Corporate Lesson from Indian Mythology

Once one hears the words “Indian Mythology”, one starts thinking on the lines of Indian Gods and various epics and stories around them. Thoughts are furthered into the various lessons one can learn from Indian Mythology, lessons on moral and ethical values, lessons on one’s duties, lessons on sacrifices and lessons on not to fall for worldly pleasures.

However, rarely one derives corporate lessons out of it. Though Indian epic, Mahabharat, has found its place as base for many corporate strategies and tactics but no one has thought of Indian Mythology providing one very important lesson, lesson on organization structure. I feel one can draw very good analogy from the hierarchy of system of Indian Gods with the hierarchy within an organization. Let me state the analogy.

According to Hindu Mythology, three Gods, Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh, are the supreme powers and Lord Indra, not as powerful as the above three, is the King of Gods. Under Indra, there are various Gods such as Varun Dev, Pawan Dev, Agni Dev, Shani Dev, Sun, Moon etc. Then we have various sages, humans and devils and demons. If we see this whole world as an organization, we can think system of Gods to be the management of the world organization. Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh can be thought as the promoters, shareholders or owners of the organization. Indra can be thought of as CEO reporting to them and other Gods as department heads each having resources in the form of air, wind, rain, fire, sunlight etc. So, unless there is havoc created in the organization, the three supreme powers just allow CEO Indra to run the system with his ministers, various Gods (department heads).

What are the lessons?

There are a few especially for owners of the company who try to manage and do everything on their own.

1. Even Gods are not able to do all things on their own and that’s why they have so many Gods with clear roles and responsibilities. There is where organization structure and its importance gets stated.
2. The promoters/owners do not interfere in day to day operations. CEO is allowed to take decision and run the organization with each department head having control of his share of resources and using them judiciously.
3. The three supreme powers (promoters/owners) intervene occasionally when there is imbalance of power and resources in the system, which is brought to their notice either by demons/devils dictating terms (demons/devils can be thought of as competition) or by a whistle-blower (humans by means of prayers/tapasyas/yagyas). The supreme powers restore the balance for the long term and then again handover the control to CEO (Indra). So, the topmost layer is best active in the form of Grievance Management.
4. The other important thing is the supreme powers fix the temporary problem and let the management continue with the operations. They do not keep replacing the management with every issue/grievance. We have been having Lord Indra and other Gods managing earth (organization) since its existence.
5. The three supreme powers do not indulge in any activity to prove his own supremacy over the other two and nor they are offended or have any ego issues if the humans pray to Indra i.e. analogous to employees working as per the directives of CEO.
6. There are various categories of the Gods in Hindu Mythology which can be thought of as analogous to various bands employees are clubbed in with each band/category specifying the power (privileges), employee (God/human) enjoys in that band/category.
7. Some sages obtain/earn the power and position of God by their deeds equivalent to performance and become part of the management which can be seen as analogous to promotion in the organization. All other employees (humans) are encouraged to perform the right deeds (give performance) to rise up. Getting power of God can be seen as acknowledgement by the management of the performance.

It is so commonly seen in India Inc. especially the owner driven companies to spend so much time in worshiping Gods but failing to follow the lessons one can learn from them. India has seen so many small firms to do good and failing miserably when they try to scale up. One of the common reasons has been the owner has not been able to relinquish the control. Owners have been seen to trying to do everything on their own even after scaling up which leads up to the situation of complete chaos and confusion but other members of the management not clear of their roles and responsibilities.

Owners often argue that others are not able to perform as efficiently they do themselves and that they do not find others as competent as they themselves are. But the fact is this has to be the case and that’s why they are owners and others employees. No one doubts that the three supreme powers, Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh, are much more capable than Indra (CEO) but can we think them of doing what Indra does. They have far greater responsibilities. Same has to be the thought process of the owners as well.

P.S.: There is no intention of hurting anyone’s sentiments especially Hindu followers. I have just tried to bring out one important lesion from Indian Mythology for the Indian corporate world. Also, this has no relation to my current or past work place. This is the work of fiction and its resemblance to any person, thing or organization is just the coincidence.