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Currently most business gurus, from Tom Peters to Bill Gates, project that by
the next century, organisations will be compelled to understand that their most
valuable asset is (and always has been) the collective creative intelligence of
their members. The growing focus on HRD activities, the continual spate of
articles advocating and explaining TQM and reengineering, and the convergence of
Indian and Western managerial practices and lifestyles all attest to the awareness
that international business competition will be ultimately waged on an
intelligence battlefield, whereon the contributions of intelligence and creativity
of every employee will produce competitive advantages for a company.
The enthusiasm which greeted such books as "In search of excellence" has
encouraged practically a best-seller-of-the-month guide to guaranteed business
success. Indeed every successful company seems to engender a publication
discovering the 'secrets' behind its success; success precedes a descriptive
theory which produces training programs to develop similar successes elsewhere.
In turn, benefits in terms of increased productivity, sales, and the like that
have been measured associated with the implementation of many of these programmes
have suggested that most companies would be wise to invest in a full-scale
revamping of their employer T & D programmes. It is into this environment that a
cautionary note of reassessment is advisable to determine what type of changes are
being produced and what are still critically not offered by current T & D
programs.
A characteristic of most successful programs is the empowerment of employees to
display more of their creative intelligence, whether this has been accomplished by
job enhancement, quality circles, downsizing to a flatter organisational
structure, etc. the resulting greater territories of employee influence and more
recognisable achievements have increased individual fulfillment and partially
reversed the downward spiral accompanying the boredom of routine work. Thus a
succession of incremental improvements in productivity, etc. has been introduced
into the workplace, but continual change, as to be expected, has produced
diminishing returns because a workforce ultimately utilises most of its accessible
creativity.
Hitherto, educational and job-training programs have not been observed to have a
measurable effect on improving such fundamental qualities as intelligence,
creativity, moral judgment and the like, but rather by college years these are
considered invariant. A U.S. Presidential Commission task force concluded in the
mid-70s that inspite of the more than U.S. $ one billion spent on educational
research in the preceding five decades, there was not a single university program
that systematically developed these qualities: moreover, the greatest contribution
of U.S. higher education to the country may have been in restraining approximately
2 million students from entering the job market, which entry might have
precipitated an economic depression.
A decade later following the HBS student computer cheating scandal the
implementation of several MBA courses specifically designed to improve student
awareness of business ethics similarly failed to produce any improvements in moral
judgment, as measured by reliable test instruments. Such research, however, has
seemingly not dampened the enthusiasm with which each new such course is still
announced.
This history of educational research disappointments has been repeated in other
development fields. For instance, the current excitement over the potential of
Prozac, a drug with dangerous side-effects, is indicative of the total
ineffectiveness of psychoanalysis and similar Western psychological techniques in
producing measurable, repeatable, beneficial change.
In leadership training, the emphasis on emulating the traits and behavioural
characteristics of role models may be ineffectual in transferring these qualities
to others, but may prove useful as a technique for follower training. At the other
end of the employee spectrum evaluations of the effectiveness of the more than one
billion U.S. dollars annually invested in upgrading the educational and marketable
skills of disadvantaged youths and adults through the Job Training Partnership Act
have proven quite discouraging even for strong supporters of this federal
programme.
Thus, training and education have hitherto resembled computer software programs;
the results they produce are a function of the quality of their input: the more
creative the participant, the more the utilisation and effectiveness of the
programme.
The reason for only partial success of current business training programmes lies
at the heart of Western educational methodology: its singular reliance on
objectivity. Such education focuses entirely on the known, for instance, in
presenting the most up-to-date managerial tools in MBA programs, without a
corresponding development of the student's ability to handle and master these
tools. Another example of the limitations inherent with such an approach to
knowledge is its advocacy of decision-making as an objective, rational process of
weighing alternatives, a procedure which a computer is well equipped to handle,
but not a human. Individuals' decisions reflect the colour of the glasses through
which decision-makers happen to be viewing their world at the time. The selection
and weighing of alternatives is more influenced by the subjective factors
determining mood than by objective calculations, in confirmation of the common
observance that statistics can be used to prove whatever outcome one desires.
Decisions are determined not by statistical analysis, but by a subjective approach
to gaining knowledge. More useful than teaching a 'scientific' approach to
decision-making would be a programme to systematically improve intuition, a goal
beyond the scope of Western educational technologies.
India with Its timeless Vedic tradition of emphasising simultaneously the triad of
knower, process of knowing, and known is uniquely capable of bringing full. rather
than partial success to educational and T & D programs. His Holiness Maharishi
Mahesh Yogi observed at the inauguration of Maharishi Universities/Institutes of
Management that, whereas, even the top graduates from the foremost MBA programs
worldwide cannot guarantee success for their companies in as much as they are
unable even to bring guaranteed success to their own private lives, a Vedic
approach to management training can achieve this goal. To manage the infinite
number of variables affecting a company's performance one needs to enlist the
infinite organising power of Natural Law which governs the evolution of the
universe in an orderly. progressive manner. This organising power, the Vedic
tradition locates in the unbounded reservoir of creative intelligence underlying
every individual's existence, in the field of pure consciousness, the Atma.
Many well-wishers of India have observed that imported technologies arrive not in
isolation, but accompanied by their Inherent value systems: television brings MTV,
current international managerial opportunities otter high salaries and
corresponding risk of heart diseases and thus have suggested the Vedic tradition
as a source of inspiration for creating a new style of enlightened administration.
Maharishi with his Transcendental Meditation and TM-Siddhi programs which
systematically unfold the latent, Infinite creative potential within one has
provided precisely the technologies required for making enlightened administration
a practical goal. Attesting to this practicality, over 500 scientific experiments
conducted at 210 research institutes in 33 countries have been published,
validating that these technologies for developing consciousness have strengthened
individuals and societies physiologically, psychologically, sociologically and
ecologically. Such conclusions have encouraged major companies worldwide to
utilise this mode of training as a corporate development programme, not only to
increase employee creative intelligence, but also to substantially reduce health
care costs, substance abuse, absenteeism, and to increase job satisfaction,
productivity, and profits. Thus Vedic knowledge has already made a considerable
contribution to the corporate world, though its introduction therein is still in
its infancy. It is important, however, from the onset to evaluate input from the
Vedic tradition with the same measurement instruments used to measure the efficacy
of other T & D programs currently in use, and not become entranced by the
beautiful promises made on its behalf by many of its advocates. In this regard
the pioneering encouragement offered by Maharishi to scientists to enter this
research field has established a worthy standard.
Moreover, Maharishi has provided a complete description of reality which
establishes a theoretical framework by which others may structure general to
specific task training In a more effective manner. In this Apaurusheya Bhashya of
the Rig Veda. he describes in mathematically precise terms, the sequential
unfolding in 10 stages by which Rig Veda is Self-created from the Atma, each stage
of which preserves and presents the knowledge of the totality. This formulation
of the self-referral dynamics of consciousness presents not only an accurate
step-by-step analysis of the notion of transformation of Atma to Veda to Vishve,
consciousness to matter, and of the corresponding unfolding of human inner
potential, but also the means or technology for realising this unlimited
potential.
The practicality of this knowledge is apparent in the mathematical precision with
which each step has been described and so has been examined by premier Western
scientists with respect to their own disciplines. John Hagelin, Ph.D. in physics,
Harvard University, and one of the foremost researchers In particle physics, has
shown how quantum mechanics is approaching a full appreciation of the detailed
description of the structure of the Rig Veda, as brought out by Maharishi, with
its formulation of the Lagrangian of Superstring Theory, possibly the most
complete description of reality within modern science - which contains the
information on how from a unified field of force and matter fields the physical
universe in all its diversity is produced by self-referral, dynamical, sequential
symmetry-breaking.
This identification has strengthened the understanding of the Rig Veda as the
constitution of the universe within the scientific community. More recently Tony
Nader, MD, Ph.D. In physiology, MIT, under Maharishi's direct tutelage, has
arrived at the even more startling and revolutionary discovery of locating the
Veda and the 40 branches of the Vedic literature, as brought out by Maharishi in
terms of the 40 qualities of consciousness, in human physiology. This research has
provided a theoretical framework for analysing the effectiveness of the programmes
of Maharishi's Vedic approach to health in producing enlightened individuals and
self-sufficient, invincible nations.
An additional unique contribution from the Apaurusheya Bhashya is his description
of the role of the gaps between syllables in formulating each successive syllable.
Maharishi has described the actual structure of the gaps as being of four stages
and has delineated the mechanics of creation residing therein. Thus, each stage
of the self-unfolding of the Rig Veda develops from the gaps between the elements
of the previous stage. In bringing out the role of the gaps. Maharishi has
underscored his emphasis on the primacy of approaching Veda in its value as a
fundamental set of vibrations or frequencies the sound value, and then as a
sequence of sounds, set in precise order which precision determines how the Rig
Veda governs the eternal administration of creation. Meaning of the suktas is
relatively unimportant compared to the influence of sound and sequence.
The relative unimportance of meaning partially explains the ineffectiveness of
training which focuses on surface values such as instructing one what to do or how
to think; the gap between intellectual comprehension and actual performance or
compliance is wide. However, such methods comprise the core of the Western
educational and training systems touted as panaceas for curing all that ails
business today.
As opposed to continuing in this limited fashion, India has the opportunity to
begin training for an unlimited future where competency is no longer a scarce
resource. Instruction in programmes which have been thoroughly, researched to
improve creative intelligence and the like, can be offered to employees for
developing these fundamental qualities first. Subsequent training programmes by
emulating the structure and sequential unfolding of Rig Veda will become
increasingly effective, since they will develop in their participants the ability
to become more closely aligned with Natural Law. Thus individuals by aligning
their awareness with Natural Law, by becoming established in Atma, will gain the
support of Natural Law by which the universe is governed in an evolutionary
direction, and thus bring success to their endeavors.
This is the message of enlightened, perfect administration brought out by
Maharishi's Vedic Management. With its knowledge India will provide the leadership
to usher in an era of peace, prosperity, and progress for all mankind.
(Ian Brown
Director,
Maharishi Corporate Development Programme)
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