Buddhism and Contemporary Management

by D. K. Ratwatte

(July 27, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Dr. Gopalkrishna provides clear and precise arguments through his book "Buddhism and Contemporary Management", on how managers, executives and organisations can achieve materialistic happiness, by focusing on spiritual happiness. Today's universities and professional exams provide the background for executives to accumulate wealth and increase material happiness, whilst emphasis on the importance of finding spiritual happiness, which is essential to having a healthy and productive life, is neglected. This book gives the answers to how individuals and managers/organizations can strike a balance and combat the evils of today's corporate world by using 3 simple Buddhist meditation techniques.

The main essence of Dr. Gopalkrishna’s work shows that training your mind is important to achieving material and spiritual happiness. The author implies through his work that by training your mind to be pure, one can achieve "Economic progress with spiritual progress of sharing and caring". Meditation is shown by his work as purification of the mind and the word Bhavana, which literally means development of "Mind culture". This mind culture will allow today's executive to manage stress and strain. "Many personality dimensions are related to stress, including self-esteem and the need to control things". The author, shows that "a personality trait may affect the likelihood that someone will perceive a situation or an event as a stressor". Personality is seen as ever changing and is driven by four processes of the mind a) Consciousness, b) Perception and c) Sensation and d) Re-action. The author in his work shows how these four processes of the mind can bring about Dukkha and how the solution to Dukkha can be achieved by following the noble path of right speech, right effort and right understanding.

This book covers the importance of the impact of Buddhism on modern day management and also draws on literature from Asian countries like Japan, Singapore, Thailand, China, India as well as USA and UK. An organization is seen as a place where there will be conflict and tension due to scarce resources, resulting in bringing about stress and suffering. Dr Gopalkrishnan by using examples shows how the 3 meditation techniques 1) Anapanasati (Mindfulness of breathing), 2) Vipassana (Insight Meditation) and 3) Brahmavihara (Four sublime states of mind), can bring about greater productivity for organizations. To achieve this, he says that purifying ones mind should start at the individual level. The author is able to show that if one considers the spiritual wellbeing of others and are compassionate about people around you, he/she can achieve material happiness at the workplace more effectively. He goes on to say that "You yourself should put forth the necessary effort and work out your deliverance, the Buddha can only show the way". In the same manner, if managers are able to develop the correct "Mind culture" through understanding of the nature of a person, they will be able to get things done and run their organizations in a more profitable manner. Dr. Gopalkrishna through his work shows that the role of management is simply getting things done through people and "The goals of an organization are successful when personality is matched with job". To match personality with jobs, managers need to understand the past behaviour of people and also forecast the future behaviour of workers, this he feels can only be done if managers can combine a degree of compassion towards their workforce along with their materialistic targets.

Dr. Gopalkrishna’s work is important to the manager who is under pressure in today's highly competitive corporate culture to deliver profit targets, but at the same time needs to keep their staff motivated to achieve these materialistic goals. I have tried to implement certain recommendations given by the author in the financial field of foreign currency and bond trading environment and the results have been beneficial to my colleagues, organization and myself, The modern day result-oriented mangers should take special note of his opinion that "there is no dignity of our, all members share work equally and execute it with sincerity and diligence", if his fact can be shared by all in an organization from the Managing Director down to the Office Assistant, then that organization will achieve its corporative objectives, whilst also having spiritual happiness amongst the workforce.

The book highlights the duties of an employer to employee and vice versa, which should be carefully looked at by both parties in today's highly complicated corporate world. It is clear that in most organizations employers and employees are only interested in looking after their own self interest. By doing so, it is evident that the current corporate culture is only taking a very short term view of achieving materialistic targets and overlooking the sustainability of these long term goals. This book highlights the importance of the spiritual side and shows that having spiritual happiness will help to reduce friction amongst the employer and employee and allow for scarce resources to be utilized in an optimal manner, with a long term focus.

Dr. Gopalkrishna’s work clearly shows that Buddhist principles if properly applied can become cutting-edge management techniques. He shows how Buddhist practices can be used to diagnose the cause of conflict and stress in today's organizations and shows in a clear manner how to find solutions through prescriptions contained in Buddhism. His work suggests pragmatic measures to improve performance, 1) Obtaining personal effectiveness by developing individual positive qualities and reducing negative qualities, 2) Achieving interpersonal effectiveness through individual effectiveness and finally 3) Achieving professional effectiveness through individual and interpersonal effectiveness. He goes on to say "when the individuals are happy, the team works well, leading to synergy improving performance and having professional effectiveness".

Dr. Gopalkrishna has had more than 23 years of corporate experience in a leading public sector company and is currently a faculty member of the postgraduate department of the Bangalore University. His book can be purchased in Sri Lanka and the professor is contactable on dgopalkrishna@yahoo.com
- Sri Lanka Guardian