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Archive for the ‘Management Lessons’ Category

Higher Inner Resilience Is a Stress Buster

Posted in Management Lessons, tagged , , , , on September 28, 2026| 2 Comments »

A manager with strong inner resilience maintains self-esteem and a balanced view of reality, enabling her to make clear, responsible decisions. She owns her actions without blaming others and approaches failures with honest introspection, avoiding extremes of pride or despair. This mindset helps her respond effectively to challenges and remain objective.

Like a swimmer prepared for rough seas, a resilient manager is ready to face challenges and break through barriers. This inner strength helps her bounce back from setbacks and thrive, driven by positive stress that encourages continual growth.

Pressure is an ‘external’ stimulus. Stress is what ‘we’ experience. The level of stress we experience therefore is directly proportional to the pressure we receive. The good news is that stress is inversely proportional to our inner strength and resilience.

A mathematical formulation for stress could qualitatively be along the following lines:

The Bhagavad Gita Offers a Technique of Self-perfection

This is how Lord Krishna explains equanimity to Arjuna. In Verse 38 of Chapter 2 of the Bhagavad Gita, He says:

सुखदु:खे समे कृत्वा लाभालाभौ जयाजयौ ।
ततो युद्धाय युज्यस्व नैवं पापमवाप्स्यसि ॥ 2.38॥

Having attained equanimity in happiness and sorrow, in gain and loss, in victory and defeat, then come out to fight. Thus, you will not incur sin.

(The text is an edited excerpt from my latest book ‘Bhagavad Gita and Corporate Dharma’.)

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Bhagavad Gita and Corporate Dharma: A Curtain Raiser

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A comment on the Corporate Dharma book: Mr Rajan Kaicker

Posted in Management Lessons, tagged , , , , , , , on September 24, 2026| Leave a Comment »

This book presents a compelling case for integrating the Bhagavad Gita’s timeless wisdom into the modern workspace, arguing that true leadership stems from self-mastery and ethical alignment. It advocates for Corporate Dharma, in which the workplace becomes a field of self-actualisation, and every business decision is filtered through the lens of collective well-being and integrity.

What it espouses is a key requirement in today’s VUCA world, i.e., A Cycle of Conscious Leadership:

* Individual: Personal discipline and clarity (Yoga)

* Team: Duty-bound collaboration (Dharma)

* Organisation: Benefit to the larger ecosystem (Lokasangraha)

Rajan Kaicker

(Rajan has spent many years providing unique cultural and leadership insights that have helped clients achieve new levels of productivity and performance such as Pepsi, Vodafone,Tata’s, Infosys to name a few. He has had extensive C-suite experience with major MNC’s and is currently the Executive Chairman & Managing Director – FranklinCovey India and SouthAsia which is the Global leader in helping organisations achieve results that require lasting changes in human behaviour, possibly the most difficult challenge any organisation faces and also the most durable competitive advantage. He has also co-authored a book titled ‘The 4 Disciplines of Execution’, published by Simon & Schuster).

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Praise for the book on the Bhagavad Gita and Corporate Dharma
Bhagavad Gita and Corporate Dharma: A Curtain Raiser

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A comment on the Corporate Dharma book: Mr Victor Kannan

Posted in Management Lessons, tagged , , , , , , , on September 17, 2026| Leave a Comment »

A rare book that successfully connects timeless spiritual wisdom with the realities of modern leadership and business. What makes it stand out is its practicality. The author does not treat the Bhagavad Gita as abstract philosophy, but as a living framework for handling pressure, conflict, ego, uncertainty, ambition, and decision-making in today’s corporate world.

As someone involved in business leadership and operational strategy, I found the parallels between corporate life and inner discipline especially relevant. The discussions around values, resilience, detachment, leadership ethics, and Industrial Revolution 4.0 are thoughtful and highly timely.

The writing remains accessible, insightful, and often refreshingly humorous without losing depth. A valuable read for CEOs, entrepreneurs, professionals, and anyone trying to balance performance with purpose.

Victor Kannan

Chief Executive Officer | Private Equity | Business Transformation | M&A

(Victor has been an avid practitioner of Heartfulness Meditation and a trainer for more than 40 years. As a career CFO he has been able to combine the benefits of meditation in the everyday management of his duties and responsibilities. He is a lifelong financial executive and a Director of Heartfulness Institute Inc, USA. He is a regular contributor to the Heartfulness Magazine.)

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Praise for the book on the Bhagavad Gita and Corporate Dharma
Bhagavad Gita and Corporate Dharma: A Curtain Raiser

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Of Death and the Allure of Getting a Brand-New Vehicle!

Posted in Management Lessons, tagged , , , , , , on September 14, 2026| Leave a Comment »

In his epic poem Savitri, Sri Aurobindo, the renowned Indian seer, presents the end of a person’s life as a transformative event, a passage, or a door through which one passes towards a greater life. Essentially, the poem recounts the saga of human victory over ignorance and death.

Thus, on the racing tracks of life, death is but a pit stop. One gives up one’s creaking old jalopy. In exchange, one gets a shimmering new vehicle. One then zooms off to a newer horizon, the engine firing on all six cylinders. With each pit stop, one evolves further.

The principle of reincarnation mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita indirectly captures the way death, a certainty in life—just like the taxes which one must grudgingly bear—can be faced with a smile on one’s lips.

Eventually, it also leads us to the theory of Karma.  

(The text is an edited excerpt from my latest book ‘Bhagavad Gita and Corporate Dharma’.)

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Of Reincarnation, Mushrooming, and Job Hopping  
Of Death and Grief
The Karma Operating System, as per the Bhagavad Gita
Bhagavad Gita and Corporate Dharma: A Curtain Raiser

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A comment on the Corporate Dharma book: Mr R Gopalakrishnan

Posted in Management Lessons, tagged , , , , , , on September 10, 2026| Leave a Comment »

That the Bhagavad Gita is a universal lesson for all about life is no secret. However, people involved with enterprise too often do not associate with philosophy as being relevant to business. The reality is exactly the opposite. Enterprise without philosophy is crass. Philosophy without enterprise is intellectual. How do you combine a practical philosophy with enterprise?

Ashok Bhatia tells you how—in a relevant and practical manner.

R. Gopalakrishnan

Former Director, Tata Sons | Ex-Unilever VC | Corporate Advisor | Leadership Coach | Best-selling Author & Speaker

(His insightful thoughts can be found on LinkedIn and also on his website: https://themindworks.me)

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Of Reincarnation, Mushrooming, and Job Hopping  

Posted in Management Lessons, tagged , , , , on September 7, 2026| Leave a Comment »

The Bhagavad Gita’s concept of reincarnation finds a corporate parallel in two common phenomena. One is the mushrooming of business entities where the same owners repeatedly create new companies, often to evade taxes and hide behind a ‘corporate veil’. This game of hide-and-seek between businesses and tax authorities thrives especially in emerging or stagnant economies with incomplete digitisation of records. While governments generally distrust businesses on compliance, some economies see a close, often problematic, relationship between the two, known as crony capitalism. Business owners often view taxes and legal restrictions sceptically, leading to complicated paperwork and higher job security for the accounting and clerical staff.

The second phenomenon is job hopping, which contrasts sharply with past values where long tenure at one company— over five years—was respected. Today, those who stay put too long may be seen as stagnant or unambitious, as frequent moves between jobs have become more common and accepted in the evolving corporate landscape.

वासांसि जीर्णानि यथा विहाय
नवानि गृह्णाति नरोऽपराणि ।
तथा शरीराणि विहाय जीर्णा
न्यन्यानि संयाति नवानि देही ॥ 2.22॥

As a person sheds worn-out garments and wears new ones, likewise, at the time of death, the soul casts off its worn-out body and enters a new one.

Lord Krishna goes on to explain to Arjuna that just as an individual changes her worn-out clothes, so too the soul changes its physical sheath, eventually acquiring a new one by the process of rebirth.

(The text is an edited excerpt from my latest book ‘Bhagavad Gita and Corporate Dharma’.)

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Is Following Values a Corporate Luxury?

Posted in Management Lessons, tagged , , , , , , on August 31, 2026| Leave a Comment »

There is a widespread perception that the larger the business, the broader and deeper its adherence to values and ethics. In other words, enterprises which happen to be either in the small scale or in the tiny sector could ill afford a luxury of this kind!

Many CEOs believe values and ethics can wait until a business is financially strong. In other words, the weaker ones, which are in a struggling phase, can’t afford the luxury. This approach risks embedding bad habits deeply into the company’s culture, making change difficult. Like a tiger’s stripes, these habits are hard to shake off.

True values stem from the inner conviction of leaders, not from a company’s size or profits—and often, strong values lead to better success.

Let us relook at the case of Infosys. Since its inception, the founders are known to have resisted the temptation of paying ‘speed money’ to get things moving faster on the bureaucratic front. Its annual revenue reached US$100 million in 1999, US$1 billion in 2004, US$10 billion in 2017 and US$ 19.3 billion in 2024. The company was formed in 1981, but even as late as 2011, T.V. Mohandas Pai had alleged that his company was asked to pay bribes by government officials to clear projects, which it refused to do.

(The text is an edited excerpt from my latest book ‘Bhagavad Gita and Corporate Dharma’.)

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Values: The Real ‘Soul’ of Organisations

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Values: The Real ‘Soul’ of Organisations

Posted in Management Lessons, tagged , , , , , , on August 24, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Vision and mission statements of corporates adorn their walls and can be readily copied. However, the value system of an organisation is not something which can be copied very easily. It permeates the entire organisation—its hierarchy and its various divisions or departments. It rubs off on most of its employees. Even service providers and supporting manufacturers get tuned to the same frequency. It would perhaps not be wrong to say that values are to an organisation what the soul is to a physical body. Businesses which thrive over a long period of time and achieve sustainable commercial success would invariably be found to have sound values at the core of their operations.

Manifestation of Values

Small things reflect the values being followed—whether nephews and nieces of the top person are getting freely hired to do jobs they are not competent at, whether spaces in the car parking lot are allotted hierarchy-wise or are based on a first-come first-served basis, whether the corner office has high sound proof walls all around or is open to all to signify transparency, whether the boss is entitled to charge the company for her spouse accompanying her on a business trip, whether office stationery items get whisked off to executives’ households for use by their kids, or whether the use of cell phones or social media platforms is viewed with a sense of benign resignation by a hapless human resources honcho.  

It is the leader who sets the tone. Those down the ladder fall in line.

Values Defy Death

Products and organisations have life cycles of their own, just like the human body is prone to many changes—birth, existence, growth, decay, disease, and death. But values outlive these perils of life; somewhat akin to the Self, our inner core, which the Gita holds to be eternal and deathless.

अविनाशि तु तद्विद्धि येन सर्वमिदं ततम् ।
विनाशमव्ययस्यास्य न कश्चित्कर्तुमर्हति ॥ 2.17॥

That which pervades the entire body, know it to be indestructible. No one can cause the destruction of the imperishable soul.

(The text is an edited excerpt from my latest book ‘Bhagavad Gita and Corporate Dharma’.)

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Of Things with a Longer Shelf Life: Values, Character, Faith

Posted in Management Lessons, tagged , , , , , , , on August 19, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Which are the things that have a longer shelf life, one may well ask. One’s value system. One’s character. What one places one’s faith in. One’s attitude towards life in general. One’s capacity to be able to handle the rough and tumble of a management career. One’s ability to make decisions based not only on big data analytics but also on intuition.

These are the kinds of things that build the resilience of individual managers and organisations to face macroeconomic shocks and market uncertainties with aplomb. Over time, the harsh slings and arrows of a career find it difficult to chip away at one’s innate qualities. Once this core is managed well, external things fall in place most of the time. One’s responses to people and circumstances become more refined, thereby improving one’s managerial effectiveness. One’s personal brand equity acquires a better sheen.

The Bhagavad Gita highlights the importance of faith in our lives and the latent way it provides a compass that determines the direction of our efforts.

सत्त्वानुरूपा सर्वस्य श्रद्धा भवति भारत ।
श्रद्धामयोऽयं पुरुषो यो यच्छ्रद्ध: स एव स: ॥ 17.3॥

The faith of all humans conforms to the nature of their mind. All people possess faith, and whatever the nature of their faith, that is verily what they are.

This explains why many businesses end up merely being ‘businesses’, whereas some make the cut as ‘industrialists’, trying to give back to society in whichever way they can.

(I believe that businesses whose collective faith is sattvic in nature end up being industrialists!)   

The Tata Group: Good Thoughts, Good Words and Good Deeds

Consider the case of the house of Tatas. The group can rightfully boast of a value system which goes back more than 158 years.

(Detailed examples follow in the book.)

(The text is an edited excerpt from my latest book ‘Bhagavad Gita and Corporate Dharma’.)

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The Short Half-life of All Things Material: A lesson from the Bhagavad Gita

Posted in Management Lessons, tagged , , , , , , , on August 10, 2026| Leave a Comment »

If Marie Curie had decided to become a human-resource professional at some point of time in her illustrious career, she would surely have had something to say about the half-life of so many things: interpersonal relationships, joys and sorrows, promotions, increments, awards and other recognitions which come one’s way all the time. Even insults, abuses, and rebukes hurled at managers by their bosses, whether in private or in public, would have been held to be things which have a rather short half-life.

This is what the Gita has to say on the nature of material things:

मात्रास्पर्शास्तु कौन्तेय शीतोष्णसुखदु:खदा: ।
आगमापायिनोऽनित्यास्तांस्तितिक्षस्व भारत ॥ 2.14॥

O son of Kunti, contacts (of the senses) with (their)  objects, giving rise to (the experience of) cold and heat, pleasure, and pain, are transient and they come and go. Bear them, O Bharata (without being disturbed).

If everything in the material world is of a transient nature, one might as well ask as to what is eternal, or at the least, longer-lasting, when compared to the kind of small stuff we touched upon here.

In the book, we go on to discuss the importance of values followed by organisations and the very purpose of business. If one looks at business entities that have been alive and kicking for a very long time, and have a shimmering brand equity to boot, one realises that these are indeed the considerations which are not of a transient nature.

(The text is an edited excerpt from my latest book ‘Bhagavad Gita and Corporate Dharma’. Visual courtesy the World Wide Web.)

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