BHAGAVAD GITA AND MANAGEMENT (Part - 2)
By M.P.BHATTATHIRY 

Read Part 1

Bhagavad Gita And Managerial Effectiveness

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.

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 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 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 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 one's work for the common good.

Work Commitment

The popular verse 2.47 of the Gita 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 agitations 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 Gita 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 Gita in performing his swadharma.

Bhagavad Gita is full of advice on the theory of cause and effect, making
the doer responsible for the consequences of his deeds. The Gita, 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 Gita 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 Gita. 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 Gita 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. Tagore says working for love is
freedom in action which is described as disinterested work in the Gita. 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
Sri Krishna in the Third Chapter of Gita 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 Sri 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 Gita Sri 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 Gita 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 Gita
evolved the goal of unification of work ethic with ethics in work, for
without ethical process no mind can attain equipoise. Adi Sankara 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 Gita 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 Gita theory takes us to freedom and real
happiness.

Read Part 3