Showing posts with label Business ethics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Business ethics. Show all posts

Management and Leadership Tips

Just imagine if in world everyone walks like this – feeling insecure, depressed, unhappy, feeling lonely! What sort of company is that? What sort of world will we be in? What kind of institute will that be? Can you make any progress? First you need to create the trust. That’s the secret of management, and that begins with you having trust. When you walk around with your mind saying ‘I don’t trust you, I don’t trust you, I don’t trust you’, the same thing reflects back to you. When we don’t like being doubted by people, why do we keep doubt in everyone around us? Are you all with me?

You know, banks give credit, I just take credit! You see a lamp is burning, it is not just the lamp but the wick and oil that burns, but the lamp takes the credit, correct? Any achievement, anything that’s wonderful is a collective effort of so many. And you will see, in the collective effort, there is one inspiration, one wave, one energy, one divinity that supports and helps the progress. That component of life is called the Spiritual component. It is the lack of spiritual component that throws one either on one side of violence, or the other side of depression and suicidal tendencies. You know!
(After a pause)

Are you all here? Listening to me? Do you notice, when you are listening, you are also having a dialogue in your mind - Yes, No, how that could be? We are made up of seven faculties within us – The Body, Breath, Mind - The faculty by which you perceive. Intellect – that which agrees and disagrees, the judging aspect within you. The memory – Which often clings on to the negative. Given 10 positive comments and one negative, your mind holds on to that one negative. Then Ego – That which makes you feel separate, and that which makes you feel motivated to do something. And then that reference point of all changes in life, something that doesn’t change – The seven layers of life. A little bit about each layer of life brings the transformation. And that’s all is ‘Art of Living’.

The leadership begins with example. People ask me if I don’t get tired for I travel so much. Haven’t slept for four nights this last fortnight. Every night I was travelling and visiting all the Tsunami hit areas. I thought, “May be I will get irritated if I haven’t slept for the fourth night”. You know, to my surprise, I didn’t. When people ask whether I don’t get tired of doing so many things, I say I don’t do anything which is not in my nature.

Living by example – the first quality of leadership, and being totally open and honest! If you did a mistake, okay, “I did a mistake’. When you try to cover one mistake, it leads to a chain of mistakes. One mistake, that leads to another mistake. That weakens your whole system, weakens your working style, your environment. So, just being straight forward, open, honest and inclusive.

Often we point out someone’s mistake. You know why, because their mistake hurts us. “What you are doing, you shouldn’t do it because it is hurting me”.  This is often we hear. When you go to correct someone’s mistake with this attitude, it never gets corrected. So, what do you need to do? What you are doing will hurt you, so you better don’t do it. Not because it is hurting me, but eventually it is going to hurt you, so you better change. That beings transformation!

I would say, we need to put attention on three C’s.  First, see your life in the context of time and space, the cosmology. How vast this creation is?  How big this Universe is and how small our life is? Billions of years have passed and billions more to come. What is my position in context with this? You are living this life with 6 billion people on this planet right now! Do you feel you belong to them all? Do you feel at home with everyone? When you have that sense of belongingness, you start with that feeling, know that you have earned the customers everywhere. In fact, they become your family, an extended family. Sense of belongingness in any set up! Very important! Whether it is a corporation, NGO, social organization, Religious organization, and a leader is to create that sense of belongingness, sense of responsibility.

More talks by Sri Sri Now on What Sri Sri Said Today
© The Art of Living Foundation

19 Jan 2011, QA with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar


Q: Today is Porsha poornima. Are there any stories aboout Porsha poornima?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: This porsha poornima is the first poornima of the harvest in South India, so people exchange all that they have harvested, they give - exchange. It is also called the full moon of the forest. In the north when there is snow, the leaves are gone. So the full moon is visible. Honoring the forest, nature, vegetables….

Q: How can one transform moha into love?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Moha means I want something back. Love is only how I can be useful.

Q: How to arrive at what my dharma is?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Gut feeling, if it feels right, this is what I should do.

Q: How to deal with craving for attention?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Next :)

Q: I feel close to you but the closer I get to you, I seem to face tougher situations sometimes, is this something related to Guru mandala?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Longing brings out a lot of creativity in you. It can bring out a lot of poems. Longing is Radha shakti….Krishna. Be very fortunate.

Q: Is it ok to forego discipline to experience immense love?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: They go together. Discipline has to be followed. I have spoken about this in Narad Bhakti Sutra.

Q: Why is Krishna known as poorna avatar?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: There are many aspects of Krishna which are complete. I have spoken about it in Krishna - absolute joy.

Q: Can the soul come to the same world or can we born in other worlds too?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: All possibilities are open.

Q: Why have miracles stopped happening in my life?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: It is taking a little nap for you to exp the contrast.

Q: Isn’t insincere praise same as pleasant lies?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Why should your praise be insincere?
Your praise cud be a blessing. Blessings are for the future only. So u can praise someone as a blessing. If someone is stingy, you say….. That praise can become a future blessing.

Q: Is it possible to be both ethical and practical?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Yes. Your yukti should be like the salt in the food - just a little bit salt in your business. If there is too much salt, it becomes like food in the salt.

Q: I am a professor at IIT. Other professors are averse to ..., how should I ..?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Don't recognize their aversion, you keep doing what you should do. Don’t try to convince someone out of the way. Keep your conviction. Every soul needs spirituality. If they are refusing ,then it is only at the surface.

Q: What about people who haven’t come to you yet?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: They will come in sometime. art of living TV
© The Art of Living Foundation

Everything is centered around wellness of the society


(continuation of the Sri Sri's address from the World Forum for Ethics in Business in Brussels, Nov.19)
I’m going to talk to you about another dimension of space, that is, the inner space:  the space that rules your life, the space from which all thoughts and emotions emerge, of which you are, simply, a puppet. There may be rules, but when your emotions rise high, you become a victim of your own emotions. If your thought patterns are prejudiced, are caught up in some Utopian or nasty concepts then you behave that way.

The difficulty with us human beings, normal human beings, is that we seldom take time to look at our own emotions, look at our own thought patterns, at what’s happened inside. We act before thinking; we act before even resolving our feelings. So when the feelings override your actions, your concepts and prejudices override your action, time to time crimes are bound to happen in society, whatever rules are there.

Inner rules are just like the watchman, the doorkeeper, but the emotions are the owner of the home. So when the owner barges in, the doorkeeper just gives way. And this is exactly what happens. If you just talk to any criminal anywhere they will either justify their action or they feel completely helpless, because they feel they, themselves, are the victim. So I often say, “Inside every culprit is a victim crying for help.” If we attend to the victim, the culprit disappears. And this is exactly what we need to do, whether it’s the crime that’s being done either in Kosovo and Serbia or Bosnia or Sri Lanka or anywhere. It’s the people who do that, and  ‘normal people’, as the honorable speaker mentioned just a few minutes ago. They’re normal people, but what makes normal people do abnormal crimes is the lack of education about their emotions.

Neither at home nor at school, are any of us taught how to manage our greed, our anger, our jealousy, our frustration and our rage. Nobody teaches you how to manage this mind by which we do all our actions. We don’t have to go to outer space to feel that the earth is very small, that we all belong to each other.  We can wake up here when we attend to our inner space.

Find out, observe, that whatever I am, everybody else is. So, we are all one, we are all part of one human family, human species. This awareness, this awakening has to happen within each one of us, within each individual on the planet and this is where individual education will lead to a collective culture. A culture in the society, it’s all an individual who forms the unit of a culture. So, it’s the individual who forms the unit of a society. So if individuals are educated, we have a literate society. There’s nothing like a society that can become literate; literacy has to happen through individuals. And similarly, education in handling oneself, knowing oneself, has to happen individually and that will have to lead to a collective phenomenon called a civilized, cultured society.

It’s superstitions, dogmas, prejudices that overrule our civilization today. You know what happened in the Middle Ages, in the Medieval period, either in the Spanish Inquisition or the witch hunting, in the name of some dogmas, or the caste system in the East. They all have proved to be disasters, a disaster to society, and education will make people overcome these ills. Similarly, corruption, what we are facing in the business community today –sort of low morals and somehow we’re lost…we don’t know what to do. So in these situations, an introspection and understanding about human nature, the nature of mind, the nature of our emotions, and in a large spectrum, the purpose of life.

As somebody recently said, that the GDP of a country should be now measured with GDH, Gross Domestic Happiness factor. You should see which state is happy, which country is happier than the other. Having a big bank balance and being depressed for the whole life is not prosperity. You should have the mind to enjoy that prosperity. You may have enough food and enough things to eat, but you suffer from diabetes and depression and heart problem. That doesn’t count to be a healthy society. So whether it is economy or politics, social entrepreneurship or any activity, everything is centered around one fact: welfare of the society, that is, wellness of the society. If the wellness is at stake no other factor will suffice for the society to be uplifted. So we need to look into that.

And ethics forms one of the backbones of wellness and business forms its wings. Without business, wellness cannot happen. So, we need to consider this. I’m happy that we’re all on the same page here, but from very different fields, pondering on something that would make a breakthrough in the crisis of today. 
art of living TV
© The Art of Living Foundation

Ethical practices are essential for a good economy



(Sri Sri's address from the World Forum for Ethics in Business in Brussels, Nov.19)

2000 years ago, Rishi Kautilya had said that the basis of ethics is economy, the basis of economy is state and the basis of state is civil society. If the civil society is not following ethics, the state can't do anything about it.
And civil society has to follow ethics.

What can uplift the society?

Usually the youth are of the opinion that you can't succeed if you are not unethical. Now, people are becoming more aware after the crisis.

In Chinese, the same word means crisis and opportunity.  Recently a prominent businessman in India was asked why he doesn't take bribes. He replied that he wants good sleep. What people are looking for is an example. Many people can describe crisis, but only few can turn it around. Good ethics gives good sleep and good profit.

Ethical practices are essential for a good economy. We need to come up with practical solutions. 90 per cent of the population is honest! People are waiting for examples and support.

We need to caution people without creating fear and anxiety. Spiritual values can reinstate faith in humans.

Everyone has needs and responsibilities. See how we can reduce our needs and increase the responsibilities. This is absolutely essential in today's world. When the equation between needs and responsibility is disturbed, then we have chaos.

In Hyderabad a group of our people refused to give a bribe for getting license for their business. They said we are willing to come 50 times, we respect you but we cannot give bribes.  It completely transformed the mindset of the people. The group received 10 licenses. Young people, young blood can transform the way business is practiced.

We need to set examples among the state and stakeholders.
art of living TV
© The Art of Living Foundation

Certain questions should be made as a path


European Business Group (EBG)
Imperial Hotel, New Delhi August 10, 2010
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Let me give my own introduction. Shall I do that? I’m a child who refuses to grow up. (Laughter) That’s one line introduction of myself. And I’ve seen that all of us, every human being has that child-likeness within us but it is buried under the debris of the past or concerns about the future. Our job or the job of anyone who is wishing good for the society is to remove this debris and allow this beautiful gift that nature has embedded in us to blossom, the simplicity, the naturalness, the human values of compassion and friendliness. These don’t have to be cultivated. These are there in us, and only need to be nurtured and brought to light again. And I would call this as spirituality. See we are all made up of both matter and spirit. Matter - amino acids, carbohydrates, protein etc. Spirit is love, compassion, sense of belonging, all inclusive feeling, a broad vision about oneself, ones life, and the world. This is what comprises of spirit and anything that uplifts spirit and the spiritual values, I would call that spirituality. What do you say? Ya. It is not some ritual or some belief system. It is much beyond that. It is the essence of good human being. In fact, there is not a single human being who does not want happiness, love or compassion in his/her life. In that sense everyone is spiritual whether they recognize it or not. So, coming to this evening’s session with me, I would like you to ask questions. You know, there is a saying in ancient India - The first sign of intelligence is not to speak at all. (Laughter) And suppose if you have lost the first sign then the second sign of intelligence is not to speak when a question is not asked. (Laughter) So, all our scriptures here in this land begin with a question. Whether you take Bhagwad Geeta, you take Purana, or the Ramayana. Any scripture you see, any ancient text, Someone puts forward a question and then someone else answers. It could be a dialogue between a master and his disciple, husband and wife, between a group of seekers and a wise man. It has always begun in question/answer form. How do you like?

Q: How would you make Indian political leadership honest?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
You know a question has got a single answer. But certain questions should not be answered. It should be made as a path. A road can be tread many a times. Like this question, we will have to ask again and again in various circumstances. Why someone is not honest? Basically, it is lack of sense of belonging. You know what; corruption begins outside the purview of sense of belonging. No one can be corrupt with their own family, and if you extend it a little bit, to the near and dear ones. They’re not corrupt with their friend circle, but when they put a boundary beyond that friend circle, when one thinks that only these people belong to me, then the people are no longer mine. Then the corruption begins. We have to educate people to expand a sense of belonging. Second aspect of corruption is insecurity. People who don’t have friends try to find the security in money. Gosh, they don’t know money is not going to bring them security. It’s the company of right people who will bring more security in their life. You know if you go and ask a school boy or a girl how many friends he/she has, they will count on their fingers - 2,3,4,5. And I ask them, “hey, look you are spending 5 - 8 hours every day in a classroom of 50 - 100 kids, and you can’t be friendly with everybody? And how are you going to live your life when you come out of the schools and colleges with the billion people, 6 billion people in the world? So, the basic quality of being friendly is sort of foreign, sort of alien to our kids. Then what happens? Insecurity creeps in. And to manage this insecurity, the only idea one gets is ok I should have more money. So, then by somehow you amass money, be corrupt. So, first of all we have to spiritualize the politics, socialize the business and secularize the religions. If we can do these three things, society will be a better place to live in.

Every leader should see beyond his/her community and people. They should have a vision for the entire human race. You know, the Hindu priest, he should not only pray for Hindus. He should pray for every human being. Similarly a Muslim or Christian priest, he should feel for the entire humanity then we have achieved the purpose of religion.

So, I would say secularize the religion, socialize the business. If every business undertakes corporate social responsibility of investing 1, 2, 3, 10 or whatever 10 percent of their profit in developing rural areas, I tell you this planet will have no hunger, will have no disease, will have no illiteracy. Because governments alone cannot do this, it is a social partnership with the NGOs and business organizations. They can do much more. So, socialize the business, bring social corporate responsibility and then spiritualize the politics. Now politicians, they had such integrity in the time of Mahatma Gandhi, they were respected highly. Today the situation is completely opposite.

You Know, we need to spiritualize the politics. Politicians should care for people. I just want to share with you a particular story with my grandfather. You know, when my grandfather met Mahatma Gandhi, he went and stayed with him in sevagram for 20 years. My grandmother gave 10.5 kilos of gold. My grandmother was a beautiful lady. Those days the women used to don a lot of gold, dipped from head to toe is all gold. Except the mangalsutra and a set of bangles, she willingly gave all her gold and she said, “I will take care of the kids, you go and serve for the country”. So he went and stayed in Mahatma Gandhi ashram.

You know, that sense of contributing and giving, taking pride in giving is missing today. If that comes up, there will be a big difference. Pride in giving, pride in non-violence are two things which are missing in today’s education. If you see movies, one who is aggressive and loses his temper, is shown as hero. One who is calm, accepts everything and turns other cheek around, they are not considered heroes. This value shift has to happen. I’m just now coming from America where in Chicago we had a program for school district children.

That was the most notorious school, 268 crimes happened in the previous year. And when we introduced meditations, simple pranayama and simple values like making one new friend every day, and stand up and be compassionate, the crime incident rate this year dropped down to 60 from 268. They were amazed and the school district councilors came to thank me. 50 top officials of education said the techniques that we have introduced have brought real transformation. Otherwise, people there don’t feel safe, you don’t know what will happen there tomorrow, whether the child will come back with all the limbs intact. We need to bring this back. Sense of belonging, sense of caring and sharing, and pride in giving.

Q: From the ‘Art of Living’ to the Art of giving, we hear that in arguably lesser spiritual society, people are giving more and more. We just heard what’s going on in the US where many billionaires can’t recall the number, giving away at least 50% of their wealth for the betterment of society. So that concept, that nature of giving, “more spiritual society” has still not seeped in. How do you reconcile that?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
I would say America is very spiritual. There is 500% increase in spiritual interest in past 10 yrs. If you go to California, there is a lot of awareness about spirituality, especially eastern spirituality. In India, there has been this tradition of giving from long back. All the hospitals are built by business families. Every dharamshalas, it was called dharamshala, talabs or the ponds are made by the business houses. Temples are built by business houses. Not by the government, but business houses. If at all Indian spirituality is sustaining, it is being sustained by the business rather than the state throughout the country. Yes, there has been a decline in giving in the past few years. It is lack of spirituality. Maybe they are going down in spiritual values.

Maybe in some places, they are becoming more religious than spiritual. That could be a reason also. But still even today if you go to villages, the amount of caring and sharing the people have is amazing. You go to any village, they may have just 1 glass of lassi but they will share half with you. They do value these values of sharing. It’s in the villages but is disappearing from the urban areas as you say. And it has to be brought back.

Q: I have one classical question. When we put lots of passion in our work, we develop attachment to the result. But same attachment and clinging of result gives stress when we do not achieve it, and happiness when we achieve it. Going by my limited understanding of Bhagwad Geeta, they say do your work with dispassion. But if we do that we see that results can go haywire. How do we resolve this?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Ya, I think it’s little bit different understanding of Geeta. Actually the understanding of Geeta should be, ‘you work hard, you put your 100%, you look for the goals, you look to achieve the goals. But at the same time you should have that faith, that confidence and relax’.

You know to achieve anything you need 3 type of confidence. First is confidence in yourself, Then you have no anxiety. It’s very easy for me to handle this issue. I can do this. Second is confidence in the society around, people around. If you know that your team is good and they will achieve it, or if you have faith in the system that the system is continual and justice will be done to you. You know, if you have done well then you will definitely get well.

But if you don’t have trust or faith in the system, if it’s very corrupt then you will not pass it. So, we have to have faith and trust in system. Third is trust in a power which is compassionate, higher power, the higher self, and this faith that it will always do best to people. These 3 types of trust can take us out of anxiety. For this, I would say take out few minutes for yourself. Relax and Look back. How many times in the past you got stressed? You got some failures? You went through some failures and you achieved something. So, in the same way, now also you will achieve. That gives you that inner strength which is more needed at the time.

I would say it’s like the cell phone. You know, for a cell phone you need to have the sim card. Correct? And you need the battery to be charged and you should be close to a tower. (Laughter) Should be within the range. If any of this is missing then you can go on dialing, say hello and nothing, there’ll be no response

Q: How do you fan the fire of spirituality and not allow it to be inundated by day to day life. You don’t want to abdicate your responsibilities. What do you suggest, simple steps you as an enlightened person to keep spirituality alive in us. What I understood the way u expressed was very beautiful, to spread happiness, to be simple at the same time keep giving.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
I would give you 3 suggestions. One is spend 10-15 mins with yourself. What is it that you want? What is life all about? 50- 60 yrs ago, where I was and where I will be 50 years later? What is my origin? What is my definition? Just don’t look for an immediate answer. Even questioning yourself – ‘what is life all about?’ uplifts the spirit. This is what I would call as knowledge. Dwelling sometime with knowledge, you can read books like Yoga Vashista, Ashtavakra or even Geeta. Just few lines or any other uplifting knowledge books. And then 10-15 minutes of meditation. We will do a short meditation now. 10-15 minutes of meditation will give so much energy that it can refresh the brain, Refresh the spirit and energize the body. Fantastic! And the third thing is do some act of kindness, don’t have to be in the routine. Take some time out. Do some Random acts of kindness. Spend some time with music or art. These 3 things can bring you a lot of fulfillment and keep you away from stress.

You would’ve seen in the last month, a month ago, there was a program in News 24 channel about a village Kathewadi in Maharashtra, near Nanded. One of our teachers went there. He stayed there for 3 months in the village. Transformed the entire village. 700 families.  In this village, everyone removed the locks from the door. And they have a shop without a shopkeeper. People go and put the money in a box and take whatever goods they want to take. And the village is so self sufficient. The entire village went organic. All the farmers went organic. Everyday they come together and sing, they removed all the caste boards. Here now in the country, they are contemplating about reintroducing caste census. In this village first thing is they removed all the caste boards, Dalit, Kshatriya, Brahmin. All the caste boards were removed. Govt of India also gave them an award. It is a crime free village. This was the most notorious village which had so many cases. Today in 3 years time this village has stood up to be most self sufficient. Everybody has water. Roads are there. Every home has a toilet. And they have smokeless chullahs. Most honest village. This village inspired 118 villages to follow.

Not one person smokes or drinks in the village. Everybody abandoned the tobacco, tambaku, alcohol and drugs. So it gave a new energy and enthusiasm to all our teachers and workers. It is possible what Mahatma Gandhi had dreamt - Ram rajya. Where there is no dacoity, no crime. Today it is possible.

You can see in the youtube. They have done a beautiful program about that. I wish we can do many such, if all different corporate could take 10 villages each. It doesn’t cost much. It is just a matter of educating people on hygiene, educating them to keep their homes clean. Every home got painted in pink.

“That which you cannot express is Love.
That which you cannot reject/renounce is Beauty.
That which you cannot avoid is the Truth.”
~ Sri Sri Ravishankar

art of living TV
© The Art of Living Foundation