The reasons for this sorry state of affairs
are not far to seek. The Western idea
of management centers on making the worker
(and the manager) more efficient and more
productive. Companies offer workers more
to work more, produce more, sell more
and to stick to the organization without
looking for alternatives. The sole aim
of extracting better and more work from
the worker is to improve the bottom-line
of the enterprise. The worker has become
a hirable commodity, which can be used,
replaced and discarded at will.
Thus, workers have been reduced to the
state of a mercantile product. In such
a state, it should come as no surprise
to us that workers start using strikes
(gheraos) sit-ins, (dharnas)
go-slows, work-to-rule etc. to get maximum
benefit for themselves from the organisations.
Society-at-large is damaged. Thus we reach
a situation in which management and workers
become separate and contradictory entities
with conflicting interests. There is no
common goal or understanding. This, predictably,
leads to suspicion, friction, disillusion
and mistrust, with managers and workers
at cross purposes. The absence of human
values and erosion of human touch in the
organizational structure has resulted
in a crisis of confidence.
Western management philosophy may have
created prosperity – for some people
some of the time at least - but it has
failed in the aim of ensuring betterment
of individual life and social welfare.
It has remained by and large a soulless
edifice and an oasis of plenty for a few
in the midst of poor quality of life for
many.
Hence, there is an urgent need to re-examine
prevailing management disciplines - their
objectives, scope and content. Management
should be redefined to underline the development
of the worker as a person, as a human
being, and not as a mere wage-earner.
With this changed perspective, management
can become an instrument in the process
of social, and indeed national, development.
Now let us re-examine some of the modern
management concepts in the light of the
Bhagavad Gita which is a primer
of management-by-values.
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