Those who aspire to occupy a C-suite keep an ear to the ground. But the real fun begins when they end up occupying one. Soon, they realise the perils of trying to swim in the Zambezi River on the Dark Continent. To their utter horror, they discover that mixed-bathing practices are in vogue and that their dip is being shared by a couple of young crocodiles. What leaves them literally cold in the feet are the penetrating and unfriendly eyes of some of the crocodiles swimming alongside, who take a jaundiced view of their habitat being infested with a juicy specimen of the tribe of Homo sapiens. Quite a few others are gleeful, drooling over a good source of their daily vitamins.
These crocodiles might as well be representing the kind of challenges C-suite occupants typically face—business goals, quarterly guidelines, macroeconomic shocks, dark clouds of wars and geopolitical tensions, pandemics, investor pressure, ethical dilemmas, redesigning business processes given newer frontiers of technology opening up, the advent of retaining high octane performers, compliances of all kinds, burnouts, employee morale, to cite only a few.
Business Leaders of the Future and Compassionate Capitalism
Enlightened businesses have invariably used a judicious mix of commercial and spiritual tenets to run their operations. Many of our Indian business leaders— J.R.D. Tata, Ardeshir Godrej, Verghese Kurien and R.K. Talwar, to name only a few—have guided their businesses thus. The last two, famous for the ‘milk revolution’ and the growth of the State Bank of India, respectively, have spoken of the influence of the Bhagavad Gita on their actions.
(An excerpt from my latest book, ‘Bhagavad Gita’s Guide to Corporate Dharma.’)
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