Bhagavad
Gîta and Management
by: M.P. B.
(info/email)
Summary
(ed.):
'Management of
time is a systematic way of doing all activities
in any field of human effort. The westem
management thought of prosperity to some for
some time has absolutely failed in its aim to
ensure betterment of individual life and social
welfare. The despondent position of Arjuna in
the first chapter of the Gîta
is typical for this human situation which may
come in the life of all men of action some time
or other. Lord Krishna in the Gîta advises
how to manage for a better time. His
Time.'
Contents:
"Mind is
very restless, forceful and strong,O Krishna, it
is more difficult to control the mind than to
control the wind"
Arjuna
to S'rî Krishna
Introduction
India's one of
the greatest contributions to the world is
Holy
Gîta.
Arjuna got
mentally depressed when he saw his relatives
with whom he has to fight. The Bhagavad
Gîta is preached in the battle field
Kurukshetra by Lord Krishna to Arjuna as a
counselling to do his duty. It has got all the
management tactics to achieve the mental
equilibrium..
Management has
become a part and parcel in everyday life, be it
at home, office, factory, Government, or in any
other organization where a group of human beings
assemble for a common purpose, management
principles come into play through their various
facets like management of time, resources,
personnel, materials, machinery, finance,
planning, priorities, policies and
practice.
Management is
a systematic way of doing all activities in any
field of human effort. It is about keeping
oneself engaged in interactive relationship with
other human beings in the course of performing
one's duty. Its task is to make people capable
of joint performance, to make their weaknesses
irrelevant -so says the Management Guru
P.
D..
It strikes
harmony in working -equilibrium in thoughts and
actions, goals and achievements, plans and
performance, products and markets. It resolves
situations of scarcities be they in the
physical, technical or human fields through
maximum utilization with the minimum available
processes to achieve the goal
The lack of
management will cause disorder, confusion,
wastage, delay, destruction and even depression.
Managing men, money and material in the best
possible way according to circumstances and
environment is the most important and essential
factor for a successful management. Managing men
is supposed have the best tactics. Man is the
first syllable in management which speaks
volumes on the role and significance of man in a
scheme of management practices. From the
pre-historic days of aborigines to the present
day of robots and computers the ideas of
managing available resources have been in
existence in some form or other. When the world
has become a big global village now, management
practices have become more complex and what was
once considered a golden rule is now thought to
be an anachronism.
Management
Guidelines from The Bhagavad
Gîta
There is
an important distinction between effectiveness
and efficiency in managing.
Effectiveness
is doing the right things and
Efficiency
is doing things right.
The
general principles of effective management can
be applied in every fields the differences being
mainly in the application than in principles.
Again, effective management is not limited in
its application only to business or industrial
enterprises but to all organisations where the
aim is to reach a given goal through a Chief
Executive or a Manager with the help of a group
of workers.
The
Manager's functions can be briefly summed up as
under :
Forming
a vision and planning the strategy to realise
such vision.
Cultivating
the art of leadership
Establishing
the institutional excellence and building an
innovative organisation.
Developing
human resources.
Team
building and teamwork
Delegation,
motivation, and communication and
Reviewing
performance and taking corrective steps
whenever called for.
Thus
Management is a process in search of excellence
to align people and get them committed to work
for a common goal to the maximum social
benefit.
The
critical question in every Manager's mind is how
to be effective in his job. The answer to this
fundamental question is found in the
Bhagavad
Gîta
which repeatedly proclaims that 'you try to
manage yourself'. The reason is that unless the
Manager reaches a level of excellence and
effectiveness that sets him apart from the
others whom he is managing, he will be merely a
face in the crowd and not an
achiever.
In this
context the Bhagavad Gîta expounded
thousands of years ago by the Super Management
Guru
Bhagawan S'rî
Krishna
enlightens us on all managerial techniques
leading to a harmonious and blissful state of
affairs as against conflicts, tensions, lowest
efficiency and least productivity, absence of
motivation and lack of work culture etc common
to most of the Indian enterprises
today.
The
modern management concepts like vision,
leadership, motivation, excellence in work,
achieving goals, meaning of work, attitude
towards work, nature of individual, decision
making, planning etc., are all discussed in the
Bhagavad
Gîta
with a sharp insight and finest analysis to
drive through our confused grey matter making it
highly eligible to become a part of the modem
management syllabus.
It may
be noted that while Western design on management
deals with the problems at superficial,
material, external and peripheral levels, the
ideas contained in the Bhagavad
Gîta
tackle the issues from the grass roots level of
human thinking because once the basic thinking
of man is improved it will automatically enhance
the quality of his actions and their
results.
The
management thoughts emanating from the Western
countries particularly the U.S.A. are based
mostly on the lure for materialism and a
perennial thirst for profit irrespective of the
quality of the means adopted to achieve that
goal. This phenomenon has its source in
abundance in the West particularly the U.S.A.
Management by materialism caught the fancy of
all the countries the world over, India being no
exception to this trend.
Our
country has been in the forefront in importing
those ideas mainly because of its centuries old
indoctrination by the colonial rulers which
inculcated in us a feeling that anything Western
is always good and anything Indian is always
inferior. Hence our management schools have
sprung up on the foundations of materialistic
approach wherein no place of importance was
given to a holistic view.
The
result is while huge funds have been invested in
building these temples of modem management
education, no perceptible changes are visible in
the improvement of the quality of life although
the standard of living of a few has gone up. The
same old struggles in almost all sectors of the
economy, criminalisation of institutions, more
and more social violence, exploitation and such
other vices have gone deep in the body
politic.
The
reasons for this sorry state of affairs are not
far to seek. The western idea of management has
placed utmost reliance on the worker (which
includes Managers also) -to make him more
efficient, to increase his productivity. They
pay him more so that he may work more, produce
more, sell more and will stick to the
organisation without looking for alternatives.
The sole aim of extracting better and more work
from him is for improving the bottom-line of the
enterprise. Worker has become a hireable
commodity, which can be used, replaced and
discarded at will.
The
workers have also seen through the game plan of
their paymasters who have reduced them to the
state of a mercantile product. They changed
their attitude to work and started adopting such
measures as uncalled for strikes,
Gheraos,
sit-ins, dharnas,
go-slows, work-to-rule etc to get maximum
benefit for themselves from the organisations
without caring the least for the adverse impact
that such coercive methods will cause to the
society at large.
Thus we
have reached a situation where management and
workers have become separate and contradictory
entities wherein their approaches are different
and interests are conflicting. There is no
common goal or understanding which predictably
leads to constant suspicion, friction,
disillusions and mistrust because of working at
cross purposes. The absence of human values and
erosion of human touch in the organisational
structure resulted in a permanent crisis of
confidence.
The
westem management thoughts although acquired
prosperity to some for some time has absolutely
failed in their aim to ensure betterment of
individual life and social welfare. It has
remained by and large a soulless management
edifice and an oasis of plenty for a chosen few
in the midst of poor quality of life to many.
Hence there is an urgent need to have a re-look
at the prevalent management discipline on its
objectives, scope and content.
It
should be redefined so as to underline the
development of the worker as a man, as a human
being with all his positive and negative
characteristics and not as a mere wage-earner.
In this changed perspective, management ceases
to be a career-agent but becomes an instrument
in the process of national development in all
its segments.
Bhagavad
Gîta And Managerial
Effectiveness
Now let
us re-examine some of the modern management
concepts in the light of the Bhagavad
Gîta
which is a primer of management by
values.
Utilisation
of Available Resources
The
first lesson in the management science is to
choose wisely and utilise optimally the scarce
resources if one has to succeed in his venture.
During the curtain raiser before the Mahabharata
War Duryodhana chose S'rî Krishna's large
army for his help while Arjuna selected
S'rî Krishna's wisdom for his support.
This episode gives us a clue as to who is an
Effective Manager.
Attitude
Towards Work
Three
stone-cutters were engaged in erecting a temple.
As usual a H.R.D. 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 Gîta
tells us is to develop the visionary perspective
in the work we do. It tells us to develop a
sense of larger vision in one's work for the
common good.
Work
Commitment
The
popular verse 2.47
of the
Gîta
advises non- attachment to the fruits or results
of actions performed in the course of one's
duty. Dedicated work has to mean 'work for the
sake of work'. If we are always calculating the
date of promotion for putting in our efforts,
then such work cannot be commitment-oriented
causing excellence in the results but it will be
promotion-oriented resulting in inevitable
disappointments. By tilting the performance
towards the anticipated benefits, the quality of
performance of the present duty suffers on
account of the mental aGîtations caused by
the anxieties of the future. Another reason for
non-attachment to results is the fact that
workings of the world are not designed to
positively respond to our calculations and hence
expected fruits may not always be forthcoming
.
So, the
Gîta tells us not to mortgage the present
commitment to an uncertain future. If we are not
able to measure up to this height, then surly
the fault lies with us and not with the
teaching.
Some people
argue that being unattached to the consequences
of one's action would make one un-accountable as
accountability is a much touted word these days
with the vigilance department sitting on our
shoulders. However, we have to understand that
the
entire second
chapter
has arisen as a sequel to the temporarily lost
sense of accountability on the part of Arjuna in
the
first chapter of the
Gîta
in performing his swadharma.
Bhagavad
Gîta is full of advice on the theory of
cause and effect, making the doer responsible
for the consequences of his deeds. The
Gîta, while advising detachment from the
avarice of selfish gains by discharging one's
accepted duty, does not absolve anybody of the
consequences arising from discharge of his
responsibilities.
This
verse
is a brilliant guide to the operating Manager
for psychological energy conservation and a
preventive method against stress and burn-outs
in the work situations. Learning managerial
stress prevention methods is quite costly now
days and if only we understand the Gîta we
get the required cure free of cost.
Thus the
best means for effective work performance is to
become the work itself. Attaining this state of
nishkama karma is the right attitude to work
because it prevents the ego, the mind from
dissipation through speculation on future gains
or losses.
It has
been presumed for long that satisfying lower
needs of a worker like adequate food, clothing
and shelter, recognition, appreciation, status,
personality development etc are the key factors
in the motivational theory of personnel
management.
It is
the common experience that the spirit of
grievances from the clerk to the Director is
identical and only their scales and composition
vary. It should have been that once the
lower-order needs are more than satisfied, the
Director should have no problem in optimising
his contribution to the organisation. But more
often than not, it does not happen like that;
the eagle soars high but keeps its eyes firmly
fixed on the dead animal below. On the contrary
a lowly paid school teacher, a self-employed
artisan, ordinary artistes demonstrate higher
levels of self- realization despite poor
satisfaction of their lower- order
needs.
This
situation is explained by the theory of
Self-transcendence or Self-realisation
propounded in the
Gîta.
Self-transcendence is overcoming insuperable
obstacles in one's path. It involves renouncing
egoism, putting others before oneself, team
work, dignity, sharing, co-operation, harmony,
trust, sacrificing lower needs for higher goals,
seeing others in you and yourself in others etc.
The portrait of a self-realising person is that
he is a man who aims at his own position and
underrates everything else. On the other hand
the Self-transcenders are the visionaries and
innovators. Their resolute efforts enable them
to achieve the apparently impossible. They
overcome all barriers to reach their
goal.
The work
must be done with detachment.' This is because
it is the Ego which spoils the work. If this is
not the backbone of the Theory of Motivation
which the modern scholars talk about what else
is it? I would say that this is not merely a
theory of Motivation but it is a theory of
Inspiration.
The
Gîta
further advises to perform action with loving
attention to the Divine which implies
redirection of the empirical self away from its
egocentric needs, desires, and passions for
creating suitable conditions to perform actions
in pursuit of excellence. T.
says working for love is freedom in action which
is described as disinterested work in the
Gîta.
It is on the basis of the holistic vision that
Indians have developed the work-ethos of life.
They found that all work irrespective of its
nature have to be directed towards a single
purpose that is the manifestation of essential
divinity in man by working for the good of all
beings -lokasangraha. This vision was presented
to us in the very
first mantra of
lsopanishad
which says that whatever exists in the Universe
is enveloped by God. How shall we enjoy this
life then, if all are one? The answer it
provides is enjoy and strengthen life by
sacrificing your selfishness by not coveting
other's wealth. The same motivation is given by
S'rî Krishna in the
Third Chapter of
Gîta
when He says that 'He who shares the wealth
generated only after serving the people, through
work done as a sacrifice for them, is freed from
all the sins. On the contrary those who earn
wealth only for themselves, eat sins that lead
to frustration and failure.'
The
disinterested work finds expression in devotion,
surrender and equipoise. The former two are
psychological while the third is the
strong-willed determination to keep the mind
free of and above the dualistic pulls of daily
experiences. Detached involvement in work is the
key to mental equanimity or the state of
nirdwanda. This attitude leads to a stage where
the worker begins to feel the presence of the
Supreme Intelligence guiding the empirical
individual intelligence. Such de-personified
intelligence is best suited for those who
sincerely believe in the supremacy of
organisational goals as compared to narrow
personal success and achievement.
Work
culture means vigorous and arduous effort in
pursuit of a given or chosen task. When Bhagawan
S'rî Krishna rebukes Arjuna in the
strongest words for his unmanliness and
imbecility in recoiling from his righteous duty
it is nothing but a clarion call for the highest
work culture. Poor work culture is the result of
tamo guna overtaking one's mindset. Bhagawan's
stinging rebuke is to bring out the temporarily
dormant rajo guna in Arjuna. In
Chapter 16 of the
Gîta
S'rî Krishna elaborates on two types of
Work Ethic viz. daivi sampat or divine work
culture and asuri sampat or demonic work
culture.
Daivi
work culture - means fearlessness, purity,
self-control, sacrifice, straightforwardness,
self-denial, calmness, absence of
fault-finding, absence of greed, gentleness,
modesty, absence of envy and pride.
Asuri
work culture - means egoism, delusion,
desire-centric, improper performance, work
which is not oriented towards service. It is
to be noted that mere work ethic is not
enough in as much as a hardened criminal has
also a very good work culture. What is needed
is a work ethic conditioned by ethics in
work.
It is in
this light that the counsel 'yogah karmasu
kausalam' should be understood. Kausalam means
skill or method or technique of work which is an
indispensable component of work ethic. Yogah is
defined in the Gîta itself as 'samatvam
yogah uchyate' meaning unchanging equipoise of
mind. Tilak tells us that performing actions
with the special device of an equable mind is
Yoga. By making the equable mind as the bed-rock
of all actions Gîta evolved the goal of
unification of work ethic with ethics in work,
for without ethical process no mind can attain
equipoise. A.
S.
says that the skill in performance of one's duty
consists in maintaining the evenness of mind in
success and failure because the calm mind in
failure will lead him to deeper introspection
and see clearly where the process went wrong so
that corrective steps could be taken to avoid
such shortcomings in future.
The
principle of reducing our attachment to personal
gains from the work done or controlling the
aversion to personal losses enunciated in
Ch.2
Verse 47 of the
Gîta
is the foolproof prescription for attaining
equanimity. The common apprehension about this
principle that it will lead to lack of incentive
for effort and work, striking at the very root
of work ethic, is not valid because the advice
is to be judged as relevant to man's overriding
quest for true mental happiness. Thus while the
common place theories on motivation lead us to
bondage, the Gîta theory takes us to
freedom and real happiness.
Work
Results
The
Gîta further explains the theory of non-
attachment to the results of work in
Ch.18
Verses 13-15
the import of which is as under:
If
the result of sincere effort is a success,
the entire credit should not be appropriated
by the doer alone.
If
the result of sincere effort is a failure,
then too the entire blame does not accrue to
the doer.
The
former attitude mollifies arrogance and conceit
while the latter prevents excessive despondency,
de-motivation and self-pity. Thus both these
dispositions safeguard the doer against
psychological vulnerability which is the cause
for the Modem Managers' companions like
Diabetes, High B.P. Ulcers etc.
Assimilation
of the ideas behind 2.47 and 18.13-15 of the
Gîta leads us to the wider spectrum of
lokasamgraha or general welfare.
There is
also another dimension in the work ethic. If the
karmayoga is blended with bhaktiyoga then the
work itself becomes worship, a seva
yoga.
Manager's
Mental Health
The
ideas mentioned above have a close bearing on
the end-state of a manager which is his mental
health. Sound mental health is the very goal of
any human activity more so management. An expert
describes sound mental health as 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 rat-race are speed and
greed as well as ambition and competition. The
natural fallout from these forces is erosion of
one's ethico-moral fibre which supersedes the
value system as a means in the entrepreneurial
path like tax evasion, undercutting, spreading
canards against the competitors, entrepreneurial
spying, instigating industrial strife in the
business rivals' establishments etc. Although
these practices are taken as normal business
hazards for achieving progress, they always end
up as a pursuit of mirage - the more the needs
the more the disappointments. This phenomenon
may be called as yayati-syndrome.
In
Mahabharata we come across a
king called Yayati
who,
in order to revel in the endless enjoyment of
flesh exchanged his old age with the youth of
his obliging youngest son for a mythical
thousand years. However, he lost himself in the
pursuit of sensual enjoyments and felt penitent.
He came back to his son pleading to take back
his youth. This yayati syndrome shows the
conflict between externally directed
acquisitions, motivations and inner reasoning,
emotions and conscience.
Gîta
tells us how to get out of this universal
phenomenon by prescribing the following
capsules.
Cultivate
sound philosophy of life.
Identify
with inner core of
self-sufficiency
Get
out of the habitual mindset towards the pairs
of opposites.
Strive
for excellence through work is
worship.
Build
up an internal integrated reference point to
face contrary impulses, and
emotions
Pursue
ethico-moral rectitude.
Cultivating
this understanding by a manager would lead him
to emancipation from falsifying ego-conscious
state of confusion and distortion, to a state of
pure and free mind i.e. universal, supreme
consciousness wherefrom he can prove his
effectiveness in discharging whatever duties
that have fallen to his domain.
Bhagawan's
advice is relevant here
:
"tasmaat
sarveshu kaaleshu mamanusmarah yuddha
cha"
'Therefore
under all circumstances remember Me and then
fight' (Fight means perform your
duties)
Management
Needs those Who Practise what they
Preach
Whatever
the excellent and best ones do, the commoners
follow, so
says S'rî Krishna in the
Gîta.
This is the leadership quality prescribed in the
Gîta. The visionary leader must also 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 S'rî Krishna in the 7
th Chapter of the Gîta.
The
Ultimate Message of Gîta for
Managers
The despondent
position of Arjuna in the first chapter of the
Gîta
is a typical human situation which may come in
the life of all men of action some time or
other. S'rî Krishna by sheer power of his
inspiring words raised the level of Arjuna's
mind from the state of inertia to the state of
righteous action, from the state of
faithlessness to the state of faith and
self-confidence in the ultimate victory of
Dharma(ethical action). They are the powerful
words of courage of strength, of self
confidence, of faith in one's own infinite
power, of the glory, of valour in the life of
active people and of the need for intense
calmness in the midst of intense
action.
When
Arjuna got over his despondency and stood ready
to fight, S'rî Krishna gave him the gospel
for using his spirit of intense action not for
his own benefit, not for satisfying his own
greed and desire, but for using his action for
the good of many, with faith in the ultimate
victory of ethics over unethical actions and
truth over untruth. Arjuna responds by
emphatically declaring that all his delusions
were removed and that he is ready to do what is
expected of him in the given
situation.
S'rî
Krishna's advice with regard to temporary
failures in actions 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.
And
finally the Gîta's
consoling message for all men of action is :
He
who follows My ideal in all walks of life
without losing faith in the ideal or never
deviating from it, I provide him with all that
he needs (Yoga) and protect what he has already
got
(Kshema).
In
conclusion the purport of this essay is not to
suggest discarding of the Western model of
efficiency, dynamism and striving for excellence
but to make these ideals tuned to the India's
holistic attitude of lokasangraha -for the
welfare of many, for the good of many. The idea
is that these management skills should be
India-centric and not America-centric.
Swami
V. says
a combination of both these approaches will
certainly create future leaders of India who
will be far superior to any that have ever been
in the world.
M.P.B.
Notes
:
The
Gherao ('encirclement') is a Bengali labor
tactic in which the workers surround management
and refuse to let them leave.
This article
was also published at: www.keralaonline.com,
at boloji.com,
at jaihanuman.org,
at theblackdog.net,
at sulekha.com,
at ebookmall.com,
at ukbest50.co.uk,
at kimwoodbridge.com
an at:
indolink.com.
Bio-info:
M.P. B., or
mr. M.P. Bhattathiry was born into a family of
priests but graduated as an engineer. He has
recently retired from being Chief Technical
Examiner to the Goverment of Kerala in India.
His wife, Radha, has also retired, she from the
Banking Service. They have three sons, the
youngest of whom is also studying to be an
engineer.
Relevant
Links:
http://www.theworkingmanager.com/
http://gîta.bhagavata.org/
http://srimadbhagavatam.org
What
scholars have said: Excerpts from reviews of the
'Bhagavad-Gîta as it
is'
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Experience
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