Management revisited in Vivekananda Style

Vivekananda had more often talked of leadership not management. His spiritual greatness is obvious. A couplet written by Alexander Dumas describes the greatness of Isaac Newton:

“Nature and nature’s laws lay hid in night

God said, let Newton be! And all was light.”

A similar couplet can be remade about Vivekananda’s spiritual height:

“India and India’s spiritual glory lay hid in colonization

God said let Vivekananda be, the World saw the civilization.”

The world has plenty of management ideas in his simple and witty writings laced with intelligent humour. Vivekananda’s work on JnanaYoga has an essay “Realization”. His humour while conveying higher realm of knowledge can be discerned from a passage in this essay. Suppose a cow were philosophical and had religion, it would have a cow universe, and a cow solution of the problem, and it would not be possible that it should see human concept of God. Suppose cats became philosophers, they would see a cat universe and have a cat solution of the problem and a cat ruling it. So, we see from this that our explanation of the universe is not the whole “We only know the universe from the point of view of beings with five senses. Suppose we obtain another sense; the whole universe must change for us. If it is a magnetic sense, we might find millions and millions of forces in existence which we do not know, and for which we have no present sense or feeling.” of the solution.”

Sister Christine was one Western disciple of Swami Vivekananda. She wrote in her reminiscences, “Our love for India came to birth, I think, when we first heard him (Swami Vivekananda) say the word, “India”, in that marvelous voice of his. It seems incredible that there was love, passion, pride, longing, adoration, tragedy, chivalry, homesickness but again love.

Vivekananda often said, “all knowledge must stand on perception of certain facts, and upon that we have to build our reasoning. Many say Data, Information, Knowledge and Wisdom (DIKW) pyramid is an obvious management chain. Swami Vivekananda as a dreamer, dreamt day and night and it does not need a lot of scholarship to decipher simplicity of his style and logic of his themes.

Following Swamiji’s style of delivery, let a story be woven around refinement of DIKW pyramid. A father had two daughters, we call the five-year-old elder Tuni and younger Nini. Tuni had started learning a-for apple, b-for bat, c-for cat, g-for glass or w-for water. The child learns things known or assumed as facts, making the basis of reasoning, which is essentially data. This is the base of DIKW management pyramid.

The father returns from office and asks Tuni to bring w-for water in g-for glass, so that he can drink. Ever obedient Tuni goes to kitchen but returns empty handed. She reports to her father, who looks askance that all g-for glass are used by mother and so no w-for water. Father had given information to associate g-for glass to w-for water. Data has graduated to information, that is conveyed or represented by a particular arrangement. When father heard Tuni’s response, he asked her to see if a b-bowl is available. She can as well bring w-for water in b-for bowl as next alternative. Tuni did so and father was satisfied. This is where Tuni elevated her data to information and then to knowledge. Knowledge is awareness or?familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation. Knowledge has three values, pleasure value for self, transfer value for those who learn from the original experience and contribution value for the civilization as a mass of knowledge develops.

Let the story progress. Next day when father returns from work, Tuni has already kept a glass of water on the stool for him. On enquiry by father how she got one unused glass that day, Tuni’s reply was interesting. She had hidden a glass from being used by the mother. She felt, though her father could take water in alternative arrangement, he preferred to drink water in a glass, reason why she hid a glass to give more pleasure to her father. This is arousal of insight in the child. Insight is the capacity to gain an accurate and deep understanding of someone or something.

The father was very happy but one thing concerned him. Tuni is getting flabby not chubby. He asked Tuni to go to physical training instructor where all children get trained to exercise. Tuni readily agreed. But timing of the physical instructor coincided with father’s return from work. On return home, father found a glass of water on the stool. Instead of being happy, he fumed that Tuni did not go to do her exercise. The mother came forward and told the father that Tuni has trained Nini, the younger one to offer a glass of water to her father the way she used to do. The father would be happy and Nini was glad to get this delegation. This is Tuni’s arousal of foresight and exhibition of transfer value of knowledge. Foresight is the ability to predict what will happen or be needed in the future.

Insight is about analyzing current trends in order to find a deeper meaning, whereas Foresight uses scenarios and critical thinking to consider what is coming next. Insight and foresight become rich in an individual by some congenital elements like intuition and commonsense as also acquired elements like perseverance and perspiration. Wisdom dawns when insight and foresight converge into a holistic human trait. This completes DIKW pyramid. But the pyramid is stuffed with a core called hindsight. Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it. This statement is repeated often enough in many styles so that it may sound clichéd, but this is also true. The lessons of the past, or hindsight, are invariably one of our most used and valuable tools in management of any hue.

In the words of Swami Vivekananda, the management principle can be kept as “look forward, and move with infinite energy, infinite enthusiasm, infinite courage, and infinite patience, then alone can great deeds be accomplished.”?Anything to spring forward must have a launching pad. Experienc imbibed from own self and others together forms the spring board of hindsight. Hindsight must be filtered not to become a hindrance due to legacy load. Eliminate the de-motivating factors. By accomplishing this, one neutralizes negative people around.

Dissatisfaction is caused by the factors in the job atmosphere that do not necessarily and directly contribute to the work itself. The positive handling of these factors has a short-time effect on motivation; whereas dissatisfaction with the job can be one of the outcomes if these factors are handled badly. These are termed as “hygiene” factors. Once the human resource is in a neutral state, one must then gaze to insert the areas of happiness to develop motivation and satisfaction. Such things include accomplishment, acknowledgment, work-role, responsibility, advancement, and individual complete growth. Modern Human Resource Principles can arouse the hindsight and find the basis in this analysis. Swami Vivekananda lived a life, which looked intuitively vibrant, inspirational and charismatic. This is a perfect recipe for success in management or leadership, reason why he is an eternal role model.

Shri Ashutosh Maharaj, Founder & Head, Divya Jyoti Jagrati Sansthan has some apt opinion about Vivekananda’s management ideas. Saints vis-a-vis modern-day management appears to be an oxymoron! Modern day management can derive fantastic sutras from the words of the saint, which are amalgamated with immense wisdom. Any amount of theoretical knowledge one may have but unless one does the thing actually, nothing is learnt.?If a man’s interest in a thing is not roused, he will not work whole-heartedly. Vivekananda had enumerated six management principles in his characteristic style, which have potential to dwarf any other conceptualization:

Effort effectiveness: “Take risk in your life, if you succeed, you can lead but if you fail you can guide.”

Intrapersonal intelligence: “Arise, awaken and stop not till the goal is achieved.”

Feeling over logic: “In a conflict between your heart and brain, listen to your heart.”

Self-esteem: “Talk to yourself at least once in a day, otherwise you miss a meeting an excellent person in this world.”

Empathy in understanding: “The reason behind misunderstanding is, we see the people as we are but not as they are.”

Servant leadership: “Be the servant while leading; be unselfish; have infinite patience, and success is yours”

Both Hanuman and Lakshman were powerful leaders in their own right but they were proverbial servant leaders with Shri Rama as their unquestioned Lord. If Managers learn to be servant leaders much of their path becomes smooth except for tasks on the way.

According to Vivekananda “education is the manifestation of perfection already in man and that what a man ‘learns’ is really what he ‘discovers’ by taking the cover off his own soul, which is a mine of infinite knowledge.” Education, education, education alone can regenerate the development of a nation by management of the undermanaged sectors. According to him, a nation is advanced in proportion as education is spread among the masses. He advocated a man-making character-building education, which alone can sustain strategic growth and development by ethical management.

The discourse may end offering a limerick for Swami Vivekananda in conclusion.

Limerick on Swami Vivekananda:

“No saint has done what Vivekananda could

He taught the world universal brotherhood

As he spoke in the World Parliament of Religions

He roared the tenets of Hinduism like a lion

Whole audience stood to clap as they understood.”