Sanskrit —Exploring Sanskrit methodology for improving management skills
Having worked for IT industry for two decades, initially for applications and product development to later project/ program management and team management, I have now switched channels to start learning Sanskrit language and its literatures formally. While learning this beautiful, scientific language, I could not help notice, how the in-built structure, methodologies there, could be utilized in the current management principles to build efficiency. People may have misconceptions about Sanskrit being solely a religious language or an archaic ancient language. Although, I do not deny that the core texts, like Veda, are related to spiritual attainment, but most of the texts, structures, rules available are generic in nature, relevant even now. In this paper, I would like to take the concept of “कथा” (katha) that was the norm of passing on information. Katha are of three types — “वाद” (vada), जल्प (jalpa), वितण्ड (vittanda), and show how they identified the challenges of managing conflicts and moving ahead. This can be easily co-related to the prevalent methods of meetings to get work done.
Whoever has worked in the IT industry, especially in the middle-layer, will agree that a lot of time is spent in meetings. We have status meetings, where the team reviews the status of the project with the management, we have brain-storming meetings, we have problem-solving meetings, we have conflict resolution meetings, etc etc. One of the woes we had at Intel Corporation (my previous employer), is that the time we had to spend on meetings, instead of focusing on the core issues. Also, when you add global team to the discussion, meetings crossing over different time-zones, not having effective meetings are big resource drains on the companies.
Once I had got an opportunity to present a paper on Intel IT sourcing strategy, at a conference held in Chicago. There were a few representatives from companies like BP, Wodeweyeser etc, who all wanted to share and find out would be an ideal sourcing strategy for non-IT company, to outsource work or have an internal IT team. Being a newbie in the field, slightly nervous in presenting a paper, where I was not truly an expert, I tried to break the ice with a line “I call myself SDIE” and as the others looked at me with raised eyebrows, I explained what SDIE meant — Sleep-Deprived-Intel-Employee. All got the point, what I was trying to bring to the table was the challenges of working with people across different locations, having different time-zones and managing to get work done. I saw all had somewhat similar grouse of having to spend a lot of time in meetings, over the phones to get simple work done. The take-away I got from that conference was that people are frustrated, when they have to spend unnecessary hours in meetings, especially when no successful results are in sight. From this context too, having effective meetings are something, which are very important in any situation.
Now coming back to Sanskrit, let us see what it has to offer here. From the time-immeroial, Sanskrit has a way of sharing knowledge in the form of debates. The narration is called “Katha”. The main type of Katha is called “वाद” vada. In the book Mahabhashyam, Patanjali, the author himself, documented meanings of Panini’s grammar as a debate between a teacher and a student. Although, he himself was wearing both the hats. Through these debates, he documented almost all the different scenarios of interpreting Panini’s grammar, so that we even have the disqualified alternatives. One of the reasons, we can read and understand Sanskrit texts, written thousands of years back, in the original forms, is because of such innovative practices our ancient saints had. Can you imagine, people reading just essay type of paper, on already a dry subject and building the expertise in that subject? Sanskrit has managed to maintain its purity of form, texts, languages, over thousands of years, despite the country being ravaged by foreign rulers, and substantial number of manuscripts being lost to the civilization. Anyway, what are remaining, also give good insights, as they followed scientific methods, which could withstand the ravages of time.
To give an example from a completely different angle, I assume, some of you have had a chance to read Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, also known as GEB, is a 1979 book by Douglas Hofstadter. You can see how the author there, seems to have utilized similar method, a dialogue between the imaginary characters the Archilese and tortoise, to explain complex subject. In Sanskrit, it has been the norm thousands of years back. Complex subjects were made simple through “katha” or narrations in the form of dialogues. The best version of katha is called vada, which is a narration or an argument to get to the bottom of the truth.
Coming back to the meetings, why this katha or vada is important. During ancient times, before the advent of written texts, knowledge was passed on in the form of hymns, from the teachers to the students. Knowledge being the key, debates were encouraged. But to prevent the kind of meetings, we have now, there was an underlying rules defined. The documented knowledge was called “कथा” “katha” or narration or arguments, which recorded the narratives in the form of dialogues. Further katha was classified as “vada”, “jalpa” and “vittanda”.
Katha is the narrative to understand and prove the underlying concepts. Through debates, between knowledgeable persons, it is expected that there is a common agreement, and acceptance of the result. Two or more participate in this discussion. (Interestingly, even if it is not a live debate, ancient scholars like Patanjali, used the method to analyze and prove the concept, through imaginary teacher-student dialogues. Patanjali’s Mahabhasyam is such a masterpiece, which provides the discourse on Panini’s grammar rules.) End result of this form of katha/vada or debates was the proof of a doctrine, with disqualified alternatives, and the reasons, why these alternative theories were wrong, all documented. I firmly believe, it was meant to take care of future questions or to prevent re-inventing the wheels. In this form of debates, once a person cannot defend his thesis, he needs to accept the other’s point of view completely. (Using “he/ his” to keep the flow simple, please read it as gender-neutral).
Does it sound familiar? We have now, agree to disagree in the meetings, but there it was complete acceptance of the opponents’ views, once your view has been disqualified.
One more distinguishing feature of the “vada” is that, the participants are tied by common goal of arriving at a result. Here the winner is the result, not the participants. The participants are respected for providing their perspectives, regardless of the end-result. So there is no ego-tussle, but fight to understand the subject/ concept.
Interestingly, one of the key methods in these kinds of debates/ vada (special form of katha) is the definition of the rules. The participants, before putting forth their views, need to paraphrase what the other person has said. If that person falters in repeating the point of the earlier speaker, he loses his chance to speak, as it is clear that he has not understood the other’s perspective, so he cannot share his thoughts. So the participant, not only needs to know his subject, but also needs to be a good listener and have the presence of mind. Again here, the underlying rule is that, only one person can talk at a time, and others have to listen to the full argument, without interrupting. Tough to follow nowadays, huh?
To summarize, this form of debates:
- The goal is to arrive at the result, not to show one-upmanship.
- When a point is proved beyond dispute the “vada” is complete. All accept the concept and rest in peace. The person, who loses the debate, has to acknowledge the loss, and accept the opposite point of view.
- Here the teacher and the student or the participants, are driven by need to find a solution. The ethos is jigyasa or curiosity.
- Only one person is allowed to speak at a given time. After that person is done with the talking, the other person, refuting the point has to paraphrase, what he has heard first, before providing his points. If he cannot paraphrase, he cannot continue in the discussion. Only after he paraphrases, he can give the rebuttal.
- It is expected, people involved in these “vada” discussions are the subject-matters-experts, knowledgeable, who can articulate well as well. Here, although debates can go into days, they are still called effective, as no one is wasting time with unnecessary chatters and focused on the common goal to arrive at a conclusion. Many of the doctrines that exist, even today, are results of such debates, or vada.
The next form of “katha” is “jalpa”. This seems to be more representative of current meetings. In this form of debate, the underlying goal of the participants is to win the debate. Here the result is “who won the debate” as against what was the conclusion. The underlying motive to prove one’s concept, by hook-or-crook. In the previous form, participants are driven by curiosity and to get to the true result, here the participants are there to defeat their counterpart. The result is more of win-lose form. However, the rules of katha need to be followed here as well.
The final form of katha is vittanda. In this form, the participant’s goal is to just to argue, without a goal. Here, the person, just wants to disprove the opponent’s view, without any reason. He does not project his views, but continues to contradict the presenter’s views, no matter what they mean.
In conclusion, there are more to Sanskrit, than just mere ancient language. It is a vast repository of knowledge of ancient wisdom, which are still valid. I just took, a miniscule section of the “Nyayashastra” written more than 2000 years ago to do this comparison. In fact, the whole theory is covered by 3 sutras (cryptic sentences, full of meanings, like axioms)!
(Please note that, getting the exact date of creation is nearly impossible, as our ancient authors believed in sharing ideas than talking about themselves. There was no patent like concept then, as the whole idea was to create something for the betterment of people, not seek credit or materialistic gains by it.)
Edit 27th Aug 2017: Based on the feedback from my esteemed professor / dean of Karnatak Sanskrit University, Dr. Srinivas Varakhedi, I have corrected the definition of “katha”. Katha is a narrative, not a story, which is the modern meaning in Hindi. Vada, Jalpa, Vittanda are 3 types of katha. I have made the changes to reflect the correct definition. In short, current meetings should follow vada tradition, not jalpa or vittanda, that happens more often than naught.