Introduction
Management has
become a part and parcel of everyday life,
be it at home, in the office or factory and
in Government. In all organizations, where a
group of human beings assemble for a common
purpose, management principles come into
play through the management of resources,
finance and planning, priorities, policies
and practice. Management is a systematic way
of carrying out activities in any field of
human effort.
Its task is to
make people capable of joint performance, to
make their weaknesses irrelevant, says the
Management Guru Peter Drucker. It creates
harmony in working together - equilibrium in
thoughts and actions, goals and
achievements, plans and performance,
products and markets. It resolves situations
of scarcity, be they in the physical,
technical or human fields, through maximum
utilization with the minimum available
processes to achieve the goal. Lack of
management causes disorder, confusion,
wastage, delay, destruction and even
depression. Managing men, money and
materials in the best possible way,
according to circumstances and environment,
is the most important and essential factor
for a successful management.
Management
guidelines from the Bhagavad Gita
There is an
important distinction between effectiveness
and efficiency in managing.
�
Effectiveness is
doing the right things.
�
Efficiency is
doing things right.
The general
principles of effective management can be
applied in every field, the differences
being more in application than in principle.
The Manager's functions can be summed up as:
�
Forming a vision
�
Planning the
strategy to realize the vision.
�
Cultivating the
art of leadership.
�
Establishing
institutional
excellence.
�
Building an
innovative organization.
�
Developing
human resources.
�
Building
teams and teamwork.
�
Delegation,
motivation, and
communication.
�
Reviewing
performance and taking corrective steps
when called for.
Thus,
management is a process of aligning people
and getting them committed to work for a
common goal to the maximum social benefit -
in search of excellence.
The critical
question in all managers� minds is how to be
effective in their job. The answer to this
fundamental question is found in the
Bhagavad Gita,
which repeatedly proclaims that �you must
try to manage yourself.� The reason is that
unless a manager reaches a level of
excellence and effectiveness, he or she will
be merely a face in the crowd.
Old truths
in a new context
The
Bhagavad Gita,
written thousands of years ago, enlightens
us on all managerial techniques leading us
towards a harmonious and blissful state of
affairs in place of the conflict, tensions,
poor productivity, absence of motivation and
so on, common in most of Indian enterprises
today � and probably in enterprises in many
other countries.
The modern
(Western) management concepts of vision,
leadership, motivation, excellence in work,
achieving goals, giving work meaning,
decision making and planning, are all
discussed in the
Bhagavad Gita.
There is one major difference. While Western
management thought too often deals with
problems at material, external and
peripheral levels, the
Bhagavad Gita
tackles the issues from the
grass roots level of human thinking. Once
the basic thinking of man is improved, it
will automatically enhance the quality of
his actions and their results.
The management
philosophy emanating from the West, is based
on the lure of materialism and on a
perennial thirst for
profit, irrespective of the quality of
the means adopted to achieve that goal. This
phenomenon has its source in the abundant
wealth of the West and so 'management by
materialism' has caught the fancy of all the
countries the world over, India being no
exception to this trend. My country, India,
has been in the forefront in importing these
ideas mainly because of its centuries old
indoctrination by colonial rulers, which has
inculcated in us a feeling that anything
Western is good and anything Indian is
inferior.
The result is
that, while huge funds have been invested in
building temples of modem management
education, no perceptible changes are
visible in the improvement of the general
quality of life - although the standards of
living of a few has gone up. The same old
struggles in almost all sectors of the
economy, criminalization of institutions,
social violence, exploitation and other
vices are seen deep in the body politic.
The source
of the problem
The reasons
for this sorry state of affairs are not far
to seek. The Western idea of management
centers on making the worker (and the
manager) more efficient and more productive.
Companies offer
workers more to
work more, produce more, sell more and
to stick to the organization without looking
for alternatives. The sole aim of extracting
better and more work from the worker is to
improve the bottom-line of the enterprise.
The worker has become a disposable
commodity, which can be used, replaced and
discarded at will.
Thus, workers
have been reduced to the state of a
mercantile
product. In such a state, it should come
as no surprise to us that workers start
using
strikes, sit-ins, go-slows,
work-to-rule. to get maximum benefit for
themselves from the organizations.
Society-at-large is damaged. Thus we reach a
situation in which management and workers
become separate and contradictory entities
with conflicting interests. There is no
common goal or understanding. This,
predictably, leads to suspicion, friction,
disillusion and mistrust, with managers and
workers at cross purposes. The absence of
human values and erosion of human touch in
the organizational structure has resulted in
a crisis of confidence.
Western
management philosophy may have created
prosperity � for some people some of the
time at least - but it has failed in the aim
of ensuring
betterment of individual life and social
welfare. It has remained by and large a
soulless edifice and an oasis of plenty for
a few in the midst of poor quality of life
for many.
Hence, there
is an urgent need to
re-examine prevailing management
disciplines - their objectives, scope and
content. Management should be redefined to
underline the development of the worker as a
person, as a human being, and not as a mere
wage-earner. With this changed perspective,
management can become an instrument in the
process of social, and indeed national,
development.
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.
Utilization
of available resources
The first
lesson of management science is to choose
wisely and utilize scarce resources
optimally. During the curtain raiser before
the Mahabharata War, Duryodhana chose Sri
Krishna's large army for his help while
Arjuna selected Sri Krishna's wisdom for his
support. This episode gives us a clue as to
the nature of the effective manager - the
former chose numbers, the latter, wisdom.
Attitudes
towards work
Three
stone-cutters were engaged in erecting a
temple. An HRD Consultant asked them what
they were doing. The response of the three
workers to this innocent-looking question is
illuminating.
�
'I am a poor
man. I have to maintain my family. I am
making a
living here,' said the first
stone-cutter with a dejected face.
�
'Well, I work
because I want to show that I am the best
stone-cutter in the country,' said the
second one with a sense of pride.
�
'Oh, I want to
build the most beautiful temple in the
country,' said the third one with a
visionary gleam.
Their jobs
were identical but their perspectives were
different. What the
Gita
tells us is to develop the
visionary perspective in the work we do. It
tells us to develop a sense of larger
vision in our work for the common good.
Work
commitment
A popular
verse of the
Gita
advises �detachment� from the
fruits or results of actions performed in
the course of one's duty. Being dedicated
work has to mean �working for the sake of
work, generating excellence for its own
sake.� If we are always calculating the date
of promotion or the rate of
commission before putting in our
efforts, then such work is not detached. It
is not �generating excellence for its own
sake� but working only for the
extrinsic reward that may (or may not)
result.
Working only
with an eye to the anticipated benefits,
means that the quality of performance of the
current job or duty suffers - through mental
agitation of anxiety for the future. In
fact, the way the world works means that
events do not always respond positively to
our calculations and hence expected fruits
may not always be forthcoming. So, the
Gita
tells us not to mortgage present
commitment to an uncertain future.
Some people
might argue that not seeking the business
result of work and actions, makes one
unaccountable. In fact, the
Bhagavad Gita
is full of advice on the theory of cause and
effect, making the doer responsible for the
consequences of his deeds. While advising
detachment from the avarice of selfish gains
in discharging one's accepted duty, the Gita
does not absolve anybody of the consequences
arising from discharge of his or her
responsibilities.
Thus the best
means of effective performance management is
the
work itself. Attaining this state of
mind (called �nishkama
karma�) is the right
attitude to work because it prevents the
ego, the mind, from dissipation of
attention through speculation on future
gains or losses.
Motivation �
self and self-transcendence
It has been
presumed for many years that satisfying
lower order needs of workers - adequate
food, clothing and shelter, etc. are key
factors in motivation. However, it is a
common experience that the dissatisfaction
of the clerk and of the Director is
identical - only their scales and
composition vary. It should be true that
once the lower-order needs are more than
satisfied, the Director should have little
problem in optimizing his contribution to
the organization and society. 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 schoolteacher,
or a self-employed artisan, may well
demonstrate higher levels of
self-actualization despite poorer
satisfaction of their lower-order needs.
This situation
is explained by the theory of
self-transcendence propounded in the
Gita.
Self-transcendence involves renouncing
egoism, putting others before oneself,
emphasising team work, dignity,
co-operation, harmony and trust � and,
indeed potentially sacrificing lower needs
for higher goals, the opposite of
Maslow.
�Work
must be done with detachment.�
It is the ego that spoils work and the ego
is the centrepiece of most theories of
motivation. We need not merely a theory of
motivation but a theory of inspiration.
The Great
Indian poet, Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941,
known as "Gurudev") says working for love is
freedom in action. A concept which is
described as �disinterested work" in the
Gita
where Sri Krishna says,
�He who
shares the wealth generated only after
serving the people, through work done as
a sacrifice for them, is freed from all
sins. On the contrary those who earn
wealth only for themselves, eat sins
that lead to frustration and failure.�
Disinterested
work finds expression in devotion, surrender
and equipoise. The former two are
psychological while the third is
determination to keep the mind free of the
dualistic (usually taken to mean
"materialistic") 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 embodied
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
An effective
work
culture is about vigorous and arduous
efforts in pursuit of given or chosen tasks.
Sri Krishna elaborates on two types of work
culture � �daivi
sampat� or divine work
culture and �asuri
sampat� or demonic work
culture.
�
Daivi work
culture - involves 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 - involves egoism, delusion,
personal desires, improper performance, work
not oriented towards service.
Mere work
ethic is not enough. The hardened criminal
exhibits an excellent work ethic. 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 technique of work which is an
indispensable component of a work ethic. �Yogah�
is defined in the
Gita
itself as �samatvam
yogah uchyate� meaning an
unchanging equipoise of mind (detachment.)
By making the
equable mind the bed-rock of all actions,
the Gita
evolved the goal of
unification of work ethic with ethics in
work, for without ethical process no mind
can attain an equipoise. The guru, Adi
Sankara (born circa 800 AD), says that the
skill necessary in the performance of one's
duty is that of maintaining an evenness of
mind in face of success and failure. The
calm mind in the face of failure will lead
to deeper introspection and see clearly
where the process went wrong so that
corrective steps could be taken to avoid
shortcomings in future.
The principle
of reducing our attachment to personal gains
from the work done is the
Gita�s
prescription for attaining
equanimity. It has been held that this
principle leads to lack of incentive for
effort, striking at the very root of work
ethic. To the contrary, concentration on the
task for its own sake leads to the
achievement of excellence � and indeed to
the true mental happiness of the worker.
Thus, while commonplace theories of
motivation may be said to lead us to the
bondage or extrinsic rewards, the
Gita�s
principle leads us to the
intrinsic rewards of mental, and indeed
moral, satisfaction.
Work results
The
Gita
further explains the theory of
�detachment� from the extrinsic rewards of
work in saying:
�
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,
the cause of the modern managers' companions
of stress related illness.
Assimilation
of the ideas of the
Gita
leads us to the wider spectrum of �lokasamgraha�
(general welfare) but there is also another
dimension to the work ethic - if the �karmayoga�
(service) is blended with �bhaktiyoga�
(devotion), then the work itself becomes
worship, a �sevayoga" (service for its own
sake.)
Along with
bhakti yoga
as a means of liberation, the
Gita espouses the doctrine of
nishkamya
karma or pure action untainted by
hankering after the fruits resulting from
that action. Modern scientists have now
understood the intuitive wisdom of that
action in a new light.
Scientists at the US National Institute of
Mental Health in Bethesda, found that
laboratory monkeys that started out as
procrastinators, became efficient workers
after they received brain injections that
suppressed a gene linked to their ability to
anticipate a reward. The scientists reported
that the work ethic of rhesus macaques
wasn't all that different from that of many
people: "If the reward is not immediate, you
procrastinate", Dr Richmond told LA Times.
This may
sound a peculiarly religious idea but it has
a wider application. It could be taken to
mean doing something because it is
worthwhile, to serve others, to make the
world a better place
Manager's
mental health
Sound mental
health is the very goal of any human
activity - more so management. Sound mental
health is that state of mind which can
maintain a calm, positive poise, or regain
it when unsettled, in the midst of all the
external vagaries of work life and social
existence. Internal constancy and peace are
the pre-requisites for a healthy stress-free
mind.
Some of the
impediments to sound mental health are:
�
Greed - for
power, position, prestige and money.
�
Envy - regarding
others' achievements, success, rewards.
�
Egotism - about
one's own accomplishments.
�
Suspicion, anger
and frustration.
�
Anguish through
comparisons.
The driving
forces in today's businesses are speed and
competition. There is a distinct danger that
these forces cause erosion of the moral
fiber, that in seeking the end, one permits
oneself immoral means - tax evasion,
illegitimate financial holdings, being
�economical with the truth�, deliberate
oversight in the audit, too-clever financial
reporting and so on. This phenomenon may be
called as �yayati syndrome�.
In the book,
the
Mahabharata, we come across
a king by the name of 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 thousand years.
However, he found the pursuit of sensual
enjoyments ultimately unsatisfying and came
back to his son pleading him to take back
his youth. This �yayati syndrome� shows the
conflict between externally directed
acquisitions (extrinsic motivation) and
inner value and conscience (intrinsic
motivation.)
Management
needs those who practice what they preach
�Whatever the
excellent and best ones do, the commoners
follow,� says Sri Krishna in the
Gita.
The visionary leader must be a missionary,
extremely practical, intensively dynamic and
capable of translating dreams into reality.
This dynamism and strength of a true leader
flows from an inspired and spontaneous
motivation to help others. "I am the
strength of those who are devoid of personal
desire and attachment. O Arjuna, I am the
legitimate desire in those, who are not
opposed to righteousness," says Sri Krishna
in the 10th Chapter of the
Gita.
In
conclusion
The
despondency of Arjuna in the first chapter
of the
Gita is typically human. Sri
Krishna, by sheer power of his inspiring
words, changes Arjuna's mind from a state of
inertia to one of righteous action, from the
state of what the French philosophers call
�anomie� or even
alienation, to a state of
self-confidence in the ultimate victory of �dharma�
(ethical action.)
When Arjuna
got over his despondency and stood ready to
fight, Sri Krishna reminded him of the
purpose of his new-found spirit of intense
action - not for his own benefit, not for
satisfying his own greed and desire, but for
the good of many, with faith in the ultimate
victory of ethics over unethical actions and
of truth over untruth.
Sri Krishna's
advice with regard to temporary failures is,
�No doer of good ever ends in misery.� Every
action should produce results. Good action
produces good results and evil begets
nothing but evil. Therefore, always act well
and be rewarded.
My purport is
not to suggest discarding of the Western
model of efficiency, dynamism and striving
for excellence but to tune these ideals to
India's holistic attitude of �lokasangraha�
- for the welfare of many, for the good of
many. There is indeed a
moral dimension to business life. What
we do in business is no different, in this
regard, to what we do in our personal lives.
The means do not justify the ends. Pursuit
of results for their own sake, is ultimately
self-defeating. (�Profit,� said
Matsushita-san in another tradition, �is the
reward of correct behavior.�)
A note on the
word "yoga".
Yoga
has two different meanings -
a general meaning and a technical meaning.
The general meaning is the joining together
or union of any two or more things. The
technical meaning is �a state of stability
and peace and the means or practices which
lead to that state." The
Bhagavad Gita
uses the word with both
meanings.
M.P.Bhattathiri.
ref. bbt.org, kamakoti.org, amritapuri.org,
mahrshi.com, sai.org,chinmaya.org,
vivekanada.org,neovedanta/gospel.com,spirituality.indiatimes.com