March 1, 2009
Krishna, Not Kotler, Guides Indian Management Gurus By
James Jose and Pupul Dutta
New Delhi
The next time you hear someone recite verses from the Bhagavad-Gita,
pay more attention. The wisdom of the ancient Indian scriptures may
come in handy in tackling issues from management strategies to
corporate governance in today's highly competitive world of
business.
Far fetched?
Consider this: Motivational gurus and management experts like Deepak
Chopra, C.K. Prahalad, Arindam Chaudhuri, Shiv Khera and Mrityunjay
B. Athreya are increasingly borrowing from ancient Hindu scriptures
to cope with the modern-day business management challenges.
"Lord Krishna says in the Bhagavad-Gita, yoga is excellence in
action," said leading management consultant Harish Bijoor. "We
preach it as a basic tenet in our sessions - that one can derive a
higher state of being in an organization by achieving excellence in
action and be consistent in doing so," Bijoor told IANS.
Krishna may indeed give management guru Philip Kotler - whose
strategies on marketing are routinely referred to in classrooms and
boardrooms alike - a run for his money, management gurus maintain.
"Quite a few business strategies owe their origins to Hindu myths.
According to Indian religious texts, 'swa-dharma' or self ethics can
be used to achieve quality in all the functions of a company,"
Bijoor maintained.
Agreed Athreya, who took the example of "Neelakantha" Lord Shiva's
epithet, when his throat turned blue after drinking the poison
churned up from ocean so that the magic potion of mortality could be
partaken by his followers to defeat the demons, or evil.
"This act symbolizes courage, initiative, willingness, discipline,
simplicity and austerity - these are all the qualities that
successful business leaders, as also managers, preach," Athreya, a
specialist in Vedic management, told IANS.
Such myths are relevant more than ever today as businesses the world
over have begun to retrench workers and cut down on employee
benefits and charity in the wake of the current meltdown, the
experts said.
"It is the dharma of all organizations to focus more on corporate
social responsibility and protect employees' interests in this hour
of crisis. A company should make profits during the good times and
help people in bad times," Athreya said.
"Firms should reduce prices, be content with a lower profit margin
and eliminate waste."
Quoting Yudhishthira in the Mahabharata, Athreya said: "Every day,
people see creatures depart to (god of death) Yama's abode. Yet,
those who remain seek to live forever. This verily is the greatest
wonder."
Similarly, he said, people retire every day, jobs are lost, and
sometimes it is seen as unavoidable as has been seen during the
current economic turmoil.
"But the impact of the crisis and the consequent sense of insecurity
can be contained if managements become 'deerghdarshi' (far-sighted),
and try to evade the crisis even before it happens."
Ancient wisdom will also help mitigate fears about competition.
"A lot of people are bothered about what competition is doing. We
too advise managers to look at competition, but in a benign way.
Look at them as ethical people, who are just doing their job and you
are doing yours," said Bijoor.
Some of the oldest sacred texts of Hinduism, the Vedas and the
Upanishads, can help in scripting an ideal corporate governance
philosophy.
"The management should be 'saatvik', meaning balanced and orderly.
They should take care of their customers and business partners,
besides their employees. That is the backbone of any sound corporate
governance model," Athreya said, quoting from these scriptures.
Companies have started adopting ancient Indian wisdom and techniques
like the Sudarshan Kriya, a complete body workout regime, and
followed in corporate stress management workshops. Software giant
Wipro, for example, has a programme dedicated to improving mental
state of its employees using meditation and yoga.
Bijoor, however, feels Indian managers are still smitten by western
management philosophies. "I routinely quote from texts like the
Ramayana in the sessions that I hold for corporates around the
world", he said.
"But it is ironical that businesses in countries like Germany and
France are adopting the wisdom of Vedas while our people are still
besotted with western philosophies."
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