1. Bhagavadgita and Values
Bhagavad-Gita – is a sermon, an advice, an orientation delivered by Lord
Krishna to Arjuna-
Bhagavad + Gita – the song of the Lord, the song celestial.
(1) Brief History – Kaurava-s and Pandava-s- were two warring
brothers’ groups; two factions of the same family and were hell-
bent on fighting an all-out war.
Pandava-s had made every attempt in the book to avoid this war,
even Lord Krishna had attempted to mediate, but that attempt had
also failed, a huge army had gathered on the battlefield; as many as
7+18 divisions of soldiers had gathered on the Kurukshetra
battlefield.
Arjuna –Vishada – Despondency of Arjuna
Arjuna asked Krishna with heroic ardor to place his chariot
between the two armies. Krishna complied with his wish, when the
chariot was placed in between the two armies; Arjuna saw his
brothers, preceptors standing in the opposite army, all the near and
dear ones were arrayed in front of each other on the opposite sides.
Mahabharata shows us that there were four generations of Kuru
dynasty on the battlefield intent upon fighting to the finish.
Arjuna immediately plunged into the state of melancholy. For him,
the battle itself was not an unusual sight as he had experienced
many battles in his life and also had immerged as a winner. Yet,
the sight had a devastating impact on him.
1.1 Impact
Arjuna started expressing his melancholy to Krishna. He said; “seeing
these relatives, who have come together here, prompted by war, my limbs
fail me. My mouth is parched up. My body is quivering, my bow slips
away from my hand and my skin burns all over, I am even unable to stand,
my mind whirls and I see adverse omens.”
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2. Arjuna, as we can see has lost his nerve and deep anguish sailed
through his heart. Arjuna was on archer par excellence, he did not know
defeat but he never had trembled so much, never had tears welled up in his
eyes.
Why did it happen? It happened because of two things;1-acute
attachment ,as well as, 2- emotional uncertainty of Arjuna.
1.2 Bhagavad-Gita and Corporate World.
In corporate world, we have a group of knowledgeable leaders and
top-rising executives, having meteoric growth. They are those people, the
High Fliers, in an organization, with proven capabilities and they are
expected to perform every now and them. External forces like drive about
the over thrust of performance, present scenario at the market, market
analysts’ opinions, expectations of shareholders and also of the top
management line are there to influence on their performance. There is also a
throbbing urge to prove oneself better; better than others and also better and
better than one’s own previous performance. Thus one wants to be
constantly ahead of others and himself, too. This constant pressure to
perform leaves an executive in an unsatisfied, unhappy mode. One has to
cling to the performance-graph for one’s own material benefits but that
stress as if arrests, chokes a person permanently- attachment leads to sorrow-
moha results into dukkha- and of course you cannot do away with the
material attachment either, so that way too, one is sure to receive only
dukkha, in both the cases. The inability of an executive to curb the urge of
performing better and better, leaves him in a sulking mode- this is Arjuna’s
despondency – it is actually a case of burn out- you expect too much from
yourself and others are also keeping you on tenter-hooks.So, you are as if
running a race about which you do not know anything –questions like, Who
am I? Why am I running this race?; are generated before a person and then
you feel disconnected at personal level, no accord is sought with the
personal and organizational objectives, thus eventually only stress keeps on
building up with negativity.
Vishad-despondency – Executive Burn Out: this stress is generated due to
immense stress + disconnectedness with personal and organizational
objective.
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3. It can lead to total non – performance / inability to perform – which can
again increase the stress, sulking, anger and it will of course deepen the
despondency of the executive –but again it is a vicious circle.
1.3
Arjuna asks these questions directly. He does not hide anything from
Krishna. Arjuna has opened up his heart, he mentally and emotionally
accepted the urgent need for help, Arjuna comes forward as a trainee, a
student, who should be honest and straightforward enough so that the coach,
the trainer, the Guru might be able to guide him, direct him properly.
Krishna is also not telling anything new, not innovating anything but just
trying to make Arjuna positive, wants to change his mindset totally. These
are typical characteristics of an ideal coach.
2.1 To avoid despondency what can one do?
We tend to look at our life outside in. What others expect from you, you
shape your own expectations accordingly; even organizations tend to do the
same. They undertake only popular measures for their growth; they do not
bother about their own strength and core competencies; whether they have
taken a visionary or shortsighted decision? At this juncture, an individual or
an organization usually pays / tend to pay more attention to operational
things (how to reduce cost, get more and more orders, accumulate more
profit) than the strategic things (what are the customer trends for future, how
can I build my capability to meet these future, trends?, how do I develop my
people to accept future challenges and how do I improve my internal
processes to meet these challenges etc.)
This approach of management is known as inside-out approach – one should
make introspection, on
1- What is the goal of my organization?,
2-What are my core values?
3-Would I be able to always nurture them and never compromise on these
values?
This knowledge, churned out of introspection, self-appraisal becomes the
fixed, steady, everlasting part of a business – it is the Atman or soul of the
business. When a leader tries to seriously know about his thoughts and
aspirations and acts accordingly, the presence of his ‘Alma-matter’,
effulgent consciousness reverberates through his thoughts, speech and
actions. The Alma matter, THE CORE, here; is the Values or basic
principles. Stephen Covey calls this leadership as Value Based Leadership
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4. – Mr. Narayan Murthy, Bill Gates, JRD Tata etc. are the shining examples
of towering leaders with philanthropic hearts, and their feet deeply rooted in
values.
2.2
When you accept that you are working in competitive environment, you
need to be very clear that you are / your organization is there to make
money: you need to earn money for all of your shareholders, so we must
follow all the principles, but we should also earn enough money by doing
our business. Every organization can have a leader who constantly thinks of
the survival, prosperity and growth of his organization; else, he is not an
effective leader. Therefore, having principle orientation is utmost necessary
but not sufficient to be successful. It is a leader’s job of find solutions to the
problems faced by organizations, from competitors, internal stake –holders.
In this process, it is necessary to follow some guiding principles, but being
oversensitive about impact of our actions on others will make us ineffective.
It is our basic duty (Swadharma) to protect interest of our organization. If
one cannot do it then he or she will not be considered as effective executive.
So one should be aware about guiding principles but also ensure initiating
actions to protect interest of the organization. This is duty of all leaders and
executives.
In addition, if you think practically, success and failure depends only
on your ability to understand problem and initiate solution. If your thinking
and actions are superior than your appoints, you will succeed in achieving
your objectives. You will gain material rewards and recognition from your
superiors and peers.
2.3 Eternal and Temporary.
Atma or Soul
What does Gita say about Atma?
Ch. II. 16, 19, 20,
The unreal has no existence; the real never ceases to exist. The seers have
realized the truth about both.
- Many things in nature are unreal and unreliable while seeming to be
real and reliable-the body and the pleasure as well as pain associated
with it are unreal.
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5. Atman is Existence, it is real, and it is awareness and pure
consciousness. The body of an individual disintegrates and disappears –
body – childhood, youth, old age, the body, and not the soul experience
death. Body can be cognized and described (I am fair, I am fat, I am weak)
but Atman is beyond the domain of the mind and speech, therefore it is
immeasurable
Atman cannot be slain, it cannot be defeated, it is not born, nor does it
die. It is eternal, constant and ancient; even if the body is slaughtered,
Atman cannot be killed.
As a man casts off his old, worn clothes, puts on new garments, so
the embodied soul casts off worn-out bodies, and enters into new bodies
(BG. II 22)
3. Leadership and Bhagavadgita
These kinds of visionary, creative leaders are able to see a lot many things,
in a different manner than others.
Theory of Mgmt. is actually the study of how organizations work.
This includes study of systems and people both. A study shows that in
modern era, average life of a corporate house is only 11 years. Many times,
we have seen, new organizations crop up, they start and grow by making
products suitable to customer requirement and gradually they fade away, and
are extinguished. They go out of market for many reasons, one of which is
more and more superior companies with more good products creep in. What
happens to those people, when they go out in other company – their ideas,
their innovative practices, systems, aspirations go on to the other companies
with them – people change the company with the set of their old ideas and
thinking – companies change, they are bankrupted, their products become
outdated but actually what remains is their culture and its values. Even
products change as per the life-style, but something newer, better is formed
– strategies which are responses to situations, also change – but your core
purpose does not change and one should never think of such values to be
changing .Thus, we can say that, core values and principles are the soul of
the organization.
It should be an endeavor of every legendary leader to create and
maintain the soul of any company / organization through their principle
-centred leadership.
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6. Judging thus, a logically thinking leader or executive should always
reflect about his Atman and the atman of the organization. It should be an
effort of not only every legendary leader but also of any employee, any
executive to create and maintain the soul of every organization through their
principle-centered leadership. This principled leadership is the only
effective and authentic type of leadership. Such type of leaders can create a
positive atmosphere in their departments or organizations, also; can help
others introspect and grow. This leadership believes in listening to others’
views, giving them a feeling of being a member of the team/department. It
increases the feeling of unity in the department/organization.
4. What is Swadharma?
When you accept that you are working in competitive environment,
you need to be very clear that the basic purpose why organizations exist is to
protect interests of all its stakeholders. So we must follow all the principles,
but we should also earn enough money by running a successful business.
Every leader must think how his organization can survive, grow, lead and
prosper. Else he is not an effective leader. So having principled orientation
is utmost necessary, but not sufficient to be successful in business. It is
leaders’ job to find solutions to the problem faced by organization from
competitors, internal stakeholders. In this process, it becomes absolutely
necessary to follow some guiding ideology. Being conservative about
impact of our actions on others will make us ineffective.
It is our basic duty (Swadharma) to protect interest of our
organization. If one can do it then he or she will b considered as an effective
executive.
For a leader to be successful it is a must to understand and follow
philosophy, that is, concepts and principles. For the successful
implementation of the above points, a leader should have one more thing
and that is common sense. The practical thinking based on commonsense
differentiates ‘dreaming leaders’ from ‘successful leaders.
Swadharma is basic duty of every employee. In good old days’
Swadharma was equivalent to loyalty of an employee towards organization
and the duties of employees towards the organization, arising out of this
loyalty. It included thinking of organizational interest and not individual
interest.
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7. Having faith in organization and being ready to wait for our
expectations to be fulfilled, and staying with the organization even when
your personal objectives do not match totally with organizational objectives,
was a common picture. It was also expected that it should be done with
selfless attitude and sacrifice, for the greater cause of the organization.
Nowadays, this concept of loyalty is not appreciated or followed by
many people especially by younger employees. Most important thing is
protecting own objectives, my own interests. In addition,it is always the
opinion of an employee that as far as ‘my’ interests are satisfied I will think
about organization. They seem to be frequently changing the jobs and get
material gains as well. Thus it also appears, that, those people who stay in
one organization and one job for a long time do not gain much as much as
people above, i.e. those keep on hoping and jumping.
Now, the question is; what is Swadharma nowadays? Is it really
commitment to personal goals or organizational goals? If there is a conflict,
which one should people follow?
However, for B. G. these concepts are not mutually exclusive i.e. one
does not and cannot exist at the cost of other. Swadharma is not an outdated
concept. Nevertheless, may be people were wrong about understanding real
meaning of the concept.
Swadharma concept in business is similar to Professional approach.
My understanding to this policy is achieving
(a) Personal Mastery in a certain field and
(b)Understanding basic purpose of the organization and align personal
interests in achieving the organizational objectives.
In short, it is about protecting interests of organization, sincerely and
honestly until we are working for the organizational objectives and
objectives of one’s own job, giving away 100% to the assignment in hand,
this is professionalism, and this is Swadharma.
5. Karmayoga - (B.G. II. 47)
Seek to perform your duty, but do not lay any claim on its fruits, be
you not the producer of the fruits of action; neither shall you lean towards
inaction.
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8. There seems to be an anomaly and defeat of purpose in this injunction
of the Lord. Not atom moves without a motive. Beings are all busy either to
gain something or to ward off something unwanted. In the absence of such a
motive, no action needs to be performed. However, the Lord induces Arjuna
not only to be motivated but also to be intensively active.
Karma in itself is no evil but when it is missed up with desire, it
becomes meritless.
Karma yoga, in the corporate world is doing your job with focus on
long term objectives and not getting bothered by short term results. This is a
very effective way of working and helps executives and leaders from
burning out in their career. For an executive, to focus on important things,
they must develop professional approach of discerning between the eternal
and temporary phase of his or her career. One has to think dispassionately,
trying to figure out if the decision one is going to make is in line with our
objectives. If you think that the decision is in line with one’s objective, then
only it is productive.
Karma is basic roles and responsibilities of every executive and leader
towards business. This is fundamental duty of any executive. One cannot
be effective in any role if one runs away from Karma. If you are marketing
executive, you must ensure how market share of your organization will
increase by surpassing our competitors. Moreover, you must do everything
to plan and execute superior strategy than your competitors. Irrespective of
the success and failures, one must plan and execute all possible actions to
the best of the capabilities. Hence, thinking about progress of self and
organization is Karma of every employee. One must ensure, with each and
every action, that he or she is helping oneself as well as the organization
towards progress.
Akarma – is lack of actions in doing your basic duties. It is either neglecting
your job or running away from competition with a thought of success or
failure. So if marketing executive is over sensitive about winning over
competition, thinking that his success will drive somebody away from the
business is not at all expected. Or, thinking that if his or her attempts fail
then he cannot meet his personal goals will surely affect the effectiveness of
his actions. This is Akarma. And it is not at all in line with the basic
expectations of an organization from an individual. In addition, most
important thing is that, one cannot escape from Karma, so Akarma is neither
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9. a choice nor effective strategy for individual and organization. The same is
applied even to individual growth aspirations.
Vikarma - it is the distorted role played by an individual towards his duties
and responsibilities. It is always expected that we play our roles with certain
rules with some organizational boundaries created by core values, core
objectives. It is possible, that people adopt unfair ways and means to
achieve business or personal objectives. They can bribe people, buy their
competitors, and create wrong impression about colleagues with seniors for
some short-term gain. This is Vikarma.
Only proper and positive Karma is sustainable in longer run.
6. Prakriti and its constituent elements
The Nature of Prakriti – Human nature is Prakriti. Therefore, in
management terminology, we can say behaviour of executives and leaders
who are differ. Conditions and situations cannot always be the same. As we
have seen, response of a person will be motivated with an objective to
protect their interests. It is very natural and that is Prakriti.
But it is very important how we approach this objective.
Thinking about organizational interests along with core values, boundaries
and larges social interests like triple bottom line People, profit and planet, is
Sattva. In Gita also, it is supposed to be purest in form and illuminating in
characteristic.
Thinking about self – interests about career, progress within
organization, recognition by satisfying organizational interests is Rajas. But
excess of Rajas also brings about greed, dissatisfaction and longings.
Thinking only about self interest, at the cost of organizational interests
is Tamas. Or, thinking about only short term interests of organization
without thinking about its impact on the society or other people is Tamas.
Moreover, no human being is free from all three ways of thinking. Although
it is an endeavor of every person and every leader to inculcate Sattva and
Rajas and keep away Tamas, it is /it cannot be always possible.
Self- Atman - Human beings are psychophysical entities, but they are
spiritual beings as well.
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10. Gita preaches us that, the soul or Atman or that covert entity must be
activated, its voice should be heard, it is always believed that a self-
motivated individual does not need any extrinsic motivators, if the self is
motivated, it is like an ever charged battery of human emotions, feelings and
actions. These human beings know their goals and nothing can deter them
from achieving these goals. For self – motivated individuals the means to
achieve goals are as important as the goals themselves. For these people
wealth and power are incidental rather than causal factors of motivation.
The Gita emphasizes the necessity of recognizing the intrinsic values
of human beings. A man should uplift himself by his own self, so let him
not weaken this self. For, the self is the friend of oneself and this self is the
enemy of oneself.
In other words, each person has an innate capacity to optimize his
growth potential. Only through his own efforts can he bring himself to his
maximum growth. He can take help of a Guru or scriptures to raise him.
The final effort for growth, however, has to come from the person’s intrinsic
self. This is the core of motivation. When people are self-motivated,
nothing can stop them from achieving individual goals as well as group
goals.
In case of a society, when masses are determined to achieve results by
themselves, when they try to improve themselves by their ‘selves’ then even
impossible things can be achieved. It is this spirit of Self-help that is
continuously advocated in Gita. Incidentally, this very powerful thought lies
behind the concept of TQM –Total Quality Management, which believes in
enhancement of individual quality, aiming at its development. If quality of
every person increases then organizational quality also has to increases. It
also states that one must focus on Karma, i.e. process and assures that Phala
i.e. results will follow.
If each one of us decides to help oneself then naturally one stops
begging for help and achieve endeavors to goals on our own, placing faith
only on one’s knowledge and effort. This, in turn, would mean we shall
come out of ‘teething culture’ and be a part of ‘adult culture’, rather than
asking the institute to ‘this’ and ‘that’ we would do it ourselves. This
process will move up to the leader finally, the whole of the organization
would not only be alert but be moving only in upward or positive
direction. Action is the central tenet of the philosophy advocated in the Gita.
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11. In addition, when people learn to help themselves, they derive a sense
of satisfaction, and pride. The Japanese knew the value of self-help and
Japan is today a great nation. It is strange yet interesting that even the
Americans could not destroy their great traditional heritage or its economic
prosperity.
Japanese and Chinese economic boom is the result of unique mixture
of modernity, traditionalism and spirituality. The Japanese, the Chinese and
the Koreans are not very much ready to accept those maxims of
managements that were alien to their cultural heritage. They knew that blind
copying of western methods would just not bring results.
7. Gita also explains the concept of Lokasamgraha – which can be
translated as interaction with people and effective networking. These two
things are very important for a person working in any organization. In
modern and complex organizations, no single person is capable to achieve
any objective alone. Every leader needs a team of effective people to
understand their idea and take it forward up to the stage of complete
implementation. One needs to find to properly select eight people for eight
jobs, train them for your purpose, measure their performance, motivate them
for the task, continuously coach, and guide them for improvement.
Every leader should have this networking or people management
competency o succeed in organization. If you want to climb up on the
corporate leader, then your functional knowledge becomes very much
necessary but not sufficient. You must possess excellent team management
or people management skills.
8. Motivation
The Bhagavad Gita is more inclined to explain how of ‘, ‘intrinsic’
motivators and ‘self motivation are more effective than extrinsic’
motivators.
Managements the world over have followed and developed motivational
techniques for its employees based principally on any of these theories or a
combination of the two approaches:-
Man is selfish in nature; he needs external drive to work. Hence putting
pressure, command and control mechanism is the best way to manage him.
Every person has internal drive to grow and excel in life. And hence
motivating him, encouraging him, trusting him is best way to manage.
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12. What does Gita Say?
Man has both good and bad elements existing simultaneously in him.
‘Kama( desire)’, ‘Krodh (anger)’, ‘Moha (Delusion)’ and ‘Lobha (Greed)’
co-exist with ‘Drive to excel –Unnati and ultimately to Liberation( Moksha).
‘Self-motivation’ is the key to happiness and prosperity for a society
Apparently, human beings are psycho-physical entities, but they are
spiritual beings as well. Besides the physiological and nervous systems of
man, there is a covert entity which is his real self, soul or ‘Atman’—the Gita
preaches that it is this voice of ‘Atman’ (the eternal self) that must be
activated to motivate an individual. Once the process has been set into
motion, it would be difficult to stop it. Self-motivated individuals need no
‘extrinsic motivators’, they are there, within their ‘internalized-selves’—an
ever charging battery of human sentiments, emotions and actions. These
individuals know their goals and nothing can deter them from achieving
these goals. For ‘self-motivated’ individuals, the means to achieve the goals
are as important as the goal itself. Usually, they work for the larger interests
of society rather than for their personal gains. Wealth and power are
incidental, rather than causal factors of motivation.
Human Dignity—The Core of Self-Motivation
The Gita emphasizes the necessity of recognizing the intrinsic values of
human beings.
(A man should lift himself by his own self, so let him not weaken this self.
For the self is the friend of oneself, and this self is the enemy of oneself.)
In other words, each individual has an innate capacity to optimise his growth
potential. Only through his own efforts can he bring himself to his maximum
growth. He can take the help of a Guru or scriptures to raise himself. The
final effort for growth, however, has to come from the person’s ‘intrinsic
self. This is the core of motivation. When people are self-motivated, nothing
can stop them from achieving their goals and group goals as well.
Implications of ‘Self-Motivation’
Let us now think of the picture of a ‘self-motivated’ society which the Gita
pleads for. Realising that the core of human motivation is self-motivation,
the Gita preaches the ‘mantra’ of self-help and human dignity. Let us
visualise its implications for organizations.
When the ‘masses’ are determined to achieve results by themselves, when
they try to improve themselves, by their ‘selves’, then even the impossible
can be made possible. It is this spirit of ‘self-help’ that is advocated in the
Gita. Incidentally this is core thought behind very powerful concept of TQM
– Total Quality Management movement. It believes, we must improve
quality of work of all employees and then organization quality also
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13. improves. It also states one must focus on – Process ( Karma ) and results
( Fala ) will be achieved automatically.
If each one of us decided to help ourselves—what would it mean? In the first
instance, it would mean that we shall stop begging for help and achieve the
goals ourselves. This, in turn, would mean that we shall come out of what I
term as the ‘teething culture’ to that of an ‘adult culture’. Instead of asking
the organisations to do this or that, we shall do it ourselves. This, in turn,
would move the organization, the leader. . A whole organization would not
only be alert but be moving in ‘action’. Action is the central tenet of the
philosophy advocated in the Gita. The Lord says:
Lokesmin Dwidha Nishtha
Pura Prokta Maya Anagh
Dnyana Yogen Sankhayanam
Karma Yogen Yoginam.
Thirdly, when people learn to help themselves, they derive a sense of
satisfaction and pride which is hard to describe. They walk with their heads
held high, their eyes gleaming with satisfaction. The Japanese know the
value of self-help and Japan is today a great nation. It is strange that not
even the Americans could destroy its great traditional heritage nor its
economic prosperity. Japanese economic boom is the result of a unique
mixture of modernity, traditionality and spirituality. The Japanese refused to
accept those maxims of managements that were alien to their cultural
heritage. (The western maxims should go with the Japanese maxims or else
they had to be thrown out.) They knew that blind copying of western
methods would just not bring results.
Mr. Rensis Likert – a well known person who has contributed to
development of Behavioural Science said regarding human as follows:
‘. . . Thus these results suggest an important conclusion as to the nature of
human motivation. An examination of the results presented here and of
results from other research shows that every human being earnestly seeks a
secure, friendly and supportive relationship and one that gives him a sense
of personal worth in face to face groups most important to him . . . Human
nature seems to motivate each of us to establish and maintain these friendly
supportive relationships in those face to face groups in which we spend most
of our lives. Either we successfully establish these friendly and supportive
relationships or we crack up.
‘It is not surprising, therefore, that we see people generally striving for a
sense of dignity and personal worth. We all seem to seek recognition and a
sense of importance in terms of the values and goals which we cherish and
which our most important face to face groups also cherish.
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14. ‘To say that people seek friendly and supportive relationships, does not
mean that they seek to be coddled. Quite the contrary, people seek to achieve
a sense of importance from doing difficult but important tasks which help to
implement goals which they and their friends seek.’
In conclusion, it may be stated that an effort was made to emphasize the
necessity of ‘self-motivation’ for our socio- economic set-up. The Gita
suggests two lessons for us if we are to prosper—treat an individual with
utmost dignity and help him to help himself. If this could be achieved,
employees will feel proud and make organization proud with their
performance.
9. Yajnachakra
The concept of Yajnachakra is based on cyclic nature of human life cycle.
These are rituals which believe human beings get their share from nature
which they term as God . So it is duty of every human being to recognize the
same with gratitude and offer some of the gains back to the nature / gods /
society. And if this is followed by everyone, will uplift quality of human
material and spiritual aspects and uninterrupted progress of mankind.
Bhagavad Gita explains this with example of Yajnachakra - Cycle of
Sacrifice.
What is Yajna Chakra?
Chakra is cycle, and yajna is sacrifice. In Chapter 3 of Bhagavadgita it is
said that a person should always serve to God. Whatever a person partakes
should be first offered to god. Bhagavad Gita says that as every person is
bound by actions one should perform action meant for god, without any
personal attachment he should try to serve god. Lord created human beings
in this universe along with sacrifice and was advised that if human nourishes
God with sacrifices then the god will also nourish human in return. Being
nourished by sacrifices the Gods indeed will give the coveted enjoyments.
A person who partake the remnants of sacrifice, he becomes free from all
sins. Viz a Viz it says that a person is equivalent to be a thief who enjoys
what have been given to him, without offering to others and he is treated as
unholy persons who cook food for self, incur sin.
From Managerial aspect if we look this Yajnachakra, we replace the word
God with stakeholder then it will be that a cordial relation has to be
maintained with the stakeholder at every step if we like to be happy and
prospering.
Entire cycle has been explained in Gita as follows-From food are born the
creatures, the origin of food is from rainfall, rainfall originates from
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15. sacrifice, and sacrifice has action as its origin, action has the Vedas as its
origin, the Vedas have the immutable as their source, hence the all pervading
Vedas are forever based on sacrifice.
In corporate world, where we think primary motive of the leaders and
shareholders is to get money and get more and more money, we wonder how
this concept can be implemented.
But analysis of fortune of 500 companies revels that organizations which
sustain as business leaders for many years, are built on a foundation of
“creating wealth for society & ecosystem surrounding them”. If they give
back what they gain from surroundings, they will get goodwill, good brand
image, good employees, many customers and good profit.
This is what Mr. C K Prahalada has said - Idea that corporations can
simultaneously create value and social justice.
This is what Dr. Sumantra Ghoshal has said - Corporations are not merely
profit machines reacting to market forces; they are run by and for humans,
and have a symbiotic relationship with the world around them. There is no
inherent conflict between the economic well-being of companies and their
serving as a force for good in societies
This is importance of Yajnachakra to the corporate.
True, organizations of 20th century were basically aiming self progress. But
they forgot that organizations are part of the larger society. They consume
natural resources available for making their products. And hence if they are
not sensitive to what is happening around, what is impact of their product
and organization on society then they cannot survive in longer term.
So now every corporation is very serious about Corporate Social
Responsibility. If you get resources from the society and make profit and
progress, you must be prepared to share your gains with the society. This
can be achieved by being a Good corporate citizenship. So be a good
corporate, pay all the government taxes, take care that your organization
does not create pollution in any form which will affect quality of human life
and also share some of your surplus to the underprivileged people, parts of
the society.
This is called as Sustainability movement – which has a mantra. Focus of
triple bottom line- People, Planet and Profit. All corporations which are
listed on stock exchange now publish status of their organization with
sustainability. They share their profit for social cause, encourage their
employees for ESOP – Employee Social Options Plan. They support
employees to go on sabbaticals and take up the jobs like teaching (a
campaign from Times of India to create English teachers for rural areas) etc.
They do tree plantation etc.
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16. So a responsible corporate is now- a- days aware that
He should achieve sustainable growth to this corporation - not by
threatening society interest.
He should achieve results by not harming interests of the society
He must share his gains back to the society in some form.
He must encourage all employees and managers to understand this
philosophy and actively participate in the same.
Last but not least - create focus of shareholders on People, Planet and Profit.
10. Daivi Sampad – Asuri Sampad
Separateness of the Divine and Undivine
In the corporate world, we can see all types of leaders and employees.
Take example of Satyam Computes. Its promoter and CEO Mr. Ramalingam
Raju cheated employees, government and shareholders. For his lust to get
more money ( Moha & Lobha ) he devised frequent means to get more
money. There was “No Truth, No Purity and No rule in his life” as said by
Krishna in this chapter. Further he got himself to “Evil Deeds” and in the
blindness cleaving to their errors, caught Into the sinful course, trusted this
lie as if it were true and this resulted in downfall of himself, his management
team and his organization.
Same happened with Enron Corporation, Lehman Brothers and many other
corporations.
Krishna has described their thought process so well as below stated in
Bhagavad Gita chapter 9 and chapter 16:-
It is said that the persons with the demonic thoughts do not understand what
is to be done and what not to be done and purity, good conduct and
truthfulness does not exist in them. They always strongly plan for ruining
the world. The actions of such persons always will be full of insatiable
passion filled with vanity, pride, arrogance, adopting bad objectives due to
delusion, and having improper resolves. These people are bound by
hundreds of shackles in the form of hope, giving themselves wholly to
passion and anger, they endeavour to amass wealth through foul means for
the enjoyment of desirable objects. They always think that this has been
gained by me today and tomorrow I will acquire this much wealth, my
enemies have been killed, I am the Lord. The so called good deeds
performed by such a person is always with a motive and not selfless.
In reverse to this the persons with godly thoughts are having the quality of
fearlessness, purity of mind, nature of doing charity and control of the
external organs, sacrifice, study, austerity and rectitude. The other qualities
being non injury, truthfulness, absence of anger, renunciation, control of the
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17. internal organ absence of vilifications, kindness to creatures, non
covetousness, gentleness, modesty, freedom from restlessness, vigour,
forgiveness, fortitude, purity freedom from malice, and absence of
haughtiness due to which they always think for the benefit of the stake
holders first and then about their family and personal gains.
No need to say further. These are the characteristics of many leaders and
many employees today. The most important thought is they are born again
and again to do same wrong things. So if a bad employee or bad leader is
punished from one organization, they start new business, join new
organization and indulge in same thing again and again.
But still we see good organizations. Good leaders. Who prove taste of time
for generations and build a foundation of sustainable, reputed organization.
This is Divine leadership. But it is not very easy to follow. It takes long time
to establish such organizations.
*****
Questions
1. Explain the relevance of Arjuna Vishada in today’s Corporate World.
2. Explain the concept of Swadharma and its linkage with the basic approach
to work.
3. What are the characteristic features of Motivation as per the
Bhagavadgita?
4. How do you understand Yajnachakra in Corporate life?
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