<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jiddu Krishnamurti (JK) is a philosopher who has shaped Indian education in a way that not too many people could have. Jiddu was the adopted son of India\u2019s first freedom fighter \u2013 Annie Besant. Krishnamurti foundation runs 5 alternative schools, the oldest being Rishi Valley, which was founded a century ago, the newest being Sahyadri School in Rajgurunagar, Pune.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vishwanath Alluri (VA) is currently the Secretary of the Krishnamurti foundation. VA is a CA and Cost Accountant. In 1988, VA founded IMISoft which worked in transmission and telecom tower design. It was acquired by a Denmark-based engineering conglomerate in 2008. In 1999, he founded IMImobile with a belief that mobile data would shape the future. In 2021, IMImobile was acquired by Cisco for $730 million. In 2014, after IMImobile\u2019s IPO on the London Stock Exchange, VA stepped away from the corporate world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
VA first came across JK in a videotape in 1995. It hit him like lightning \u2013 by showing him the world inside. JK is a guru who is anti-guru. JK challenged the idea of relying on external authorities, including religious leaders and gurus, for spiritual guidance. He encouraged people to question their beliefs and seek the truth through direct experience rather than blind faith. He believed that truth was not something that could be taught or transmitted by others but had to be discovered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Following in JK\u2019s footsteps, VA talks about the inadequacy of theories and role models. Theories cannot run a business. In that sense, \u2018models\u2019 cannot run a business. His scepticism of models extends to role models. We only look at external appearances of role models, the successes \u2013 the failures \u2013 which are more important \u2013 are not so visible. What we need is an awareness of context, an awareness of struggles. What is more important is to understand yourself and realise you are different. Realizing that we are confused is the beginning of achieving clarity. Two tools that VA recommends in this journey:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00b7 Negation \u2013 Know what it is not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00b7 Relationship Mirrors \u2013 How do I relate to it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
JK believed that OTC (Over The Counter) prescriptions don\u2019t work in discovering your inner self. For JK, true meditation was a process of self-observation and mindfulness. Knowledge and silence go together. Life is not a book with answer keys and explanations at the end of it. Self-realization is achieved by breaking free from conditioning and exploring one’s own mind independently. The Enlightened Manager<\/em> is an attempt at sharing VA\u2019s own experiences on his journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The book is written in Eliyahu Goldratt\u2019s The Goal<\/em> style \u2013 where Panna, the mentor \u2013 protagonist, weaves advice through stories. Panna was inspired by a character in Chandamama, the children\u2019s magazine that was published during VA\u2019s growing up years. VA\u2019s co-author in the book is Harry Eyres, a British journalist. From 2004 to 2015, Eyres wrote a weekly column for The Financial Times, titled “Slow Lane”, which focused on the creative use of leisure time. Excerpts from Harry\u2019s last article:<\/p>\n\n\n\n My ambition has been to set out a workable alternative to the romantic escapism of Yeats\u2019s Lake Isle of Innisfree. We can enrich our necessarily limited time by learning a short poem by heart, or even writing one; by returning to those viola or clarinet studies we gave up as teenagers, and finding that we can engage with the music in a deeper way and make it our own; by popping in to a museum or gallery to see not a vast, intimidating blockbuster exhibition but just one dearly loved painting; or by playing, at whatever level and with whatever physical limitations, a sport you love rather than watching overpaid narcissists on TV (I make an exception, of course, for the peerless Roger Federer, who still glides as gracefully over the court as when this column started).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Many of these suggestions have involved a return to the active rather than the passive mode. Doing, making, healing, cooking, caring, conversing face-to-face, writing proper letters, rambling in nature \u2014 all seem to me infinitely more satisfying than merely buying things, being passively \u201centertained\u201d by images on screens or engaging in various forms of digital non-communication. In this sense the column has sometimes struck me as countercultural and I did occasionally wonder if I was fighting a losing battle. But I like to think that there have been some victories along a respectably long road. That the menace of mobile phone mania and its incursion into public space and the counterproductive overuse of email are now quite widely recognised, I count as a small victory for the slow approach to life.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n On a more positive note, the joys of buying and cooking good local produce have started a whole mini-movement. All over the world the most thoughtful farmers are turning or returning to more gentle and less interventionist methods; some of the greatest wines are now organic or biodynamic.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n VA was asked if the book title was an oxymoron: One can either be enlightened or be a manager! His disclaimer, the title was the publisher\u2019s idea. But the justification was that the \u2018enlightened\u2019 meaning is not spiritual here. It\u2019s more a dictionary meaning: showing understanding, acting in a positive way. About worth, meeting inner dimension. Both the authors are big fans of Roger Federer, who they consider an enlightened manager. Enlightenment is about maintaining work-life balance. Pecking order \u2013 Health, Family and Work. Roger Federer \u2013 continued playing after he had kids. VA gave an excellent example of Roger\u2019s flow<\/em> \u2013 a video worth ten thousand words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/youtu.be\/DXB4MApF4Lo.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n I am adding a few superfluous words to this. Not aware of where Roger\u2019s competitor, Djokovic, is, the only thing that mattered to Roger was the approach, keeping his eye on the ball. His focus was on the process, instead of getting caught in a trap of outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another example of an enlightened manager is Nicholas Vreeland, an American Buddhist monk, who is also a photographer. In 2014, VA co-produced a documentary \u2013 Monk with a Camera. When funding for the rebuilding of his Karnataka monastery was cancelled due to the 2008 recession, Vreeland’s abilities as a photographer became the means to raise the funds needed to complete the rebuilding project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n VA talked about another enlightened manager, Mark Marrula, the first Chairman and values meister at Apple Computers. Mark was a techie who made his moolah by selling his stock options at Fairchild and Intel. He retired at the ripe old age of 32 \u2013 and became a VC. Markkula was introduced to Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak while they were looking for funding to manufacture the Apple II personal computer they had developed after having sold some units of their first computer, the Apple I. Markkula came out of retirement to personally work on the opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With his guidance and funding, Apple was incorporated as a company on January 3, 1977. Markkula provided Apple with funding of $80,000 personally in addition to securing a $250,000 line of credit from Bank of America. Markkula served as Apple’s chairman from 1985 to 1997. In 1996 Fortune described him as “the reclusive chairman who has always been the real power at Apple”. As chairman Markkula approved the 1979 plan to start designing what would become the Macintosh, then prevented Jobs from killing the project in favor of his own Lisa. In 1985, Markkula took John Sculley’s side in a dispute with Jobs, causing the latter to leave the company; he would later help to force Sculley out in 1993. Fortune wrote “Apple CEOs have two things in common: They all get into big trouble; and Markkula always sorts out the mess”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Enlightening Tips from VA:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00b7 Being action oriented. Answering emails, social media posts, etc represent activities. It is easy to get lost in such activities. Actions must be based on facts. Facts, not senior leaders, make decisions. Senior leaders should allow facts to emerge on the decision-making table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00b7 Managing Sales. A key attribute of a salesperson should be a sense of wonderment. Don\u2019t over-prepare. Watch the condition of the customer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00b7 Managing Failures. Suffering comes when we try to escape it. We should stay with suffering. In the same way, we must stay with failure, not accept, or reject it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00b7 Managing Anger. How can you work with angry people if you cannot manage your own anger? If we are angry, we should not consider ourselves separate from the anger. Only if we realize this, we can control our anger. We must observe and experience these emotions rather than try to \u201cmanage\u201d them as if they are separate from us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the end, VA was questioned about his corporate philosophy. Dreams are fictions \u2013 and so are dream jobs. Every entrepreneur has to sell this fiction. She has to be a wordsmith \u2013 for it is stories that make the future a reality. It is stories that draw others, including investors. Great companies are those where the founders don\u2019t start with an intention to sell off. They believe that their venture is going to last. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And yet, VA exited his companies. What made him do that? He talked of deathbed karma \u2013 of wanting to breathe his last knowing that he had no regrets about stuff he did not do. In the companies that he founded, VE felt a sense of responsibility to his original investors. They had shown faith in him \u2013 and he had to keep the faith. He had heard Krishnamurti\u2019s call \u2013 he exited, when his investors exited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The session was moderated by Prof Ashok Korwar, Giri\u2019s schoolmate. Ashok did his PhD from UCLA and was a Prof at IIMA in the area of strategy and entrepreneurship. He is currently an advisor to Persistent Systems and serves on the board of trustees of Sahyadri School.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Video biography of Mark Marrula:<\/em> <\/em>https:\/\/youtu.be\/0DuOnDWRwI4<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n JK Awakening of Intelligence Android app. You can get JK\u2019s answers to your questions here:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n