karthik told me how difficult it was for
him to find a Wiproite who was willing to reply to my request for interviews. In the proposal I
sent him I have used the wording business spirituality and spiritual leadership and according
to him nobody except Ranjan could connect with these words. Surprisingly, on my second
visit on the 3rd of November 2008 Ranjan himself told me about spiritual leadership and the
Institute of Spiritual Leadership, which was launched few weeks back in India by a
consultancy group. In a few months spirituality seemed to have reached the business worlds
as well.
My reflection of the ethical thinking and the way of leading the company leads to the
conclusion that it comes close to the deep structure ethos as described by Chakraborty.

Highlights in the development of Wipro

Wipro dealt with several transformations as it went through several phases in the Indian
economy. After the independence on 15 August 1947, food was the main problem in India.
The country was socialist oriented. The food people in the US did not eat, was sent to India.
In 1970 Punjab experienced a green revolution and the food problem was resolved. In 1947
the government came with an incentive to local businesses. All foreign businesses were only
allowed to stay if they did business with local people where locals had higher ownership, of at
least 51%. Wipro was started by Premji’s father as a small business in oil products. Premji did
not have any training in this segment and his father’s business was not a successful one. In
1976 Wipro started with Witrol, a fluid for trucks. In 1977 Wipro started a home-grown
Indian computer business. Because of restrictive governmental policies Western technology
giants such as IBM were forced to leave the country. After the food problem was taken care
of another big problem in India was the infrastructure. Contacts with truck dealers gave Wipro
insights into the infrastructure problem. In 1979 they realized that they were doing business
without having the dollar. There was a change in the government and according to Mr. Ranjan
it can be labeled as emergency in India. The popular government came back and they threw
out foreign businesses like IBM and Coca Cola. This policy can be considered as the birth of
Entrepreneurship in India at that time. Wipro recognized the opportunity to build the
computer. In 1983 they build the first computer in India. Mr. Ranjan joined Wipro as of
1982. Mr. Ranjan’s father was a scholar in philosophy and he was supposed to follow an
academic career too. He applied for a PhD position at an academic institution and their
offerings suited his personal situation where they offered him a good salary, a PhD position
and free hospital care for his mother who was ill at that time. He did not manage to finalize
the PhD position and Wipro hired him back in 1985 and gave him room to develop the
training as they realized that was the topic of his PhD position.

In those days Wipro announced the pc. And for individuals at Wipro it was the first
opportunity to become an entrepreneur. About 40% of the dealers of Wipro became
entrepreneurs themselves and many good start-ups came out of it.
In 1990 the liberation started with a 2-way switch. First, IBM and Coca Cola came back in a
big way in collaboration with Tata. Second, they took the local people for their R&D and
worked on their international brands. In those days computers were imported. The key was
that the hardware of it was developed in the USA. Wipro as a consequence started their own
new business in this field. They shifted to offer electronics R&D labs for hire and software
programming services. The USA had a Quota system. This was another opportunity they
recognized and which they started to exploit it. Another business was in the leather industry
with computers becoming second. The brilliant idea occurred ‘why don’t we become agents’.
A Medical institute was the first who trusted outsourcing with Wipro.

The entrepreneurial spirit

The pattern so far is that Wipro looked at and listened carefully to the surrounding and was
courageous to go for any idea that came on their path. They were flexible enough to focus on
more segments, they took time to reflect on what did not go well. These are some of the key
characteristics of successful entrepreneurship in general (Nandram, Samsom 2006) It was as if
they let many flowers grow at once. After a while they realized that they knew how to design
computers. When they were convinced there was demand for their computers as well they
started exporting business. They sent experts out to solve problems and then they realized
how impersonal this was. As a consequence they started to replicate the process in India in
order to save time and money. And they even started to manage it. It was important for them
to give the customer good quality and to train the project manager in house. It was in 2002
when they became a consultant for USA companies by advising on strategy, technology,
business and quality. Because they operate in many parts of the world, Wipro has market
power. Another strength is they are not selling computers but solutions. It is interesting to
analyze how they evaluated their opportunities. Wipro followed many opportunities. For
example: they were selling santoor soap sandalwood. The retailer of this soap also sold lights
for another company and he asked Wipro ‘why don’t you sell lights’. They started with it as
well. As a consequence they came in new business offices where people wanted to start a
business. Being involved in many businesses had the consequence that they became aware of
new business opportunities. Wipro concentrated on consumer care products, lighting and
furniture. Recently they took over Citi Technology Services, a subsidiary of Citigroup. Wipro
continuously explores new businesses and new geographical markets. The CEO will enter a
new market or expand if Wipro has a chance to rank in the top three over the long haul
(Hamn, 2007).

An application of the model

Physical part
The main questions at the physical level are:
- What is the structure to let employees feel secure, grounded and motivated:
- What are the basic needs of the organization and requirements (ethics and values) to
hold the organization together?
- What are the needs of the employees?
- What are the competences of the employees?
- How do these fit with the needs and competences of the organization?
To explain the physical level, the following examples can be provided.
The personnel career policy and karma yoga provides main frameworks for the physical part.
Because of the Zero politics policy at Wipro business decisions and personnel promotions are
based on merits and facts and everything becomes transparent. Performances are rated from
analytic perspective, so while the values are present as intangible things, the business cannot
survive without any tangible assessment. Mr. M.N. Karthik explains: “We have measured
goals, objectives and soft skills that are mapped to each of the profile a person is hired for
and this is rated both by the individual as part of the self appraisal and then by the respective
supervisors and Human Research manager after which they are awarded points that would
reflect on their increments and future career progression”.
Mr. Ranjan talked about karma yoga: an ethical way of doing business. According to him it
was difficult in the 80’s to act with integrity because it was so common to bribe. “Mr. Premji
allowed the production to stop but did not pay any bribe at any time. Even if it hurts the
business”. His philosophy was that the transaction costs of paying bribes are a big cost as the
bribers will always come back. Mr. M.N. Karthik explains “This reminds me of an incident
dated long back when Wipro was still in its nascent stage. Wipro was running a factory in a
remote village where corruption was quite high. There was a point where personnel from the
electricity dept threatened to cut off the power supply if he was not provided the necessary
bribe. Mr. Premji didn’t budge to it and said that if the plant had to be shut off also he would
not mind but he would not resort to paying bribe anytime! The plant was shut for a couple of
days but later the senior personnel in the electricity dept got to know about this and
immediately apologized and ensured that everything was back on track as usual. Such has
been Mr. Premji’s karma yoga of doing business and this continues even now within the
entire organization”.

Vital part
To analyze the vital part we can try to respond to the following questions.
- What are the relationships needed to get employees make use of their resources?
- What is the willpower of the employees force?
- What are the fears they face?
- How about the ambition and fears of the organization?
Premji functions as a role model to others in the company and he therefore stimulates the vital
part of it. Mr. Ranjan explains: “many people said to Premji that oil is not for you/ you are 21
years old, good looking, what are you doing here? He made two decisions:
-he will stay
-he will make it a big and great business”.
Amongst the employees there seem to be a willingness to put energy. Mr. Ranjan explains this
“It feels good and then results are higher. Leadership is to put in that discretionary effort and
you feel good about that. With the programs you focus on competencies. You create values in
the mind of your people. You are not stealing their ideas. Entrepreneurship is acting as a
good human being. As a leader you should not be inconsistent. If you give employees the
feeling that you steel their ideas they will not share and involvement will decrease. That is the
essence. Spirituality is about values and the adherence to values. Business organizations that
believe in values, are willing to invest in leadership that goes beyond management. Premji is
one of the faculties for all programs for four hours. Leaders are people who can create the
resonation. In physics they talk about integration and resonation”.
At Wipro they use the word talent transformation. The idea is to operate well in the global
context you should first connect at the deeper level. There are several programs to work on
this.
In one program top leaders from companies come and share experience. The second program
is about profiling tests. Program 3 takes them outside. Through experiences in the hills they
conquer fear. With an army they go to unsafe places. Program 4 is about personal mastery.
The forth one is ranked highest according to Ranjan. It contains relaxation and meditation.
The role in the cosmos is being discussed and the way how one should look at others and
every participated individual of the program. They start with Buddha (disability, disease and
debt), yoga, meditation, examples, and experiences. At Wipro every manager should do these
4 programs.
At Wipro the employees are selected very carefully. The quality of the people and the quality
of the supervisor are important criteria. They set goals that are always above what is
reasonable to challenge and encourage the personnel. Mr. Srivastava explained this “we
increase our own target. There are quality targets of course but there is a constant drive to
increase it. Everyone accepts that Wipro aims to be in the top 3 in his segment. For example if
we discuss our result with Mr. Ranjan he will say ‘this much???’ though you might have
realized your target. But it means that we want to deliver the maximum we can.”

Mental part
What are the actions needed regarding:
- planning?
- rules?
- decision making style?
- operations?
- communication?
According to Mr. M.N. Karthik the spirit of Wipro is inculcated into the minds of the people
at the time of joining itself. Further to that they are constantly reminded to people through
posters that can be found in every unit of the building. For personnel they organize the “Spirit
of Wipro” run, and they have a “paint the spirit” contest to encourage them. Employees are
addressed twice a year with issues of changes like organization structural changes. Every
quarter there is a newsletter from the CEO for every employee. The culture seems to be
transparent. When I approached Wipro the first time my email was responded very quickly.
Similar actions to other companies did not result in such a quick response. This resembles a
high openness to share what is going on. There are a lot of hands-on meetings between units.
The CEO has different group meetings in different parts of the world. Many people
communicate. There is a corporate executive counsel existing of 10 people who are allowed to
communicate to the public domain. Mr. Ranjan is one of these.
Psychic part
On the psychic part the main question goes deeper and refers to what is the real nature of my
organization and how does it relate to the stakeholders? This can be approached by addressing
the following concepts:
- vision
- mission
- strategy
At Wipro every 3 years a strategic plan is formulated and every 5 years there is an
elaborated visioning exercise where they start with a clean empty of paper to rethink what
it should strive to become and decide what it needs to go there. Premji joined the company
in 1966. In 1972 he defined some beliefs. The most important ones were ‘people are our
biggest assets’ and ‘we will do every aspect of business with integrity’. Premji defined the
values and these were not religious ones. Even if it hurts the business on the short term,
bribes are not accepted. The message is very clear to everyone, according to Mr. Ranjan.
Later they called them values of customers and now they label them as the spirit of Wipro.
The current ones are: intensity to win, act with sensitivity and unyielding integrity.

Ranjan expressed “The truth is spiritually sound, therefore there is adherence of values. And
Premji never change his conviction. He is present everywhere, he also stands in the cue for
getting his lunch or getting the coin for lunch. He goes personally into depth. It is not micro
management but it is a curious mixture of knowing details. He is a spiritual person.
At Wipro one of the main tasks is to keep the customer happy. If needed contracts are put
aside”. Mr. M.N. Karthik added that although there is flexibility towards the customer, there
is no room for ambiguity when it comes to adhering to the principles and values of Wipro.
“There is a committee that is set up internally which takes stern action on people who do not
adhere to values & this is not restricted to a single level at all. It is applicable to each and
every employee in the organization. There are instances where a person has travelled in a
second class but has claimed a first class fare and such people have been sacked right away
without even given a chance for explanation”.

Spiritual part
At the spiritual level an organization should go ‘inside’ and ask the question ‘what is the
awareness of my organization’? He should consider the following aspects:
 - How is the fit at each level between employees and organization
- How is the organization integrated between the levels
According to Mr. Ranjan, the spirituality in the business is Premji. One can ask him ”why do
you proceed with the business while you have a lot of money already?”. Ranjan makes fun
with him saying ”you are becoming grey” and then he responds with ”others colored their
hair”.
Spirituality in India is close to religion and, according to Ranjan, Hinduism, the main religion
in India, has two aspects: spirituality and the faith in after life. He thinks spirituality is the
most abuse as very few try to understand the philosophy. His father wrote the preface in the
Bhagavad Gita, one of the main Hindu books and the core he remembers is “when you are
acting, don’t think about the result. Like when you are singing, you are not asking yourself,
can I do it or not.” He furthermore explained the following concepts.
- Tolerance of ambiguity. This stems from the idea that causality is not definite. Indians
let the outcome happen. Watch the traffic and for a foreigner it seems like no rules
and a broad guideline.
- India is a continent. North and South practices are different.
- The concept of improvisation is very strong in Indian art and culture. The frequent
asked question is ”where does the creation started”. The answer is started with Nada
Bhraman and thus with vibration. The concept of music is intrinsically linked to living
in spirituality through improvisation.
Mr. Ranjan explained that the faith in after life gives the idea that live is for learning.
That spirituality at Wipro should be related directly to Premji was derived from Mr. M.N.
Karthik’s opinion as well which he expressed as follows: ”When one first hears Mr
Premji speak about the spirit of Wipro it is clearly visible that here is a man of values and
each and every word coming out from him is straight from the heart. He preaches what he
practices and this is being followed assiduously from the time the company was
formulated way back in mid 40s as a vegetable oil company to now when it is a global IT
conglomerate. The talk is so inspirational that these values register in your sub conscious
mind and you tend to follow it every time even without your knowledge.”
Reflection: The holistic perspective of Integration and transformation
The several examples given above explain the different parts of Wipro that are based on
integral transformational Yoga principles. A good performance on each part separately does
not guarantee a spiritual or holistic integration. In order to be able to talk about spirituality,
activities related to the psychic level are needed. However, still we may call this the outer part
though the psychic level is most closely to the spiritual level. Spirituality as in Sri
Aurobindo’s philosophy deals with the integration between the several levels and any
transformational attitude. Based on the available information I can conclude that the CEO
facilitates the integration between the several parts. On the one hand it is hard to say that this
is something done consciously as the term spirituality does not have any formal room at
Wipro. Although yoga and meditation are a part of one of the programs they are not a
structural part of Wipro. This program is only provided to managers and only as they start
with a management position.
The term has been avoided up till now, only recently Mr. Ranjan participated in a spiritual
conference. The avoidance has to do with the connotation that it has with religion. On the
other hand, the lack of usage of the term spirituality does not guarantee that it is an
unconscious spiritual practice either. It is appealing that in the interviews the CEO is seen as
an inspirational and spiritual person that does not only focus on the results but also on values
for how the results should be gained. The Bangalore Tiger Premji says: “we create wealth
that trickles down. We create social consciousness in our employees that spreads throughout
society. We teach them values, which make them better parents.” This is a good example of
how materialistic and idealistic views are being combined. In the interviews I did several
reasons for Wipro’s success were given. One of them is the belief that they want to achieve,
often without knowing how. The CEO is an example of this concept because when he started
he had big dreams but not enough know-how or experience of his father’s business.
Entrepreneurship dreams are one of the best motivators. A second reason is the flexible
attitude towards the surrounding. This is the alertness that Kizner thinks is needed in
Entrepreneurship. At Wipro they rather talk about the tolerance for ambiguity, a concept
which is closely related to the flexibility and which can be found in entrepreneurship as well
(Bhide 2000). The activities of Wipro don’t seem to relate to each other, although there is
synergy. This can only be achieved because the core values are present and they seem to form
the DNA of Wipro. A third reason is that Wipro’s personnel are encouraged to learn from
their mistakes. One can come to his boss and say this was my mistake but this is what I
learned from it. Then it is valued higher than defending it or if one tries to cover it. This
reflective attitude is part of the characteristics of successful entrepreneurs (Nandram and
Samsom 2006). A fourth reason is the energy which can be felt at the campus of Wipro. There
are a constant enthusiasm and energy in the company. The interviewees told me that this
started with the founder but now it is broader. There is something about this energy. It is
karma yoga energy according to Mr. Ranjan. Everybody is working and you feel the residual
energy. He explained how he has missed the job when he was sick at home. In a month he
came back full days. A fifth reason is the simplicity of the CEO himself. He doesn’t drive a
big car and encourages employees to travel in economy class. According to the interviewees,
he creates a feeling that you should not become arrogant in your success. They also feel that
for the CEO doing business is a calling. This analysis provides tangible and intangible reasons
for the success of Wipro.
The conclusions drawn in this paper is based on documents and interviews. Further
quantitative research amongst the employees will make clear whether the integration of the
several parts is being felt or not. Regarding the transformation, which is needed according to
the model described in this paper, action research (Benefiel, 2008) or experimental research
design are needed to evaluate the effects of certain programs that encourages spiritual
transformation.
About the Author

Sharda S. Nandram, born in Surinam, is associate professor at Nyenrode Business Universiteit

in the Netherlands. She earned two masters degree: 1. in Work and Organizational Psychology
and 2. in Economics, both at the University of Amsterdam. She completed her PhD in Social
Sciences at the Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam. Dr Nandram has worked for universities and
research centers doing applied and academic research for not for profit and profit organizations
in the fields of entrepreneurship, human and organizational behavior, spirituality and leadership
in business. She is also consultant of Praan Solutions to integrate mission/ spiritual driven and
opportunity driven business growth and development.

Acknowledgement:
Ranjan Acharya, Senior Vice President- Corporate, Human Resource Development, Wipro,
Bangalore, India
M.N. Karthik, Senior Executive, Strategic Marketing, Wipro, Bangalore, India
Dr. Mrityunjay Kumar Srivastava, general manager corporate human resource development,
Bangalore, India
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