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Management Next: Want to be happy?
Inverview By Ganga SharmaAugust, 2010
Do you wake up each day radiantly alive and brimming with
cheer?
Do you derive deep meaning from what you do?
Are you so passionate about your work that you would almost
pay for the privilege of doing it?
If your answer to any or all the above questions is no or may
be, then the book ‘Happiness at Work’ offers insights that
might help. Srikumar Rao offers a Zen-like approach.
Excerpts from a chat with Ganga Sharma
The title of your book - Happiness@Work seems like an
oxymoron...
Many people have asked me about that, whether the title is an
oxymoron, and perhaps it is, but it shouldn’t be. Virtually every
company that I know is asking all of its employees, including the
executives, to do more with fewer resources and faster. That places
an incredible stress, and that’s precisely the time you do need to
find a way to retain your good cheer.
Do you think the takeaways would be different for readers
ranging from the CEO of a competitor start up to a social worker
involved in community building?
The takeaways would be different in terms of what it is that you
would apply from it. I have borrowed freely from great spiritual
masters from different times, who belonged to different traditions;
they intimately understood the human predicament. They came
up with solutions which have stood the test of time. And they
work! All I have done to adapt it so that it will be acceptable to
very intelligent people in the post-industrial society. That’s why
I can state confidently- you do the exercises, your life will be
transformed!
What is your operational definition of happiness in work place?
I have a different conception of happiness in work
place. Most of us tend to use happiness in a cavalier
fashion. We talk about trivial things like I had my
favorite ice-cream and I’m happy, saw a good movie
and I’m happy, but that’s not what I am really talking
about. I am talking about a very deep sense of wellbeing
that you are grounded in. The knowledge that
you are okay , that you have always been okay, that you
will always be okay, even while you are doing that you are anchored in the knowledge that you are and you always will be.
That’s what I am talking about.
You have had a very distinguished innings as a practitioner and as
an academician. What is your message to the Indian youth?
I would like to see the Indian youth come to work not just for
the sake of bettering themselves. I would like to see them deeply
dedicated to a cause which is bigger than themselves and brings
greater good to your community because it’s only when you align
yourself in that way that you will be able to lead a truly fulfilled,
completely joyous life. And, I’d like them to discover this early
rather than late.
And that would be the source of happiness?
You don’t see happiness directly. It comes as a by-product.
Ganga Sharma is the Founder of Jyotirmaya - OD
Consulting Firm.
Know more about the author at http://www.srikumarsrao.com.
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