Dharma And The Manager

In Order To Live Your Dharma, You Will Need To Be Your Dharma. In Every Decision, You Will Have To Weigh The Scales Of Justice, Evaluate The Moral Impact On Your Department, Company—And Most Of All, Yourself.

- Gautam Chikermane

ARE YOU READY for dharma? Forget everything you know about dharma. Stop trying to comprehend the word. It is beyond the mind. It is outside the pale of any language but the one it was created in—Sanskrit. Thinkers have tried to package it into digestible nuggets but limited its scope to law, behaviour, governance, ethics. Dharma is water in your hands—do what you will, clasp it as tightly as you can, it will flow out.

Dharma is a moment, every changing moment. Dharma is a word, it is an idea, it is the spaceless universe, the timeless eternity. Dharma is the market you seek to conquer, it is the organisation you stand for, the people you work with, the assumptions you take for granted, the values you think are permanent. It is there in every action you take and waits silently in every inaction. And then, it is the opposite of everything you do or can imagine.

Despite its inscrutable nature, “experiencing” what these two-and-a-half letters in Sanskrit mean, versus “understanding” them within the narrow confines of modern education, is critical for your survival as a manager. Dharma has to be experienced in the hierarchies, ambitions and the value conflicts of the corporation. It has to be internalised within the various layers of our being, it has to be lived every moment of our breath. Dharma is an eternal entity, it never dies. It may change its form, its expression. It may contradict itself and yet remain pure like white fire. It may be one thing for you, its opposite for your board and a third unimagined for your consumers. And yet there could be no contradiction except in the three stances. It may serve a purpose today, only to discard it tomorrow.