I have been pondering over to find relevance of Srimad Bhagwad Geeta to the way we manage our work more specific to the IT Industry business processes. I must also confess that these are my views and is not intended to hurt any individual or group in specific. Resemblance to any specific individual or group is mere coincidence.
In the series of these articles, I am going to pick a few shlokas from Srimad Bhagwad Geeta and explain the shloka from the spiritual point of view as explained by yogis and renowned speakers. I would then submit my interpretation of the same with reference to business processes in IT Industry.
Let's begin with a shloka in Chapter One of the Srimad Bhagwad Geeta
11. "So, while keeping to your respective stations in the several divisions, all of you should doubtlessly protect Bheeshma alone on all sides."
Excerpts from Commentary on above (Courtesy www.yatharthgeeta.com):
Duryodhan (The eldest of Kauravas – 100 brothers) commands all his chiefs to keep to their posts and yet protect Bheeshma on all sides. The Kaurav cannot be defeated if Bheeshma is safe and alive. So it is obligatory for all the Kaurav chiefs to defend Bheeshma rather than fight with the Pandav. Bheeshma is a form of delusion. A delusion is commonly defined as a false belief, and is used in everyday language to describe a belief that is either false, fanciful or derived from deception. So long as delusion is alive, unrighteous impulses cannot be vanquished. If delusion ceases, ignorance too ceases to exist. That which is free from delusion is eternal and unmanifest. Today we admire a sage for his virtue, but the very next day we grumble because we have seen him relishing delicacies. Devotion is shaken by suspicion of even the slightest flaw in the loved one. The impulse of righteousness is undermined and the ties with the object of affectionate devotion are broken.
Interpretation of commentary to IT Business Context
Can we look at the delusions we live in the workspace? Remember this workspace constitutes at least 30% of average working-life, may be many of us this could be as high as 50 %.
Senior Management lives in delusion that is surrounded by being nice rather than being factual. I am reminded of the famous couplet that we read in Sanskrit in school days. "Satyam Vada Priyam Vada …." Which means you must speak truth while you speak it nicely. Speak untruth nicely or speaking truth rudely does not help. I believe this is the essence of PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM. Let us search our soul and find how often we provide feedback that is fact and nicely presented.
Rest of the organization lives in the delusion that absence of feedback means the performance or result is good. In early days of Process of Making anything (say sculpting), the performance/ result was assessed by the maker himself. There were no lines quality professional or managerial teams to give feedback. Self Assessment is core to the PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM.
We often classify an individual as GREAT PERFORMER (like the praise to the sage) and next moment we would brand the GREAT PERFORMER as UNFIT For the job (just as we did to the sage because we saw him enjoying delicacies).
Delusions can go only when IGNORANCE disappears. Who can make the IGNORANCE Disappear? I believe there are only 2 sources that can make this happen:
- Self Actualization
Ignorance is bliss is not true in most real life scenario. Examples
- Customers are not going be satisfied because we were ignorant to their need. (Often we are)
- Statutory and Regulatory authorities are not going to spare us because we are ignorant
- Employees are not going to consider non-availability just because management is ignorant of what an employee needs
- Shareholders are not going to be satisfied because we are ignorant about how to provide returns to them
The list can go on.
Do not blame others for your ignorance. Use the Body of Knowledge available to remove the IGNORANCE. This would actually raise each one of us in the real world and success would be at our beck and call. Body of Knowledge exists in various forms and some of them are Library, Books, Internet, and Experienced Individuals etc.
- Nurturance by seniors
Somewhere down the line, we forget how we were taught to speak or for matter of fact anything. The elders in family invested their time with us. They did it with pleasure and the first one to enjoy the success of we writing or speaking was them. Why we cannot behave like those elders in family? Are we not giving the time at the workplace if not more on par with the time with family?
Nurturing the people in one's team is responsibility of the leader of the team. We need to recollect the earliest and probably even today recognized method of learning as GURUKULAM Method. Here the student learns under the guidance and care of the GURU. For most of us the work place is akin to GURUKULAM and our leaders must behave like a GURU.
