APPENDIX B
Bhagavad Gita: On the Same Work Being Mediocre or Excellent
CHAPTER OBJECTIVES
After studying this chapter, you should be able to:
- Understand that he same work can be transformed from mediocre to excellent by changing one’s attitude.
- Motivation on the basis of impending compensation leads to mediocrity and on the basis of devotion leads to excellence.
The Bhagavad Gita, an Insightful Observation into Human Nature
A little background to the passage that follows: Lord Krishna is considered as lord of incarnation on earth and he is guiding the warrior prince Arjuna. The Lord has taken up the role of being a charioteer of this prince in the Mahabharata war. In due course, it so happens that the lord has to pep up a dejected Arjuna and the pep-talk that result is recorded as the ‘Bhagvad Gita’. In this process of explaining why the warrior prince must stand up and fight the war, he also throws light on the nature of man thus …
Do note that this is an observation about human nature. And it becomes evident that if this observation about human nature is correct then the predominant mode of motivation used in companies today—of using carrots and sticks—can only lead to mediocre performance and corresponding results. For excellence, the strategy used to motivate must change.
Will My Team Perform at Mediocrity or Excellence?
It is an important input which a leader must explore with great earnestness for it may decide whether his team will operate at mediocrity or otherwise excellence …
3.28: ‘One who is in knowledge of the Absolute Truth, O mighty-armed, does not engage himself in the senses and sense gratification, knowing well the differences between work in devotion and work for fruitive results.’
3.29: ‘Bewildered by the modes of material nature, the ignorant fully engage themselves in material activities and become attached. But the wise should not unsettle them, although these duties are inferior due to the performers’ lack of knowledge.’
3.30: ‘Therefore, O Arjuna, surrendering all your works unto Me, with full knowledge of Me, without desires for profit, with no claims to proprietorship, and free from lethargy, fight.’
3.31: ‘Those persons who execute their duties according to My injunctions and who follow this teaching faithfully, without envy, become free from the bondage of fruitive actions.’
3.32: ‘But those who, out of envy, disregard these teachings and do not follow them are to be considered bereft of all knowledge, befooled, and ruined in their endeavors for perfection.’
The ‘Me’ Used Here is Impersonal
It is usually difficult for people to digest the use of the term ‘Me’ in this passage; ‘according to My injunctions’ in passage 3.31 above seems to be a severely egoistic stand … and the wonder if it is that it is the opposite, in truth the use of the term actually amounts to the ‘denial of one’s individual identity’ and therefore denial of the ego. The reference is to what Christians call ‘the will of God’ … a person who dissolves his will completely and finds in himself only the ‘will of God’. That this is how the communication is meant. There is no need to get lost in that though. The subject of interest is the observation made about work …
To Be Devotional or Mindful of Results
The verse 3.28 distinguishes two ways of approaching work, one is the approach of ‘devotion’ and the other is of doing work mindful of results, that is, this latter approach to work is because the person is attached to the fruits of that work—desperately wants the end result.
People who approach work in this latter manner are described as ‘bewildered by the modes of material nature’. It is proposed that they are ignorant and that they fully engage themselves in material activities and become attached. Being bereft of all knowledge they are befooled, and most importantly, ruined in their endeavours for perfection—or in other words, they do not attain to excellence …
People who approach work mindful of the results do not attain to excellence.
But it is different with those who work in the former manner, that is, with ‘devotion’. Here apparently there is supposed to be no attachment. The pursuer of excellence is supposed to ‘surrendering all his works unto God, with full knowledge of God, without desires for profit, with no claims to proprietorship, and free from lethargy’.
People who approach work with devotion surrender their works into God and without claims to proprietorship work at excellence.
The sequence of happenings is explained as follows:
Those persons who execute their duties according to the will of God, (My injunctions) and who follow this teaching faithfully, without envy (getting entangled in the human form of the teacher), become free from the bondage of actions done in attached pursuit of fruits. And that in turn spells excellence …
Therefore, through this theory of human nature (or divine aspect of human nature) one comes to the startling conclusion that the pursuit of ‘material desires’ leads one into lower worlds while the giving up of material desires produces excellence … .
Motivating People to Work in Industries
The general presumption is that people work in industry to take care of their needs—that they do work and they get compensated for it … so they all work for this compensation. Now the above observation from the Bhagavad Gita leads to a different perspective. It raises a doubt that the idea of ‘compensation’ being the motivation for people to work is flawed at its very essence. No doubt that work can be got through a compensatory approach even as verse 3.29 brings out, but according to the passages that follow thereafter it is brought out that ‘excellence’ is not possible with such an approach.
Now knowing that any organization truly thrives only if the people within it strive at excellence, does this not give a hint as to what a leader must truly achieve in himself and in his followers … and what is the challenge in achieving it?
The conclusion is startling … two people doing the very same job … one is in misery even as he is doing it and is pretty mediocre in his performance. The other person is enjoying himself doing the same work and is doing it outstandingly—at excellence. And the difference between them is just a difference in attitude. One of them is attached and the other detached. And this small difference impacts the organization they work for in a big way … .
Case Studies
- Take cases (interviews, autobiography extracts, articles) of sportspersons, academic achievers and athletes which describe the work they put in. Explore for the correlation between ‘enjoying’ their work and ‘excellence’.
Exercises
- Self-introspection: Look back into life’s experiences by focusing on instances where remarkable achievements happened. Recollect, as objectively as possible, the approach to one’s work before that achievement happened … and compare with less successful times. Performance at sports and arts are good areas to study this.
- Discussion: In the light of the saying ‘The good are the light in the darkness of the righteous’, discuss whether austerities are painful to those who perform at excellence.
- Search on the internet the views of prominent western philosophers, thinkers and scientists on the Bhagvad Gita …
- Transformational experimentation: Play some game with the score and victory in mind, raise the stakes high if possible so that it matters, could be a task as simple as basketing a basket-ball from the spot for a bet, knocking a football into a small goal from a distance, repeating half-ball in-offs on a billiards table or even playing any actual game with an opponent. Mid way, make an attempt to let go of the fruits of victory, think of doing whatever you are doing the best way possible, if a good play happens, attribute it to a complete set of happenings in nature of which you are only a part … keep repeating to yourself ‘my part is to do and the rest nothing is mine’ … try to see the difference in the earlier and latter perspectives. How you feel it and how performance happens in each case.
- Transformational experimentation: When as a good player you experience a quicksand, ‘the more you want it the more your performance sinks’, at that moment pause … let the want go, put it on any alter before which you can sacrifice even this victory, revert to the basics of the game, repeat three times, ‘my part is to do, rest nothing is mine’ with a sincere prayer, play your part the best you can.