Karmic Management

Deepak Chopra says on his book "The Soul of Leadership" that the choice to become a leader is the most serious decision anyone can take." That's a decision to move from dark to light".

"The traditional definitions of leadership worship power. And the problem with that is that power brings usually to the over use of power" says Chopra.

But there is another wrongdoing in the traditional management model. And that is the focus or the over-focus on taking decisions.

And the problem with that is the inherent nature of the decision making process – it's everlasting uncertainty. Any decision we make may be right or may be wrong. Even a simple decision such as taking an umbrella or leaving it at home. If we take the umbrella and it doesn't rain we regret that we had to carry it with us all day. If we don't take it and it rains we regret it that we left it at home.

In the business world the decision making process is much more complex than a simple decision to take or leave an umbrella, and the impact of a mistaken decision may be irreversible from the one hand or an amazing achievement in the other hand, if the decision turns out to be the right one.

Take the stock market investment world for instance. Someone who takes a risk and invests all his clients' money in a certain investment track and loses it all. It happened, and every analyst  condemned that poor guy and the authorities put him behind bars. From the other side, George Soros did a much more risky investment and earned a billion dollars for his clients. In that case, those same analysts praised his decision. What would have happened if he lost it all?

The problem with the common decision making process is that we try to estimate the pros and cons for each alternative and finally we choose that which has the most benefits and the least amount of drawbacks. But that approach has also its faults. Any benefit that we estimated for any such alternative is just estimation. Is not guaranteed that that benefit will materialize. And the contrary may come true: a certain advantage of the chosen alternative could actually be a pro that turned into a con. Let's take for example a decision to market a certain hygiene product in supermarkets or just in exclusive pharmacies.

The Pros to market it in supermarket could be: .1. Better exposure of the product, 2. Cheaper distribution costs. 3. Cheaper products that will be sold in bigger quantities.

The drawback with point number 3 for example could be that cheaper products sold in a supermarket may be perceived as a lower quality product thus driving customers to choose from the competition.

Trying to make a decision by analyzing all possible pros and cons, and then all the pros and cons of the first pros and cons, is an exhausting and never-ending task that will never promise any certain outcome.

So what is the solution? The solution is to take decisions from the heart. In the book "Karmic Management" the authors depict the way to avoid taking the wrong decision and to enable us to always take the right one.

The basic rule that stands behind this proven approach is the karmatic law that says that all we seed,we harvest. And all we want to achieve in life we first need to do it for someone else.

The easiest way to achieve abundance in our life, our project, our enterprises, is to make sure we give abundance to others. To make sure we encourage others to achieve their goals, and to help them become the best they can be.

The interfaces in our business life are: 1. Our work colleagues,2.  our customers, 3. our suppliers and 4. the rest of the world.

The assumption that those 4 are separated from us is a misconception. Since all we do to them or for them will directly impact our wellbeing. If we cause others to succeed, success will come to us.

Take for example a colleague or a team member. When was the last time you helped someone in your team to achieve his dream, to learn what he really desires, to feel really valuable? Those are the things that by doing them will bring you the most dividends.

What about the suppliers? We all heard about the big conglomerates like supermarket chains that force suppliers to reduce prices to a minimum possible as a condition to buying from them. The right approach would be to care about the wellbeing of the supplier that brings you the products you need. To give them a fair share and help them become a more successful company. When you do that you are attracting the success to your world. A dollar invested in love will reproduce into thousands. But a dollar saved out of a feeling of lack and the urge to diminish the other in order to make a short term profit, will result in a devastating outcome.

Companies that hire factories in China where people work 16 hours a day with a ridiculous salary that no one in the west would agree to work for, under inhuman conditions, are doing the opposite from becoming abundant. They are killing themselves without knowing it. They are poisoning the soul of their institution and the soil they eat from.

And what about our customers? Only when we really think about the customers' wellbeing we are creating value for ourselves. Only when we keep in mind to deliver a product that was designed and created with the customers' benefit in mind, and not the least cost for the highest price in mind, that's when we start to generate our positive Karma.

We are not separated from anyone else. Everything we say, think and do for the other will come back to us as a Boomerang.

Companies have usually a Karmatic cycle. First they are established, then there is the growth period with a climax point , and then the company starts to fade until it closes.

This process is usually explained by market issues, global economy crisis, new competitors and so on.

But beneath all those nice explanation lays the real issue. The positive Karma of that company was exhausted. They stopped thinking about the abundance of the others and just wanted to survive, to save money, to fire people, to reduce costs, to ask suppliers for lower and lower prices, to hire employees for lower salaries and worse conditions. And what happens then? They start having less motivated employees, less committed suppliers, the products are lower quality and with less creativity in mind and hence the customers lose the confidence and the trust is broken losing a lot of clients to the competition. And then less money comes in to the company and more cuts are needed, until the company dies.

We cannot forecast the future. We cannot say if a certain investment will turn out to be profitable or a loss. Any decision we take in a business world may be a success or a failure. But, when we think about giving from the heart to others, when we have in mind the wellbeing of our counterparts when we manage our business, when we create, distribute and sell our products, there is one result to that, a everlasting spring of abundance.

People usually ask why, in that case, some  bad people succeed and good people fail.

The answer to that is that we can never know the real Karma that stands behind the appearance. For example, someone that is perceived like a "bad" manager or a very tough one, may have in his mind the benefits of his company and his employees first, and his tough attitude may hide a real concern for the wellbeing of their people.

In the other hand, a manager that is perceived as "good" or "nice", may be so just for convenience purposes and not for a real devotion for the people he works with. And thus the "bad" one generates abundance and the "good" one generates poverty.

Think with the heart, decide with the soul. That's my advice to you.