Wisdom of Indian Management

It is a tragedy that while we have a rich heritage of Management thought that was specifically developed for Indian psyche, our B-Schools and Corporates blindly follow the more materialistic Western Management philosophy, which is skin deep to say the least.

The Indian management philosophy clearly makes a distinction between the 'subtle and intangible' Subject and the more 'concrete, visible and tangible' Object. While the West stresses a lot on the tangible aspects, the emotional Indian is more in tune with the Subjective side of it. This is manifested in our dependence on the Third Eye or the eye of the wisdom. It transcends everything that is tangible.

We attach more importance to integrity, fearlessness, courage, social awareness, vision, purity of mind,truth - all of which are subjective, subtle and intangible. For us these are as important as the materialistic things like money, materials, data and other tangible items. One might argue that, of late, we are attaching greater importance to these of late but that is only in the metros. Majority of India is still untouched by it.

While our body and the panchendriya are objective, the most important thing the 'Athma' or the soul is highly intangible. For indians, athma comes above everything else. The skilled manager stresses on the panchendriya while the wisdom/knowledge based manager uses the latter. Hence he is more valuable.

The West is just discovering the value of Knowledge based economy. We were practicing it 5000 years ago and there is so much literature on it. But, we as a nation, dont do anything to uphold and propagate our ancient wisdom. And it is such a tragedy.