Vedic Management Mantra
By Rajagopal S. Iyer
Date: 6th January 2002 CE
Abstract
This article attempts to view Management from the Vedic Perspective.
Introduction
Modern Management is essentially the science of Optimal application of the
below mentioned resources by an entity (either Modern Man or Organisation).
1. Name (e-man)
2. Minutes
3. Material (/Money)
4. Messages
5. Movement / Mechanism
6. Map
7. Money
The Above can be remembered as the 7 "M"s of Management Mantra.
The following paragraphs expounds the above in brief
1. Modern Man
-------------
At the Outset, the Word Man (capitalisation intended) here is used here in
andryogenous sense. viz it does not diffrentiate between genders. It
represents individual Human being irrespective of gender. The main purpose
of the usage of this word is just for alleteration. Just because the word
Man is used, for grammatical accuracy, all the pronouns will have to be
masculine. But it no way deviates from the central assumption of the gender
independance of the entity.
Man for all purposes here essentially is an Entity's Name -- Human being or
Organisation -- an individual in the subjective sense who has a very
specific set of attributes, properties, prejudices, needs and more
importantly wants. It is recognised that this Man essentially Selfish and
Lazy. It also recognises The Man has a very personal and unique history
associated with him.
The epithet Modern is to emphasise the currency of concept. The term
represents the Man in this technologically advanced age is very much
dependent on both Human and Technological resources to carry out his day to
day activities.
Another aspect to be recognised is that his personal & professional lives
are inextricably intermingled in such a non-linear way that he cannot play
these two parallel roles without hurting each other in some way or another.
Hence to manage Man, one should apply onself keeping in mind that one is
not only dealing with the organisational role, but also with the Man
filling or occupying it.
In fact organisational roles are defined and designed keeping in mind the
occupant's aspirations.
Modern Management techniques have started recognising the central role the
Man plays. One interesting aside is the word Organisation's root in organ
which is a part of a living whole. This division/integration can be carried
ad-infinitum.
In Reality, the search is not ad-infinitum: it stops when one reaches
oneself. (ekam eva advitiiyam - brahma suutra).
So the primary requirement is that the centrality of the role of the Man
should be recognised and other resources should be applied with Man in that
organisational role (and not the organisational role) as the locus of any
activity.
In other words, "put oneself in other's shoes".
2. Minutes
----------
The term minutes is used here in a broader sense representing duration. It
should NOT be read as "a duration of 60 seconds".
Probably one of the most vivid recognition of one of the most primary and
fundamental shortcoming and continuous corrective action ever taken in the
history of mankind is the attempt to arrive at a "man x minutes" constant.
Modern management often has tried to arrive at this constant with varying
results. The vedas and associated literature assertion about this constant
is that it is one. This constant happens to have the value 120 (jyotisha
shaastra - vimshottari dasha).
The time to snap one's finger probably has more or less been constant ever
since homo sapiens appeared on the surface of the earth.
This constant should be treated as one rather than vary it. For example,
the time taken to finish a task such as eating food.
Now all tasks consist of sub-tasks. Each subtask takes a specific amount of
duration. This duration depends upon the Man the doer. If everybody were
created equal, then the question of statistical variances should not arise.
If variances are there, some thing has gone wrong in summing up the
durations at some stage.
Current problems: The fundamental problem in the modern world and its
manifestation is the cliche "I dont have time". If we analyse the statement
further, it can be inferred that the number of minutes that are required to
attempt or complete the task in question could not be fitted into the
schedule. Further, it can be seen that this shortage occurs due to the fact
that durations required to manage and organise the tasks to be performed by
the subject in question also includes the duration for information
management tasks (creating, receiving, transmitting, analysing and storing
information).
In this age this has assumed humoungous proportions of the subject's
duration availability.
A Vedic Approach: If an Information Management System, which emulates the
human way of information management mechanism, is made available
irrespective of the point in time and point in space (physical location) --
in other words, anytime, anywhere -- to the Man to organise the information
and their related priority, and if it includes the details of resources
consumed /to be consumed, then the available minutes (time/duration) can be
can be predicatably utilised.
Vedic Duration measurement: One important issue that needs to be addressed
here is that of duration metrics: Unit of measurement of time and their
inter-relationships. Currently the metrics is objective (cesium/quartz
clock et al.)
For accurate duration measurement, the basic unit should start from the
subject. Veda lakshaNa provides the fundamental and primary duration
measurement - maatra. maatra is the duration it takes to snap one's thumb
and middle finger of right hand. One second as we know it can be deemed as
the duration between two complete succesive snaps. Complete in the sense
one allows the blood to completely flow into the capillaries of both the
fingers and succesive in the sense immediately after the blood flow is re-
established.
For shorter durations, jyotisha shaastra provides the basis (eg. batting of
the eylid etc.)
Another important change which will immensely simplify time metrics is to
adopt 24-60-60 (vedic: vinaadi, nimesha etc.) pattern rather than 60-60-24
(seconds, minutes, hours and day) measurement for day. In any case humans
may not be able to complete many of the common tasks under 24 seconds.
For larger durations rotational and revolutional durations the cosmological
bodies such as planets, moon, sun and stars can be employed.
This measurement will have a very harmonious result. This will also enable
one to predict event or activity completion time with minimal and
predictable errors.
The important fact that is emphsised here the usage of biological clock. In
fact it is easier and more reliable to do than any other technological
means.
This Time metric system has been in use and has proved to be fairly
reliable for milleniums.
Another very important thing that is to be included in the management is
the time stamping the activity of creation/modification/dissolution of any
object or message (any of the above resources).
3. Money
--------
Money or in other words, Value, is a peculiar resource has a wierd
characteristic: currency. The entire concept of currency is essentialy to
measure the value in a era specific tangible object. The inflation and
deflation principles of Economics can be applied here to arrive at the
value of a given object or event.
The moment space (money, objects) is separated from time, we get a varying
base of fundamentall metrics. That is why there is a fluctuation in the
valuation of currency.
This practice gained acceptance probably from around 4712 BCE (start of
Julian date - a calender still followed by Russian Orthodox church - TOI
6th Jan 2002) when space and time were seperated.
Another important aspect of this particular resource is: Its accounting or
transaction recording system assume a flat flow (rather than funneling) of
resources through the entity irrespective of time. This is obciously not
correct. One fundamental fact that is to be recognised is that resources
diminishes whenever it flows through an entity. Some of the accumalated
resource within the entity is used for its sustenance over time - current,
immediate future and long term future.
Instead of measuring value of space and time in terms of complex
calibarations and conversions of "Money", a practical, realistic and
fundamental unit, say, the amount of food required to satisfy the hunger of
Man or one meal can be taken as the unit as that is what truly matters for
Man for existance and sustenance.
The rationale is: the quantity of food in terms of, say rice, required per
meal has not changed much for milleniums togather. The importance of such a
stable unit of measurement cannot be over-emphasised enough as it will cut
across the artificial socio-economic-geographic barriers in existance today.
A cross reference table could then easily be formulated to translate
between the existing currencies.
One important point to be noted here is that the GDP of the nations
primarily consist of food production.
4. Material
-----------
Material as we know it now is essentially a manifestation of space in
varied forms, colour, weight, structure, architecture and dimensions. The
value of the material is derived by superimposing these properties over the
duration it tales to create, maintain and destroy/dissolve.
The most important factor that affects the value of the material is decided
by its necessity for Man at a given point of time in a given point in
space. For instance, compare a bottle of potable water made available to a
waterless traveller in the middle of the desert and a swimmer in the middle
of a fresh water lake.
Thus efficient management of materrial requires that these factors are
taken into consideration while planning any activity.
To lower the cost of material one should be able to clearly foresee and
plan availability of the required material (space) at required points of
time and space to the required Man with the required mechanisms and
required Man who are imparted with the required messages based on the
available Map and Minutes.
Energy is just another transformed manifestation of space (E=mc^2 -
Einstein).
5. Messages
-----------
This is probably one of the most important, most misunderstood and most
ignored component int he modern management techniques today.
Messages, its creation, movement / maintenance and destination / delivery /
dissolution is as important as other resources.
Messages can be characterised as the creation of space by the man with the
ultimate exertion of his body. In short it is speech (vaacha, vaak).
We are living in the Information Age. But we are not taking advantage of
this technology fully is the fact which is recognised by some and the
majority are simply unaware of its power and most importantly are trying to
get it in place. What actually is needed is "Infostructure" i.e.
Information Infrastructure. Many consider this as the end rather than a
means.
Historically, all the technological advances are meant to facilitate the
fundamental core activities of Man: Creation, Maintenance and Destruction
(brahma, vishhNu and shiva - trinity) of the seven resources mentioned in
the begining. The role of Information technologist is primarily that of a
facilitator and co-ordinator under all circumstances.
Message management is one of the most important aspects of management as it
is these messages which gives necessary information from one Man to another
Man to transform, transition, transmute, transfer, transliterate, transmit,
transit, translate from one of the seven resources to another.
By applying messages efficiently over time, a lot of resouces can be
efficiently applied to create further valuable resources.
6. Mechanism
------------
Mechanisms or movement or Procedures or Processes represents activity
itself. Any living being, whether Man or organisations have many ways of
functioning. In fact, a single entity employs a combination of multitude of
mechanisms to be in existance and to sustain itself over minutes.
Mechanisms can be extremely varied. But one can find a fundamental pattern
which can be explained by splitting it critically and analysing it.
Every mechanism starts with a clearly defined top level goal or objective.
The very statement of the objective itself becomes the top level message.
This then is broken down further in a inverted tree like structure (uurdhva
muula) till each of the sub mechanisms are clearly defined (aka Work
Breakdown Structure). More importantly their relationship with other
resources superimposed over time.
Mechanism contains stages or phases which are again a function of time.
The stages / phases of the mechanism can be characterised as: Initiation or
mobilisation, running, sustenance and perpetuation.
All the resouces are then applied by the Man over these four stages in a
specific ration. The ration when distorted will give according results in
respective stages / phases. In fact, the results will exactly reflect exact
ration of resources that were applied by the Man over each phase.
Application of resource here means the trinity of creation, modification
and dissolution of the resources.
Now the ration is probably the most difficult part to arrive at using the
"modern" tools such as mathematics & science as these are still inexact at
the fundamental level.
This is where the vedas and the associated literatures explicitly,
equivocally and openly assert their importance. This ration according to
kautiliiya arthashaastra and yajur veda's taittiriiya literature is 20
portions for the initiation / mobilisation, 75 for running, 12 for
short-term sustenance and 13 for perpetuality or maintenance or long term
sustenance phases respectively.
Now comes the actual application. The Man applies himself to the entire
process, puts his stored personal energy, sacrifices portion of himself
with the resources in the above ratio which results in creation of another
resource which is another manifestation of space and a message recording
the entire activity.
This is where the centrality of the Man assumes utmost importance.
One very important point to be noted here is unless the selfishness of the
Man is satisfied this entire activity would not take place.
Another interesting point that is to be noted here is that the total of the
ratio comes to 120 which happens to be a multiple of 12 and more
importantly it happens to be the astral age of the Man.
7. Map
------
Map or Location is the point in space at a specified point of time. As it
will be evident to any manager, Location of resources is a very important
parameter which needs to be paid close attention to. The importance of the
location can be understood by the water bottle example mentioned above.
Again a suitable Metric with Man as the origin can be devised. One
important aspect of this co-ordinate system is that it is a purely relative
and not absolute co-ordinate system.
Conclusion
----------
Management (MAN-AGE-MENT) is essentially the science of efficient and
optimal application of two fundamental resources -- space and time. Man
assumes the central role (MAN-AGE-R) of that of the applier. The seven
resources mentioned above are created/modified/dissolved in a specified
ratio at a given point of time in a given point in space.
The vedas provide a time tested method of the same. They expound all these
in greatest detail with greatest brevity.
Diagram
-------
+---------------+ +---------------+
| Value (1) | | Value (5) |
+---------------+ +---------------+
| Material (2) | | Material (6) |
+---------------+ +---------------+
(--------------)
( MAN )
( Material (9) )
( Message (10) )
(--------------)
+-------------+ +--------------+
| Value (3) | | Value (7) |
+-------------+ +--------------+
| Message (4) | | Mesasage (8) |
+-------------+ +--------------+
aa no bhadraa kratavo yantu vishvataH
(Let noble thought come to us from entire Universe)
Rajagopal S. Iyer
_________________________
aa no bhadraaH kratavo yantu vishvataH
(Let noble thought come to us from entire Universe -- veda)
Rajagopal S. Iyer
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