His designation is probably the most distinctive in India Inc. Devdutt Pattanaik, a doctor by training, is the chief belief officer at Future Group. Pattanaik has written several books on Indian mythology such as ‘The Book of Ram’, ‘Myth=Mithya’ and ‘A Handbook of Hindu Mythology’. Pattanaik also extensively uses insights from mythology in his professional life.
He believes everyone, from a doorman, to a driver and to the managing director of a Rs 10,000 crore company, seeks only three things in life and that is LSD. “Happiness in Indian mythology is represented in the form of three goddesses — L, S and D — i.e. Lakshmi, Saraswati and Durga. Lakshmi is the wealth or things that are tangible or measurable. Saraswati is your intellect. What is Durga? This is not easily understood. Durga holds weapons in her hands. When do you hold weapons? When you are frightened and want to feel secure. I will say emotional wellbeing comes in this space,” he says.
In an interview, Pattanaik tells DNA Vivek Kaul how mythology can be successfully embedded into management skills. Excerpts:
How do you implement your insights from mythology?
What I bring most to the table is clarity of thought, using mythology as the instrument. So let’s say somebody says I want to be happy. I try to see how happiness is expressed in mythology, Indian mythology primarily. And happiness in mythology is represented in the form of three goddesses — L, S and D — Lakshmi, Saraswati and Durga. Lakshmi is wealth or things that are tangible or measurable. Saraswati is your intellect. What is Durga? This is not easily understood. Durga holds weapons in her hands. When do you hold weapons? When you are frightened and want to feel secure. The whole sense of emotional wellbeing comes in the space.
So if somebody says I want to make my employees happy, I say okay, we need a framework so that I can make them happy. The framework comes from mythology or the LSD — Lakshmi, Saraswati and Durga. Is your team having adequate tangible benefits, are they having intellectual growth, which can manifest in career growth and are they emotionally secure? And the ratio at which it works varies between different phases of time. If you are buying, the demand for L goes up like crazy. When you are in the early phase of your career, S matters a lot. Over time you realise that D plays a very powerful role and everything is to do with D. So your bigger car and a smaller mobile phone have everything to do with your D. You feel secure when you have things. From a doorman, to a driver, to the managing director of a Rs 10,000 crore company, everyone is yearning only these three things, in different proportions though.
After having taken an input from mythology, how do you implement it?
The speed with which you would get the LSD, an American perhaps will never get it. This is only because you are familiar with it. Ultimately, it comes down to a very simple level: spreading the word. That’s it. Hopefully, some people will get it and apply it. That’s all you can do. What else can you do with knowledge?
At the Future Group, you have been practicing the ‘Vikram & Vetaal’ method of training. Could you throw some light on that?
The ‘Vikram and Vetaal’ method is basically saying that the trainer becomes the Vetaal, which means he asks questions and facilitates and forces the Vikramaditya to come up with an answer. The fundamental thing is I believe that you know the answer or at least you can find it. So I’ll support you, but I will not tell you and that forces you to awaken and engage with your teacher, with your fellow students and with the subject. “Dimaag ki batti ko humlog forcefully jaalan rahe hain.” The ownership of learning is put on the student. The more questions of Vetaal he answers, the better the Vikramaditya he becomes. He discovers himself. It gives you a lot of self confidence. This is my answer. I figured it out.
Are you practicing it?
We have trained our trainers to practice it. Very difficult, because when you say that the trainer becomes a Vetaal, it is a loss of power. He is not this fountainhead of knowledge. He is a ghost in a crematorium, who is hanging upside down. You have taken away all the power from a trainer. So, it requires a lot of humility on the part of the trainer to surrender to the reality that in the classroom, the student is the king and not he.
You wrote in one your columns “Every customer — external or internal — is actually Shiva, with the power to destroy us through indifference”…
Shiva’s eyes are shut. Shiva is not interested in the world and that’s why everything around him is desolate. His eyes are shut. The whole Shaivite lore is about opening Shiva’s eyes. Shiva is the destroyer, how does he destroy — by shutting his eyes to the world. The goddess dances in front of him and worships him so that he opens his eyes and from Shiva, he becomes Shankara — the benevolent one — who gives his grace. Shiva is a destroyer because he shuts his eyes. Similarly customer is the destroyer because if he shuts his eyes to your product, you are dead. But why will he open his eyes, either because you are enchanting or because you have appealed to him in some way? The method is up to us. But the destruction of an organisation happens when the customer shuts his eyes, very much like Shiva.
Then why are there so many temples of Shiva, the destroyer, and almost none of Brahma, the creator?
When you say creator, the question is what does he create? When we use the word creator, our mind connects to the biblical traditions, where creator is worshipped. We feel it’s most logical that creator should be worshipped and the destroyer should not. This culture is absurd. It worships the destroyer and not the creator. But there is a flaw in the question itself. Bramha creates a world of suffering. He creates a world where nothing is permanent. Bramha creates a world of delusion. Bramha creates death and birth. So what does Shiva destroy? He destroys birth and death. He destroys impermanence. He destroys sorrow, misery. That’s what he destroys. So who will you worship? Shiva.I have come across authors who will say Bramha is the creator, Vishnu is the preserver and Shiva is the destroyer. And because they are embarrassed and uncomfortable with the word destroyer, as it is a negative word, they add that Shiva is the destroyer of evil. Now here a child may ask doesn’t that mean Bramha is the creator of evil and Vishnu the preserver of evil? And then the parent has no answer. The flaw is in understanding the words creation and destruction. We are assuming that creation is good and destruction is bad.
How would you use this insight in an organisation?
Let’s say you are a venture capitalist and you have given money to someone. Now when do you celebrate that person to whom you have given money? When he builds the company or when his business shows profits? Of course, when it shows profits. That is the preservation stage and not the creation stage. You don’t worship the creator. I can give money and anybody can build a hotel, but only when the hotel becomes profitable do you worship him. So you worship not Bramha but Vishnu. And when the business stops making profits, you will celebrate the guy who knows to sell it off and make maximum money out of it. At no point does a VC actually celebrate a guy who builds the organisation. He celebrates the guy who makes the organisation viable and he celebrates the guy who is able to close down the operation when viability ceases. So, venture capitalist celebrates preservers and destroyers and never creators. Lakshmi is with the preserver, with the one who makes the business viable, i.e. Vishnu, and not with the creator or the destroyer.
A businessman works really hard and builds an empire. He is at a stage wherein he wants to divide his empire between his two equally competent and ambitious sons. How can he do so by using insights from mythology?
Look at the Ramayana. The Ramayana is about three sets of brothers. There is Ram and his brothers; there is Sugriv and his brother Bali; and there is Ravan and his brothers. Ram and his brothers are willing to give the kingdom to each other. Nobody is obsessed with wanting the throne. Ram gives it to Bharat and Bharat gives it back to him. Sugriv and Bali are like animals fighting over the territory. Ravan is an animal who throws his brother out and takes over the territory. These are three examples in mythology, which talk about people over property.
In each case there is no division, one takes over. The moment you divide, the narrative says there will be a conflict. Division is Mahabharat. Because I don’t like you, I want to break away from you. The moment this conversation starts to happen, conflict is bound to happen. The fact that the father is also thinking about dividing the property means he is not being able to raise his sons in a way that they would care for each other. And if they don’t care for each other, and they don’t feel they can share an unbelievable amount of wealth, then there is something wrong in the upbringing. There is a serious emotional rupture, which cannot be solved using L, the problem is in D. It’s not about S. The problem is not in the wealth, while we invested a lot of energy in building the empire, we did not invest adequate amount of time in talent management within the family and one part of the talent management is the ability to empathise with each other. I think, somewhere along the line that was forgotten. And as you sow, so you reap.
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