Leadership

Superconscious Leadership (Part 1)

Acharya Prashant

56min

15reads

Acharya Prashant (AP): How do we begin?

Questioner (Q) (Nitesh): Yes, we’re here again. I know we spoke in the past about different topics. But I decided to use your help, or use your insight, into leadership and management side of things of life, and so we arranged this for today. So just wanted to get your insight into how effectively, how I can best manage things from my end. So, I run accountancy practice in the UK. So, I have four staff in the UK and three now in India. And so, we provide accountancy and tax services to various clients, mostly in the UK. So, we interact with lot of clients with various needs. So, there’s a client management side, is one thing and then we also have staff who do the necessary work. So, we have staff as well to manage. Although it’s a small, four years into growth, but it’s growing, so, you know, hopefully, growth will continue. And so, we’ll probably end up with more staff and more clients in future. So how best to manage staff as well as clients and how we can provide service to both the clients and the staff basically?

Q2(Sumeet): I also have similar questions. With Nitesh’s help, I’m managing two people for Nitesh in India. I also want to understand how to manage them in the most efficient manner. What principles to utilize? Of course, there are contemporary principles, which I can implement and deploy. But you talk about different principles about success, about learning, about career. How practical are they? Does everyone understand? Will everyone accept those principles? I’m happy to accept, but the people who I’m going to use it with, will they be able to come on board?

AP: So, let’s take that as the opening question. You see, principles are a load to carry. In this moment you ask me something, and if I have to go back and figure out, dive into some repository of principles and see which one is applicable in this situation, and then see how to apply that, then the response will be very manufactured, late, and ill-suited. Principles really are a stop-gap arrangement. For those who do not yet quite understand the master, the skilled one does not really go by principles, there is a certain deftness. Certain people call it an intuitive clarity, but it’s not even intuition. To put it very purely, it’s just understanding. You see, you act. And the seeing and the actor spontaneous. One. Concurrent. Give me an example of a situation in which you feel the need to apply a principle.

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Superconscious Leadership (Part 1)

AP: There would be no spice in life left then. If you and I start thinking alike, why would we meet? This entire world drama would cease to continuously unfold. So, yours is quite an innocent question. But that’s not how things are. That’s not how things ever will be. Man will be man. Women will be women. Plants will be plants. Lions will be lions. And rabbits will be rabbits. They all have their own personal characteristics. The personal characteristics, the three Gunas of Prakriti, they are the spice of life. Provided one knows how to use the spices. And if one does not know how to use the spices, then the food is unbearable. Even deadly. You need not wish that everyone thinks alike or thinks purely. There already are many of them, but they too are on a lookout. They too want to go to only to people who have a certain refinement of mind. As you evolve, as your consciousness loses its disturbed nature and becomes more silently deep, you’ll find that more and more such people are by themselves coming to you. Take a very small example. If you are recruiting, you must be putting out an advertisement or something. Now, a simple recruitment ad looks like a trivial thing. There are millions of them out there on the portals, in the newspapers, word of mouth, so many things. But there’s tremendous difference between word and word. The entire language will change. The entire flavor will change. That small document would no more be the same. And you cannot just do that artificially. That document really represents the prospective employer. That document represents who you are and, hence what you are inviting the other to get into. Now, if the other is really an evolved character, would he be attracted by a piece of text that is not so evolved? And then everything. He comes to you. The look on your face. The arrangement of the place. The very first words with which you greet him. How do you describe the money that you are going to give to him? Not that you have to increase the number or something. Do you talk of it as the basic motivator or do you talk of money as something else? Something a little secondary, a little peripheral. What are you asking him to get into? Are you asking him to be part of a mission? Are you asking him to get into a mercenary service? Are you asking him to trade his skill and time and earn some money in return? The same x amount that you are offering him can be described in ten very different ways. The description will depend on who you are. When you are right, you draw the right people towards you. It’s a strange thing. It just happens. You’ll not even know how the right ones, from not only your vicinity but actually from all over the world, just come over. It’s almost like, the aroma of the flower. The bees come to know. They just come to know. Or the smell of the sugar. Have you seen how ants appear from nowhere? Single sugar particle and ants. It’s such a mysterious thing. From where do they come? But they just come. Take them as prospective candidates. Ready to be hired. Even that is a dirty word, you know? Hiring. The whole outlook has to change. You see, Sumeet, right? Sumeet, you are young. 25?

AP: Okay. Do you know what the Scriptures say about this? Don’t mind. I’ll be very old-fashioned at times. They say that the Goddess of Yajna simply does not allow misfits to come near her. The context is that when the Yajna ceremony is being performed—You know what a Yajna ceremony is right? — When the Yajna ceremony is being performed, only the right ones get together. Only the right ones get to come there. The ones who should not be there are somehow just kept away. And to explain how the wrong ones just don’t get to reach there, the Scriptures say that the Yajna Goddess herself keeps the undeserving ones away. They won’t come. They just won’t come. So, you won’t need to filter them out. But for them to not come, your place, the very personality of your place, must be an expression of your essence. As they say, ghosts don’t enter temples. Now, God pervades the entire universe. It’s all very clichéd but we are trying to relook. God permeates the entire universe. But why do ghosts fear temples and not the rest of the universe? If God is everywhere, then ghosts should be nowhere. But it is said that it is only the temples that the ghosts are scared of. At other places, they just roam about freely. These things are symbolic. There are actually no ghosts. I hope you can read the symbols. So why is it only the temple that the ghosts avoid? Because in the temple, godliness is finding expression. So, if in your workplace also, your inherent godliness is finding expression, then the wrong candidates won’t need to be shown the door. They just won’t enter through the door. They might just come till the door, but there would be something about your place that would make them turn back. We all sense it. Ah, this place is not my type. These lights, no that’s not me. The expression on the face of the receptionist, no no no, that’s not me. The very opening line of the conversation, no, that’s not me. I would feel suffocated here. They say evil spirits feel suffocated at the Yajna ceremony. The presence of the interviewer must be such that the candidate comes to know that, “This is not my cup of tea. I’d better run away.” And that happens. The best shortlisting process is the one in which you don’t have to shortlist. The wrong candidates simply vanish on their own. So, you didn’t need to apply any judgment, any criteria, any filters. You’re saved all the trouble. The wrong ones sensed on their own that, “We would be misfits here, we would be suffocated,” and so they vanished. And that happens. This is not just principles or theory. This actually happens. And even if they do get hired, there are hiring mistakes obviously. Even if they do get hired, within a week or two, they realize that it’s not going to work out. So, they come, tender an apology, or sometimes they just… yeah, disappeared. Which is good for both.

AP: And if you know that this is what you are doing, then why must you look to emulate someone else? Why don’t you boldly come forward and say, “I’m doing a good job. Join me. I’m proud of what I’m doing, and if you want to lead a life in which you would be propped up by your own self-worth, your every breath would have a certain dignity, then you can join me.” Why can’t you talk straight? Why do you need to go by the HR handbooks? You see, the difference between the personal and the professional has to be greatly reduced, please. You are meeting someone with the view to possibly include him in your team and you are dating a girl. Actually, these two situations are just one. But we behave very differently in the two situations because one is considered personal and the other is labeled as professional. If you are one if you are not split, then why should your responses in these two situations be greatly different? Of course, there would be minor differences. Here, you are talking to a woman, and the ambiance is different, and there you are talking to a man or a woman in a different context. But fundamentally you are going to relate to both of them. In some sense, both are going to become a part of your life. Aren’t they? Any hard-working professional spends as much time with his team as he spends with his wife. Is that not so? In fact, many of them spend more time with their team than they do with their parents, or wife, or kids. Then shouldn’t you be choosing your team with as much care and as much heart and as much honesty as you need to have when you choose a wife? And when you are on a date, do you follow policies? Do you have a set opening statement? Oh, many do have, but we very well know how their dates go. How would the girl feel if you just go there and dole out a rehearsed statement? “You look stunningly great and gorgeous.” And she knows that you have been repeating it and repeating it, and you have already said it to 20 other girls. The candidate too feels the same when you dish out your customary welcomes and briefs, and job description, and company profile. How does he feel? I’m sure you have been through many interviews, have you? A few at least. How do you feel? Doesn’t something churn inside? Doesn’t one feel a little nauseatic? I’m surprised more people don’t just throw up in front of the HR person.

So, one does not bother too much about the tangible objectives. One does not bother about the results that are going to accrue in the future. Which means that failure loses a lot of the meaning that is usually attached to it. It also means that success too loses a lot of the meaning that is attached to it. One has done it beautifully. Both success and failures are results, events in the future, and one is not bothering too much about them. That is one thing. And then there is another kind of failure, which we more commonly see. Let me describe it. One has been told that to get out, one must open the door. But one is so lost and deluded, drunk that every time one wants to go out, one ends up banging his head on the door. One sees that, experiences that, curses himself, and pledges to not to do the same thing the next time. But the next morning he does the same thing again. And then the next morning again, and then again, and then again. This is the kind of failure that has no glory in it. The first kind of failure is very acceptable and has no sting in it. It doesn’t hurt you. This kind of failure must hurt, where you are just repeating your old mistakes, your old patterns. And this is the more prevalent kind of failure. One cannot be forgiven if one is failing this way. If you have to fail, fail because you work being truthful to yourself. In being truthful, it was a matter of chance that you could not meet the tangible objectives. But then tangible objectives aren’t greatly important when you are being truthful. They are important but they aren’t everything. So that kind of failure is acceptable. It is so close to success; you need not even call it a stepping stone to success. It is just neighboring success. And the second kind of failure is a very despicable failure. Where you know that you’ll be committing a mistake and you again commit a mistake. Think of the man who gets out of his house every morning to go to his office. He knows that a banana peel would be lying on the road at a certain place. He knows that if he steps on the banana peel, he would slip. And he knows that if he slips it would hurt just as it has hurt him every day. And yet every morning, he still steps on the banana peel and still slips. This is horror. Most of us fail this way. We don’t have any new failures. We just keep repeating our old failures. New failures are so welcome. Old failures, they just show that you are a very egoistic person who is not willing to change, so you are just repeating your patterns. As a manager, you must have great patience with young people who are making mistakes. Even if their mistakes cost you something, you must take that as an investment. You’ve invested in the growth of your young colleague. But you must have no patience with the repeated mistakes of veterans. They are not committing a mistake. They are boldly declaring that they will not change. You must be at war with them. They are not just mistaken. What they are doing is deliberate. It is a deliberate offense. It is not a casual mistake in ignorance. This is the kind of mistake that one must not tolerate. You knew that you’d slip and still you stepped on the banana peel. You know where you are wrong and you still do that. You know what is right and you still avoid that. This kind of mistake deserves punishment. Punishment is a help, you know? It helps crack the ego. But you must never punish someone who is truly experimenting, please. Even if he seems to fail, gladly bear the cost. In fact, encourage him. “Try once again.” Sooner than later, he will succeed. You must take him as already successful.

AP: You see, let’s understand this. There is me, there is you, there is you, and then there is her (pointing at the participants one by one). We’re all together working for a common purpose, and we are grown-up human beings. Why must the other be influenced to work? Does the other lack in something? That is the first question. The second question is how are you really influencing him? The common methods of influence are just fear and greed. You may couch them in more genteel language, you may give them more acceptable and sophisticated names, but fundamentally the only two tools that are used to influence are fear and greed. Next time when you want to influence him, you’ll have to use more fear and greed. The situation keeps on deteriorating. This time you offered him a 1000 and that pepped him up. Next time you’ll have to offer him 2000. That’s not the way to work, right? People and their labor are not commodities to be bought. The source of energy, the source of action, the source of labor must be something else, somewhere else. If influence is to be talked of as the effect of one’s presence on the other, then one’s presence can have a very liberating effect as well on the other. I’ve nothing against that kind of an influence. But that kind of an influence is greatly unseen. Mostly we influence the others so that the others can be coerced or tempted into meeting my personal objectives. And that is why people are so lifeless at work because they really have no intimate relationship with what they’re doing. Their targets are not their targets. They are somebody else’s targets. The man sitting at the top wants to earn a 1000. And in the process, the team members will too make a few dollars. Somebody would make 20, somebody 50, somebody 100, somebody 125. Even if they are making some money, it is so that the man at the top is able to meet his personal desires. In fact, that’s the textbook definition as well. A company exists to maximize shareholder value. Now, that’s quite embarrassing and scary. That means that all the 20,000 employees of the company are working so that the value of the shares of the four people at the top is maximized. I’m assuming it is not publicly listed. They are just four shareholders. And what are these 20,000 guys working for? Four people. It’s so brazen, it is so much in your face. You are working so that the value of my shares is maximized. You are working so that my profit is maximized. What else is slavery then? If this is not, what else is slavery? Now, you’ll need to influence. Now, you’ll need to go to them and say, “You know guy, well, if I’m making a thousand, I think I can give you a little more than 20. And I tell you, if I make a 1050, you get a dollar more.” That’s the old, beaten, and dusted model on which even the most modern of corporations are functioning.

The shareholder is no more the owner. Everybody who is working has now taken ownership. Can’t you have such a workplace where even the junior-most says, “This is my place.” My place in the sense that I own it. And if I own something, then I don’t have to be motivated to improve it, to run it. All the motivational gurus and all the strategy books are simply penny-wise and pound foolish. They keep teaching managers how to extract the pennies from their people. But the great force, that hearty motivation is, is missed. The great opportunity is lost. It’s like you have two wallets. One containing small coins and the other containing big notes. And you are obsessed with drawing the maximum from the small wallet, and you are totally missing out on the big one. Pennywise pound foolish. You are so happy if you can make your employee spend an extra 30 minutes by giving him a 2% wage hike. That’s the kind of negotiation that is there, right? Spend an extra 30 minutes and take this much home. Spend one hour more and take this much home. And you do not know that the same person, don’t call him an employee please, that the same individual, if a human being capable of love, in love, he will willingly give six hours more and ask for nothing. And you won’t need to have CCTV cameras then. You don’t need to keep monitoring. “Is it a CD box that the guy is pinching?” There are so many organizations, you know, they face this challenge. Even senior employees are pinching stationery items. An assistant vice-president is stealing A4 sheets, erasers, pens, letterheads. These things happen, of course, you know that, right? These are sure shot proofs that the employees take the workplace as an adversary. They feel that they are there to snatch and cheat and forcibly extract and do all of that quickly before they get the next tempting offer. I repeat. Remove this artificial distinction between the personal and the professional. You will never succeed in your work if you are taking it as separate from personal life. Every bit of work is strictly personal. Never say that here ends the personal sphere, and now I’m stepping into the professional. It’s all your personal matter.

Excerpts From Articles