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PDF Version << Syllabus Home Page2 Page3 Page4 Page5 Page6 Page7 Last >> Creativity and Personal Mastery Course Outline Prof. Srikumar S. Rao
Suppose it were possible to set up a system whereby you did not have to build a network. Anytime you needed help, a person would appear who had precisely the knowledge and/or resources you required. You can learn to function in this way (go back and read objective #3 for this course). There are many prerequisites, the most important being that whatever you are trying to accomplish bring material and spiritual good to a larger community. Another condition is that you learn how to let go. You have to relinquish the ego driven need to be "in control", the feeling - always false in reality - that you are the orchestrator of events. When you have the right mixture of passion for what you want to accomplish, detachment and acceptance of whatever actually happens, you will be amazed at how locked doors mysteriously swing open. You will find the cavalry showing up to rescue you every time you are beleaguered.
"As you proceed, golden opportunities will be strewn across your path, and the power and judgment to properly utilize them will spring up within you. Genial friends will come unbidden to you; sympathetic souls will be drawn to you as the needle is to the magnet; and books and all outward aids that you require will come to you unsought." James Allen You will learn a different method of networking. One that is immensely powerful and in harmony with your values. Quite a few students have been blown away by the simplicity of the method and the ease with which they have been able to forge strong connections with those they approached. Some of these were well known public figures and normally unreachable. It may take you a while to tweak this method till it starts working for you, but you will find the exercise eminently useful. Till you learn to function as above, you will have another resource. The nature of this course is such that you will form very deep bonds with your classmates. You will know many of them far more intimately than you know most friends or relatives. You will be able to call on them years hence, and they will be receptive to you because of your common shared experience. Alumni of this course have formed a community. They gather in groups, small and large, and keep the spirit alive. Join this community and be active in it. Leadership: Leadership is the new fad in our global economy. Innumerable "experts" are pontificating on the character of leaders and how to become one. Bestsellers identify corporate titans as champions worthy of emulation and reveal their secret - until now - techniques. Military figures from Attila the Hun through Napoleon to Colin Powell are being scrutinized for the same reason. It is a burgeoning cottage industry that is rapidly outgrowing its cottage. The reality is that we have very few leaders in any of our major institutions. We don't have them in education, or government, or business, or unions, or not-for-profits. We have a large number of people in positions of hierarchical authority. They wield great financial and social power, often unwisely. They can certainly impact your life for good or ill. But they are not leaders. They care not if you achieve your potential and you matter little to them except as a means of helping achieve their objectives. They neither have overarching visions nor the intuitive knowledge of how this translates into the next step nor the manifest life-force that wins dedicated converts to their vision. What they do have is a small coterie of followers who have hitched their stars to them in a calculated bet that this is a route to personal advancement. True self-interest teaches selflessness. Heaven and earth endure because they are not simply selfish but exist on behalf of all creation. The wise leader, knowing this, keeps egocentricity in check and by doing so becomes even more effective. Enlightened leadership is service, not selfishness. The leader grows more and lasts longer by placing the well-being of all above the well-being of self alone. The paradox is that by being selfless, the leader enhances self. John Heider There are many reasons for this unsatisfactory state of affairs. Our competitive system rewards naked aggression. Our consumption-oriented society equates success with accumulation of material wealth. Our fragmented worldview perceives leadership as something that can be learnt, as a technique that can be deployed. Leadership is a state of being, not a skill. This is why great leaders have come in all stripes. Their styles have been autocratic and democratic, gentle and brusque, unhurried or frenetically active. Studying these styles will profit you nothing. What will help you is reflection on their deeper qualities. If this reflection produces changes in what you are, then you may be able to use some of their methods with success. The wise leader's ability does not rest on techniques or gimmicks or set exercises. The method of awareness-of-process applies to all people and all situations. The leader's personal state of consciousness creates a climate of openness. Center and ground give the leader stability, flexibility and endurance. Because the leader sees clearly, the leader can shed light on others. John Heider I have little sympathy for managers who lament that it is impossible to "motivate" workers and who primarily tinker with various forms of incentives and punishments. Such "motivation" is okay - maybe - if we are talking about animals in a behavioral psychology laboratory. It is demeaning when applied to human beings. Your function as a manager is to figure out what is demotivating your employees and getting rid of it. This is not semantic hairsplitting. It is a completely different philosophical approach and it has some pretty startling implications, which we will explore. We will discuss leadership in some depth. The goal is to help you refine your own ideas and define what you are. When you reach your position of authority, this will help make you an authentic leader, not an insipid imitator. There is a soul to an army as well as the individual man, and no general can accomplish the full work of his army unless he commands the soul of his men, as well as their bodies and legs. William Tecumseh Sherman This is equally true of any other organization. The way you command the soul of your people is by working on yourself. By 'being' a beacon."It's good for business": My desk is piled high with books that tout various types of good behavior. Treat the customer right so he/she will keep coming back. Look after your employees so they will treat the customer right and keep him/her coming back. Behave with integrity because - surprise, surprise! - if you do so your stock price will surely go up. Every single one of these tomes finds it necessary to justify the behavior by pointing out that if you do this the company will benefit in terms of revenues, profits, share appreciation or some similar metric. They make convoluted chains of frequently twisted logic to substantiate their claims and give examples that are far from convincing. But they labor on nevertheless and the authors are held up as apostles of new and responsible thinking. What a sorry pass we have come to when natural decent behavior has to be 'justified' in terms of some other benefit. What happens if behaving without integrity can get you growth and unparalleled profit? This is frequently the case in many developing countries with weak legal structures. Do you then jettison integrity? In my book you treat the customer right because that is the proper thing to do. You treat your employees well because that is how you like to be treated. You behave with integrity because that is an expression of who and what you are. These are the givens. You DO NOT have to justify or explain or rationalize any of it. In fact, if you attempt to link your values with external measures like profit you cheapen them and you discredit your actions. "We are not here merely to earn a living and to create value for our shareholders. We are here to enrich the world and make it a finer place to live. We will impoverish ourselves if we fail to do so." Woodrow Wilson We have systematically turned over our commercial enterprises to persons of overweening greed who use untested economic and behavioral models to justify actions that would otherwise be considered rapacious. It is high time we called a halt to this. The good news is that there are dozens and dozens of enterprises started by individuals who are profoundly dissatisfied with ruthlessly exploitative business tactics. They are linking up with social activists to create a new, more humane business paradigm. It remains to be seen whether this will emerge as a new consensus. You are encouraged to join the revolt. Your Job with a capital J: There are hundreds of thousands of companies out there and thousands of different ways - and combinations of ways - in which you can earn a living or accumulate wealth. I am puzzled - nay amazed! - that business school students let a small coterie of persons decide which company they will devote so many of their most productive working hours to. This small coterie consists of the placement office staff. They are in touch with a few hundred of our largest corporations and these are the companies that come to campus. A few dozen of these are the haloed ones, the ones to pursue unabashedly and fight over. Why is the rest of the cornucopia so ignored? Why? Why? See if you can relate to this first person account: I had just been offered an investment banking job with a very prestigious firm at a salary that was one of the highest offered to anyone in my graduating class at Columbia Business School. This was my third offer and it came after four grueling rounds of meetings. I thrived on interviews. I aced exams and I aced interviews. The Exec VP was only 35 and clearly on his way to the top. He was also a Columbia B-School grad and he made it very clear that he wanted me as a part of his core team, the team that would set the future direction for the entire operation. We got along like a house on fire. Not just a regular blaze but a 6-alarm conflagration. He told me the job was mine and that it would take a couple of weeks to get the paperwork straightened out. He was supposed to take me out to dinner but he begged out because he had a ton of work to do and he didn't really need any more time with me. So he turned me over to a junior member of his team. She was a Wharton MBA and really, really pretty. Classic model looks and very bright to boot. Under other circumstances I would have tried to date her. She didn't know I had the job but her instinct told her that I was a rival. The gamesmanship began immediately. I didn't ask any questions but she proceeded to position herself higher on the hierarchy by telling me what my job responsibilities would be. I played it cool. She was in a cubicle and I knew she would have a heart attack when she found out that I had negotiated an office for myself. A tiny one, true, but still an office with four walls and a door that I could close. We went out for dinner and it was all cat and mouse. Majors are fluid at Columbia and I could position myself as a marketing major as readily as a finance one. She was a hardcore finance junkie and forthwith started to show me that I knew nothing about the field. I had four years of work experience and knew how to play that game. I pulled out advanced mathematical techniques from my undergrad Physics major days and proceeded to speculate on their applicability to esoteric niches in finance. She retreated immediately. Stalemate. She looked at me with new respect and I could almost hear her brain whirring as she tried to figure out how she could gain an edge. I recognized resignedly that she would never give up. She would keep coming and coming and coming. She was also a part of the EVP's team and he had made it very clear that he expected us to get along. I suddenly realized that the very fact he had mentioned it indicated that he expected a problem. I didn't think I would have difficulty fending her off but caught myself speculating on how the dynamics would change if an amorous interest developed with the EVP. I had seen others derailed by office romances. It was almost 10 p.m. and we returned to the office. It was no longer a hive of activity but there were still people around. I grabbed my briefcase. She let me know that she would put in a couple of hours of work and then be back by 7.30 a.m. the next day. She dripped saccharine as she bid me good night at the elevator and urged me to call her if I had any questions or if she could help me in any way. As I went down the elevator a silent, totally involuntary scream came out from the depths of my being. It was frightening in its intensity and echoed forth from every fiber, every pore. "I don't want to do this." I couldn't have been more stunned if you had hit me behind the ear with a sock full of wet sand. One of my other offers was from a top consulting firm and the other from a well-known investment bank. Both were equally unattractive. The pay was good. Financial success was assured if I played the game with a modicum of competence. I had no doubt that I could do that and then some. I had been doing some variation of it for most of my life. But my soul shriveled at the thought of long hours of bondage, of deadening grunt work, of the things I loved that I would have to give up, of the lack of flexibility. None of my classmates could understand. Those who had been turned down by the firms that sought me thought I was arrogant and spoiled. Those who had received offers from firms of comparable prestige were a trifle envious because I got more upfront money but wanted to welcome me into a self-congratulatory elite group. There was no one I could talk to about my dilemma. Even my family thought that I had it made, that there was no problem. It was the most depressing time of my life. So what should work be like and how can you find fulfillment in something that will take up so vast a proportion of your life and time? Part of it, of course, is the attitude you bring to it. Here is as beautiful a description of this as you are likely to find: On Work And he answered, saying: You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth. For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life's procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite. When you work, you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music. Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison? Always you have been told that work is a curse and labor a misfortune. But I say to you that when you work you fulfill a part of earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born, And in keeping yourself with labor you are in truth loving life, And to love life through labor is to be intimate with life's inmost secret. But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written. You have been told also life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary. And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge, And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge, And all knowledge is vain save when there is work, And all work is empty save when there is love; And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God. And what is it to work with love? It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth. It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house. It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit. It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit, And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching. Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, "he who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is a nobler than he who ploughs the soil. And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet." But I say, not in sleep but in the over-wakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass; And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving. Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy. For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger. And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine. And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man's ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night. Kahlil Gibran And another part is the environment in which you are. The culture of the organization, the nature of the tasks, the values of your colleagues and the intent of the enterprise all play a part in whether your job is drudgery or breathtakingly fulfilling. This environment can be shaped and you can play a part shaping this. Obviously, the higher up you are hierarchically, the easier it is for you to make an impact and the greater that impact will be. However, the linkage is complex. For the environment also shapes you. And if you wait too long to reach a 'position of power' so you can begin making changes, you may well find that the person who wanted to make those changes is no longer there. Can you retain ideals that are under constant, daily assault? We will spend time discussing this. There are always tradeoffs to be made, but some may be unnecessary. Business students accept that long hours come with the territory. That years of 'paying dues' must precede 'arriving' at some exalted status. That drudgery is a part of the package. Challenge all these assumptions. They exist only as constraints in your mind. Look at horizons far broader than business school placement office opportunities. This course will force you to identify and define what your ideal job is and how it fits into your ideal life. More accurately, it will start you on the process. It may take years or decades before you arrive, but the sooner you start, the greater the fulfillment you will find. Ponder on the following:
Until one is committed, there is always hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and endless plans: That the moment one commits oneself, then providence moves, too.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe The higher your aims and vaster your desires, the more energy you will have for their fulfillment. Desire the good of all and the universe will work with you. But if you want your own pleasure, you must earn it the hard way. Before desiring, deserve. Nisargadatta Maharaj Freedom: As a country and a society we are obsessed with freedom. We have codified laws that guarantee us freedom of speech and worship and assembly. We wrangle endlessly about other "freedoms" such as the right to bear arms. But we define "freedom" too narrowly. We equate freedom with the elimination of restrictions on our behavior. In our relentless pursuit of this goal we are reordering society, smashing traditions and taboos alike. Sexual preoccupation is reaching new highs as is acceptance of its flaunting. Illegal drugs are more powerful and chemically complex. Our popular entertainment constantly stretches and snaps boundaries of taste and propriety. We have become marvelously adept at titillating our jaded senses. There is another type of "freedom" that we have not achieved and are not even pursuing. We are still prey to the ruthless harpies of desire that constantly spur us into action, ignite avarice and overweening ambition and goad us into activities that consume all available time and more. We are driven by our demons, all of us - takeover titan and LBO artist, corporate chieftain and newly minted MBA, serial killer and confidence trickster, presidential candidate and congressional intern. The talons of our addictions shred our minds and wreck repose. Some, like cocaine, we declare illegal and expend vast resources to counteract. Others, like workaholism, we applaud and reward. Still others, like hypochondria and gambling, we barely acknowledge. Like it or not, we are all in the fierce grip of our restless minds, being blown hither and thither like a tumbleweed in a hurricane, expending our psychic energies in emotional roller-coasters that we are helpless to stop and unable to leave. This, too, is a prison and in our saner moments we want out.
I never saw a man who looked Oscar Wilde We give to others the power to determine our happiness and tranquillity and do not even recognize that we have done so. Tears rolled down the old preceptor's face. "My son," said the sage, "Is this all you have learnt in the years you spent with me? Do you not see that if you would learn to subsist on lentils, you would not have to praise His Majesty?" It need not be so. There is an alternative to the maelstroms in our mind that we both cultivate and fear. This alternative permits us to be far more efficient and composed. It greatly increases the probability of "success" in any endeavor and cushions us mightily against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. There is a catch. We have to be willing to live in a different mental world, adopt a different outlook on life. Don Juan - Carlos Castaneda's mysterious Yaqui warrior - summarizes the viewpoint of a "man of knowledge": A man of knowledge chooses a path with heart and follows it; and then he looks and rejoices and laughs; and then he sees and knows. He knows that his life will be over altogether too soon; he knows that he, as well as everybody else, is not going anywhere; he knows, because he sees that nothing is more important than anything else. In other words, a man of knowledge has no honor, no dignity, no family, no name, no country, but only life to be lived, and under these circumstances his only tie to his fellow men is his controlled folly. Thus a man of knowledge endeavors, and sweats, and puffs, and if one looks at him he is just like any ordinary man, except that the folly of his life is under control. Nothing being more important than anything else, a man of knowledge chooses any act, and acts it out as if it matters to him. His controlled folly makes him say that what he does matters and makes him act as if it did, and yet he knows that it doesn't; so when he fulfills his acts he retreats in peace, and whether his acts were good or bad, or worked or didn't, is in no way part of his concern. Happiness: We seek it here, we seek it there, we've learnt to seek it everywhere like Frenchmen after the Scarlet Pimpernel. And yet this chimera eludes us with the facile grace of a gazelle disappearing in craggy mountain heights. All of our activities - our pursuit of fame and fortune, our quest for meaningful relationships, our drive to build or change things - are directed searches for this ephemeral state. We get there, but we can never heave a lasting sigh of relief because we leave before we are ready to. What is 'happiness'? Can it be a permanent member of our household rather than an itinerant visitor like Tagore's Kabuliwallah? We will spend much time discussing this. Here is something for you to ponder and react to: Yet another contrast: Remember what you felt like when you had power, you were the boss, people looked up to you, took orders from you; or when you were popular. And contrast that worldly feeling with the feeling of intimacy, companionship - the times you thoroughly enjoyed yourself in the company of a friend or with a group in which there was fun and laughter. Having done this, attempt to understand the true nature of worldly feelings, namely, the feelings of self-promotion, self-glorification. They are not natural, they were invented by your society to make you productive and to make you controllable. These feelings do not produce the nourishment and happiness that is produced when one contemplates Nature or enjoys the company of one's friends or one's work. They were meant to produce thrills, excitement and emptiness. Then observe yourself over the course of a day or a week and think how many actions of yours are performed, how many activities engaged in that are uncontaminated by the desires for these thrills, these excitements that only produce emptiness, the desire for attention, approval, fame, popularity, success or power. And take a look at the people around you. Is there a single one of them who has not become addicted to these worldly feelings? A single one who is not controlled by them, hungers for them, spends every minute of his/her waking life consciously or unconsciously seeking them? When you see this you will understand how people attempt to gain the world and, in the process, lose their soul. And here is a parable of life for you to ponder on: A group of tourists sit in a bus that is passing through gorgeously beautiful country; lakes and mountains and green fields and rivers. But the shades of the bus are pulled down. They do not have the slightest idea of what lies beyond the windows of the bus. And all the time of their journey is spent in squabbling over who will have the seat of honor in the bus, who will be applauded, who will be well considered. And so they remain till the journey's end." Anthony DeMello PDF Version << Syllabus Home Page2 Page3 Page4 Page5 Page6 Page7 Last >> |
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