The source of the problem

The reasons for this sorry state of affairs are not far to seek. The Western idea of management
centers on making the worker (and the manager) more efficient and more productive. Companies
offer workers more to work more, produce more, sell more and to stick to the organization without
looking for alternatives. The sole aim of extracting better and more work from the worker is to
improve the bottom‐line of the enterprise. The worker has become a hirable commodity, which can
be used, replaced and discarded at will.
Thus, workers have been reduced to the state of a mercantile product. In such a state, it should
come as no surprise to us that workers start using strikes (gheraos) sit‐ins, (dharnas) go‐slows, workto‐
rule etc. to get maximum benefit for themselves from the organizations. Society‐at‐large is
damaged. Thus we reach a situation in which management and workers become separate and
contradictory entities with conflicting interests. There is no common goal or understanding. This,
predictably, leads to suspicion, friction, disillusion and mistrust, with managers and workers at cross
purposes. The absence of human values and erosion of human touch in the organizational structure
has resulted in a crisis of confidence.
Western management philosophy may have created prosperity – for some people some of the time
at least ‐ but it has failed in the aim of ensuring betterment of individual life and social welfare. It has
remained by and large a soulless edifice and an oasis of plenty for a few in the midst of poor quality
of life for many.
Hence, there is an urgent need to re‐examine prevailing management disciplines ‐ their objectives,
scope and content. Management should be redefined to underline the development of the worker
as a person, as a human being, and not as a mere wage‐earner. With this changed perspective,
management can become an instrument in the process of social, and indeed national, development.
Now let us re‐examine some of the modern management concepts in the light of the Bhagavad Gita
which is a primer of management‐by‐values.

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