RAMAYANA- Management Principles
Management
principles can be drawn from Ramayana today. Many institutes are trying to draw
leadership lesson from the Ramayana.
Duty has the regular definition of a moral or legal
obligation, a responsibility, or a task or action that someone is required to
perform. However, in the context of the story of Ramayana, duty, or dharma, has
a more specific interpretation. Dharma is a set of laws or principles carried
out with the purpose of creating social and religious order in the society. In
this story of Ramayana, many times this duty conflicts with other values or
personal desires, forcing characters to compare the choices of following the
dharma or fulfilling another human value. Within the context of the
relationship between Rama and Sita in the story "The Ramayana of
Valmiki", duty is worth the sacrificing of love, because his duty is
fulfilled to maintain order within the society and above all, order is needed
for a society to run well. For example, teamwork is an important principle in
management, and Rama applied the same in search of Sita and was successful in
the mission. Another one is in an organisation one must be treated affectionately
which Rama did when he met Guhan and Vibhishana. Management principles such as
encouraging lower category of employees, rewards for good work,
self-motivation, decision-making, recognition, market survey, market
exploitation, time management and the art of communication are aligned with
instances in the epic. The book is a valuable one, giving new interpretation to
Ramayana.
One of the most obvious incidences, in which use
management principles is very clearly visible is that of Hanuman going to
Lanka. His mission was to locate Sita there and give her Lord Ram’s message.
When it became clear that Sita was in Lanka, Jamvant asked Hanuman to go there.
He helped him in realising his true potential and motivated him to go in the
enemy’s camp. Once mentally prepared for the job and reached there, first thing
which Hanuman did was to completely analyse the situation in Lanka. He did a
complete study about the Lankans, assessing their strengths and weaknesses, the
various threats and opportunities which he had in the enemy’s camp. This is
what management is all about-
·
Ascertaining
the goals, or job to be done.
·
Getting
mentally prepared for it.
·
Having a
right plan.
·
Analyzing
the strengths and weaknesses of the competitor and what threats and
opportunities are there in the business.
This SWOT [strength, weakness, opportunities and threats] analysis is
one of the most important aspects of modern day management. Moreover Jamvant
motivating Hanuman is a classic example of a good Manager helping his personnel
to realise their potential and acting accordingly. The other example which I
would like to talk about here is that of good and bad managers. A good manager
is the one, who can get his work done even from the rivals. In Ramayana Sughriv
has shown some of the best managerial characteristics. As a successful manager
he had Ram to work accordingly and got his kingdom back from a brother who was
far mightier than him.
Using
his managerial skills he even had Angad to work for him. Angad was the son of
his brother whom he got killed by Ram. Had Sughriv been a bad manager then the
same Angad would have proved to be his arch nemesis.In the
same Ramayana, again and again Ravana has shown the signs of a bad manager, and
hence led to the demise of his kingdom. From the starting itself he ignored the
suggestions of his managers and got his kingdom in the state of war with Ram.
Moreover during a crisis, a company needs its best of the managers to bail it
out of the same. A good manager listens to what his subordinates has to say and
tries to keep them together especially when the organization needs them the
most. But Ravana’s mismanagement was responsible for Vibhishan [one of the
wisest manager he should have listened to] leaving him amidst a crisis.
It is
said that businesses are run on relations. A manager who can nurture good
relations with the employees, clients and anyone in whose contact the
organization and the manager comes in, can do wonders for his company. Lord Ram
was very good at it. He was the master of nurturing relations. His prowess at
it was so great that while Ravana was lying wounded in the battle field and was
about to die, he shared some important lessons which he had learnt in his life.
The same Ravana, who at the same time had not responded to Lakshman, when he
was sent to seek Ravana’s wisdom by Ram, was more than happy in sharing his
knowledge with Ram.All
these examples and many more like this, tells us a great deal about management.
For a manager there is lot to learn from our epics. Not just Ramayana, but
Gita, Mahabharat and others as well have a lot to offer as management lessons.
Management and Ramayana
Management of any type, whether in business or some
other human activity, in simplest of words is the act of bringing people
together to work for achieving the desired goal. Broadly speaking management is
defined by five functions –
1. Planning, 2.Organizing, 3.Leading, 4.Controlling
and 5.Coordinating
Moreover,
implementation, accepting and future forecast are also important factors in
management of the task. There are number of books, journals, articles etc are
available, which talks about various management theories. They explain
management not only as a science but also as an art. Numerous research papers
and case studies provide us real life experiences and examples of using these
management theories in building an organization. But way before the modern day
management gurus gave their theories, principles and concepts of management the
great writers like Tulsidas, Valmiki etc had explained them in the ancient
Hindu epics.If one
studies these mythological books, then one can easily make out about the
various management lessons which are taught in them. Every incidence teaches us
a new lesson and in itself is a classic example of putting management at its
best use and getting the work done.
Leading the Ramayana way
Leadership begins where logic ends, it surely gets
lonely out there, but you show the valour, walk the talk, and your teammates
are sure to follow you. In the Ramayana, the battle leading to the climax
was being played out. Would the exiled Rama edge out the evil Ravana, rescue
his wife Sita whom the latter had abducted, and return home to reclaim
kingship, or would he face defeat at the hands of Ravana’s massive army? Rama’s
motley group of men and monkeys were no match for the evil Ravana’s forces and
weaponry. Or so thought Vibhishan, Ravana’s brother who had defected to Rama’s
side. Unable to contain his concerns, he questioned Rama: How will you defeat
this huge army with your limited resources? The reply that Rama gave stands out
as a great lesson in leadership, more on the role and importance of EI as one
can ever come across.
As a charioteer, he told Vibhishan who listened
with rapt attention; you have to make sure you have a clear vision, and a cause
worth fighting for. In the case of Ramayana, the cause was to rescue his
beloved Sita and the vision was to defeat the evil forces. Many prominent
industry leaders today opine that you need not necessarily have a vision; rather,
taking one step at a time could be a much more practical way of going about,
but I think that unless you have a vision, you will never be able to follow a
trajectory. In the words of the great Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, “The world
steps aside to a person who knows where he or she is going.” In that parlance,
unless you know where you are going, how will the world step aside and aid you
in your pursuit? Gandhiji always chanted “Ram, Ram” and the words were uttered
when he was shot. The non violent war for independence for India was devised by
Mahatma Gandhi on the teachings of Ramayana. Coming back to the battlefield of
Ramayana, Rama narrated to Vibhishan, that the four wheels of the chariot are
character, courage, ethics, and valour. Character is the most fundamental thing
for a leader. As a leader, you must know who you are and what you stand for and
communicate the same to your people through actions rather than words. It is
essential for a leader to walk the tall; leadership doesn’t come from a business
card, nor does it respect. It is the ethics, the value system you embody that
does the needful. Courage in this scenario would be the ability to take
unpopular decisions, while valour is the courage to defend those very
decisions. In the event of an unpopular decision, and such decisions are a part
and parcel of a leader’s life since leadership begins where logic ends, it
surely gets lonely out there, but you show the valour, walk the tall, and your
teammates are sure to follow you.
Rama continued to enumerate what the horses drawing
the chariot stood for. They are, he said with gusto, strength, energy, and
passion. In a battle, you must have the strength to discriminate between the
right and wrong, and the zeal and perseverance to keep working towards your
goal. The four reins of a horse, he went on to say, are forgiveness,
compassion, consistency, and equanimity. It is essential to touch the hearts
before you ask for the hand. Touching heart needs compassion and forgiveness.
Consistency and equanimity are hallmark of character which creates trust with
the followers.
The chariot’s wheels, the horses, and their reins
are among the most important of a warrior’s (and therefore a leader’s)
repertoire: The weaponry: knowledge, strategy, intelligence, skills, commitment,
and a restraint of ego—these are the weapons that will help us win this mammoth
battle, proclaimed Rama to his army and Vibhishan before leading them into the
epic struggle. “Arm yourself with these and no war will be lost,” he told them.
After a spirited battle, his army—the motley group of men and monkeys defeated
the heavily equipped Ravana and his forces.
The way the Ramayana portrays the essential
attributes of a leader is a revelation. Many of today’s thinkers analyze too
much and thus lose the charm of simplicity. You might wonder as to how one
person can possess all these qualities. Well, one need not master all of them.
No great leader has been exceptional in all of them. They, like each one of us,
were strong in a few of the attributes mentioned above, which provided core
strength to their leadership.
You need to be consistent in your approach to
different people, no matter who they are and where they are coming from.
Leadership calls for consistency, one of the reins of the horse, as the
Ramayana so beautifully enumerates. Keep the words of the charioteer in mind
and results are sure to follow. As leaders, you might be doing 200 things, from
inspiring to coaching to strategizing but nothing will be accounted for if you
don’t produce results. And the best way to produce results is the ability to
motivate yourself and inspire your team to achieve your goal. That’s what
leadership, as well as the essence of Rama’s words, is all about.
