Bhagavad Gita and Modern Day Managers

Work Results
The Gita further explains the theory of non- attachment to the results of work in Ch.18 Verses 13-15 the import of which is as under:
If the result of sincere effort is a success, the entire credit should not be appropriated by the doer alone.
If the result of sincere effort is a failure, then too the entire blame does not accrue to the doer.
The former attitude mollifies arrogance and conceit while the latter prevents excessive despondency, de-motivation and self-pity. Thus both these dispositions safeguard the doer against psychological vulnerability which is the cause for the Modem Managers’ companions like Diabetes, High B.P. Ulcers etc.
Assimilation of the ideas behind 2.47 and 18.13-15 of the Gita leads us to the wider spectrum of lokasamgraha or general welfare.
There is also another dimension in the work ethic. If the karma yoga is blended with bhakti yoga then the work itself becomes worship, a seva yoga.
Manager’s Mental Health
The ideas mentioned above have a close bearing on the end-state of a manager which is his mental health. Sound mental health is the very goal of any human activity more so management. An expert describes sound mental health as that state of mind which can maintain a calm, positive poise or regain it when unsettled in the midst of all the external vagaries of work life and social existence. Internal constancy and peace are the pre- requisites for a healthy stress-free mind.
Some of the impediments to sound mental health are
Greed -for power, position, prestige and money.
Envy -regarding others’ achievements, success, rewards.
Egotism -about one’s own accomplishments.
Suspicion, anger and frustration.
Anguish through comparisons.
The driving forces in today’s rat-race are speed and greed as well as ambition and competition. The natural fallout from these forces is erosion of one’s ethico-moral fibre which supersedes the value system as a means in the entrepreneurial path like tax evasion, undercutting, spreading canards against the competitors, entrepreneurial spying, instigating industrial strife in the business rivals’ establishments etc. Although these practices are taken as normal business hazards for achieving progress, they always end up as a pursuit of mirage -the more the needs the more the disappointments. This phenomenon may be called as yayati-syndrome.
In Mahabharata we come across a king called Yayati who, in order to revel in the endless enjoyment of flesh exchanged his old age with the youth of his obliging youngest son for a mythical thousand years. However, he lost himself in the pursuit of sensual enjoyments and felt penitent. He came back to his son pleading to take back his youth. This yayati syndrome shows the conflict between externally directed acquisitions, motivations and inner reasoning, emotions and conscience.
Gita tells us how to get out of this universal phenomenon by prescribing the following capsules.