POLICIES
Grandiose written policies are useful to Accountants who would love to raise relevant as well as irrelevant objections on various transactions, legitimate or otherwise. These are also useful to procedure oriented executives who would love to drive innovation and imaginativeness out of the organization.
If you happen to be a big fish in a small outfit, prepare and circulate a Policy Manual only at the organization’s risk and peril. If you have to, do so with scope for flexibility, and ensure it gets updated and re-circulated at regular intervals.
In case of very large organizations, Policy Manuals end up being statements of benign intentions of the top management. Internal Audit uses these to conduct frequent audits, pointing out minor deviations and confusing the top management at regular intervals. Often, crucial deviations having long-term impact on the business are left out, thereby increasing the organization’s vulnerability in facing either a legal or a statutory compliance related tsunami.
POLITICIANS
Like them or hate them, they are here to stay. Keep them in good humor, if you definitely have to interact with their tribe. After all, they could be high either on their Utility Quotient or on Nuisance Quotient.
Keep equidistant from politicians of all hues. You never know when the opposition party’s turn to warm the treasury benches may come.
When doing a favor, keep it away from public eye. This way, you would not only keep your competitors guessing but also ensure that a change in regime would be less likely to derail your business plans.
PROMISES
Either don’t make promises; if you do, try your very best to keep them. If necessary, buy time to commit on deadlines. Surprise your boss by delivering on your promise in advance.
Do this without fail. In the long run, your brand value as a manager would grow.
PROMOTIONS
An effective tool in the management’s arsenal to reward and motivate guys who excel in their jobs.
There are two key challenges faced in case of promotions:
1. Pressure for time bound promotions:Everyone expects to get promoted after having slogged it out at a given level in the organization for few years. The reason you find most organizations top-heavy today is because the managements twenty years back did not pay attention to managing the aspirations of its people and instead went along with the philosophy of time based promotions!
2. Managing is different: Doing a job yourself is one thing. Getting it done through others is a different ball game altogether. To be a good manager, one needs to be a leader, bestowed with skills in team building, communication, delegation and supervision. Often, two-thirds of the promotions in corporates are based on the incumbent putting in an impressive show in his/her present role. Once promoted, the incumbent is left twiddling his thumbs, trying to figure out how to manage the same activity through others.
The solution possibly lies in building up a culture which rewards good performance but does not overlook the projected managerial talent of the promotee. Job rotation, counseling and job enrichment are some of the tools which a wise HR guy may use to manage the majority which deems a promotion as its birth-right based on the fourth dimension of our universe – time – alone!
A populist approach like resorting to time based promotions can only be practiced at the organization’s long term peril, unless there is an aggressive scheme in place to enforce employee separations also, that too in a time bound manner!
PRAISE & REPRIMAND
When responding to a team member’s performance, always praise in public but reprimand in private. Try not to follow the obnoxious policy of getting rid of an utterly-butterly useless guy by humiliating him in public. Assist him in getting out-placed instead.
Be generous with your formally conveyed appreciation only at your own risk. If a swollen-headed guy falls in his subsequent performance ratings, he could well turn around to use your formal communication to promote his case for the next promotion!
PROCRASTINATION
It is not altogether wrong to say that it is the early worm which gets caught! Procrastination works best when the idea is to delay a crucial decision which, if taken at that point in time, could create more problems than it would solve. Governments appear to do it all the time. The flip side is the higher probability of losing a business opportunity.
PUBLIC RELATIONS
In a large complex business, you may need to hire an expert to handle your public relations. Check the guy’s credentials, and sign him on for a maximum period of two years at a time. Better still, get one of the smart secretaries to handle it in-house.
ashokbhatia 
Praise for the book on the Bhagavad Gita and Corporate Dharma
Posted in Management Lessons, tagged Bhagavad Gita, Book, CEOs, Comments, Leadership, Management, Managers, Praise on March 2, 2026| Leave a Comment »
What do professionals think of this book?!
Here are some words of praise from people across different professions, diverse backgrounds, and from varied geographies.
Anatoly Yakorev
Mentor for Conscious Enterprises Network, Montenegro (Former Director, Centre for Business Ethics & Compliance, Moscow, Russia)
Managers face mighty challenges while delivering results. Ashok Bhatia cleverly alludes to the Bhagavad Gita’s lessons they can learn and begin to practise such concepts as detachment, and equanimity. He provides relevant examples from the corporate world to illustrate his arguments, making this book an interesting read.
Dr Bharat Nain,
Arbitrator & Management Consultant,
PhD, MBA, BE(Mech), FSIArb, MCIArb, Pune, India.
Ashok Bhatia, through his excellent book, propounds an alternative path that draws on the spiritual aspect of what is regarded as the foremost “religious book” in the Asian context, the Bhagavad Gita. Differentiating between the “mind and intellect”, he has used an ancient spiritual text to convey his message very simply and with humour.
Dr Ananda Reddy
Director, Sri Aurobindo Centre for Advanced Research, Puducherry, India
I am of the view that business leaders and managers may not consciously want it, but they really need it. It offers the only remedy for correcting mankind’s lopsided growth and bringing him sanity, inner and outer balance, peace, and harmony. The book by Ashok is a commendable effort. I wish the book and its future readers the very best in life.
Dominique Conterno
Conscious Enterprises Network (CEN) Co-Founder
United Kingdom
This book is a rare, business-friendly bridge between timeless Gita wisdom and the lived realities of modern organisations. Ethics and values are made to feel operational rather than ornamental. It speaks directly to pressure points leaders recognise, from stress and burnout to ego, desire, conflict and office politics. Karma Yoga stands as skilful action with steadiness in success and failure. It offers a calm, practical case for inner resilience, detachment, and better judgment in uncertain times. The book’s light humour keeps profound ideas accessible without diluting them. It finally acknowledges the technological moment, including the challenges of Industrial Revolution 4.0 and AI-era complexity. It leaves the reader with a clear invitation to go deeper into the original scripture, guided by a grounded corporate lens shaped by Ashok Kumar Bhatia.
Late Dr (Prof) G P Rao,
Founder-Chairman, SPANDAN, India
(Former Senior Professor and Founding Head,
Department of Management Studies, Madurai Kamaraj University, 1981–1997)
Ashok Bhatia paints a wide canvas of the kind of strategic and tactical issues business owners and managers face in their routine lives. With a calm objectivity, he demonstrates how the same could be resolved by imbibing what the scripture says. The undercurrent is essentially that of following high values and ethics in management, so a business may run on a sustainable basis.
Marco Suomalainen,
MMM Enabler at UHM (Uncovering Hidden Meanings),
Kotka, Finland
The book enables one to keep learning about the precious jewels existing in India. Industrialists and managers who wish to understand the basic concepts of the Bhagavad Gita and improve their ability to handle challenges in a more constructive manner would find this book very useful.
Mohan Arumugham
Global Technology Leader; IT Director – ERP
Digital Technology
GE Power, USA
This book motivates me to look at the bigger picture in life, while at the same time remaining connected to my inner self. Using many examples of the kind of challenges we face in our careers, it makes us appreciate the deep wisdom contained in the Gita. The book, even though rooted in ancient Indian wisdom, has a global appeal.
Ashok Narayan
IAS (Retired), Expert in Indian Scriptures,
Gandhinagar, India
The author has done a wonderful job of demonstrating how the eternal knowledge of the Bhagavad Gita can be applied to the business world, thereby enabling managers and CEOs to achieve their goals with maximum efficiency and to deal with all the problems without accumulating stress or losing the balance of mind.
Chandra Shekhar Dwivedi
Ex-Vice President (Manufacturing and Corporate Planning)
HCL Infosystems Limited, Pondicherry, India
Mr Bhatia is back with his references to what he calls the ‘corporate jungle’. If the theme of his earlier book was about survival, this one addresses the issue of doing well in one’s career. However, his underlying message continues to be that of adherence to values and ethics in business, of corporate governance, of human values and of conscious management.
P R Ganguly
Member, Industrial Advisory Board, Manufacturing Department, Cranfield University, England
Ex-Deputy Chairman and Managing Director, Grenson Shoes Ltd, UK
The book is a great primer for CEOs and managers who are keen to get a basic grasp of the universal concepts highlighted in this unique scripture from India. The timeless lessons enshrined in the Bhagavad Gita have been innovatively presented by Ashok, with limited doses of subtle humour of a British kind.
Nilima Bhat
Founder: Shakti Leadership and Shakti Fellowship, Global Program for building Conscious Leaders & Change-makers, Co-convener Truth & Reconciliation Work, Distinguished Professor in Gender and Conscious Leadership. Business School and School of Humanities and Education, Tec de Monterrey, Mexico
I have no doubt that this book would be a valuable addition to the personal book collection of all leaders, as long as it does not merely remain either on their shelves or on their ‘To-Be-Read’ lists but gets quickly absorbed and put to practical use.
Ram Mohan Pisharodi, Ph.D.
Marketing Professor,
Oakland University,
Rochester, Michigan, USA.
Ashok’s latest book is like a scuba dive which gently nudges the reader toward experiencing a deeper sea-bed exploration of the original scripture itself!
Vasco Gaspar
Human Flourishing Facilitator
Portugal
Ancient works like the Bhagavad Gita offer a source of knowledge to help leaders have this inner guidance. The work of Ashok Bhatia offers a convenient bridge between these ancient pieces of wisdom and the modern fast-paced world, allowing leaders and managers to apply this knowledge to their own lives and careers.
Gayatri Majumdar
Author,
Founder-Editor,
The Brown Critique Literary Journal, Pondicherry, India
Just as in life, there are varied ways to approach the perceived challenges and stress in a corporate environment! How can one navigate this ‘jungle’ with equanimity and inner resilience by “controlling the wild horse called mind”? Answers to many of our predicaments can be found in the eternal wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita. Ashok Kumar Bhatia’s Bhagavad Gita’s Guide to Corporate Dharma is an extraordinary book for all. He elucidates profound ideas with great simplicity, tremendous authenticity and logic. This captivating book draws parallels with Arjuna’s dilemma on the battlefield, and can be invaluable for management students and corporate leaders alike. It can guide us to enhance the quality of not just own life but everyone we cross paths with.
Amazon links (In India and elsewhere)
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