Business Growth Strategies - 10
All problems of nature are essentially problems of harmony. Every living organism depends on the smooth harmonious interaction and co-operation of its composite parts for growth and survival. Harmony in an institution is not limited to cooperative relations among employees or between employees and management. There is the harmony between the idea, the systems or schemes for execution and the actual outer expression. There is the harmony between the idea, the systems or schemes for execution and the actual outer expression.
There is a harmony between principles and practice, and between understanding, acceptance and practice. For there to be a harmony here must be a tuning of the different layers of the institution to the central purpose. The ideal of harmonious relations, between parts of itself, acts as a powerful center for progress and the expansion of the entire institution.
It is the universal harmony which supports all smaller conflicts. Harmony is not, as many think of it, a static or stagnant existence. It is the firm foundation of peace and stability upon which creativity, expansion and growth can flourish. Harmony brings to your service all the possibilities of the past that were missed. A general atmosphere of harmony, sympathy, good-will can be aided by not speaking critically of others, refraining from all unnecessary negative expression, particularly anger, spite and jealousy. If one forgoes negative expression even when justified, he rises to a higher level. Harmony attempted in a situation yields greater results than authority, strategy or force.
There is a harmony possible on the level of thoughts and the level of feelings; there is also a greater harmony which lies deeper in each individual, founder on the unity of all souls. If any individual in an institution makes an effort to relate to others from the deepest possible center of being, to harmonize the many divergent and conflicting elements in his own consciousness, he can release a very powerful movement of harmony in the institution as a whole. Such a movement is the most propitious condition for an expansion of the company.
Every reader will surely have anticipated our attitude on movements of falsehood such as lying, deceit, misrepresentation, but the basis for this position may not be equally apparent. It is not necessary to add to the age-old debate on whether crime pays. It is certainly true that many an entrepreneur has grown wealthy by following a policy based on falsehoods of every kind. As Sri Aurobindo points outs, the law of action and reaction, karma, is valid for each level of existence within its own domain. Lying and the like are actions on the ethical plane of mind, while business transactions are on the socio-economic plane of life. The two are not directly connected. Acts of falsehood may very well lead to moral degeneration and poverty. And since the ethical plane is a higher level of existence than the economic, the total result is a retrogression in development for the individual or institution involved. The aim of human activity is growth, progressive evolution of all the parts of the individual being and every aspect of collective life. This evolution is a movement from unconsciousness to consciousness, from ignorance and falsehood to knowledge and truth, from suffering to fulfillment. There is no possible way to further this development by a conscious act of falsehood. Moreover, though such an action may yield a material fruit, it inevitably evokes a like response from outer life. Where one has obtained business from others by misrepresentation, others will seek business from you by the same means. Where one has charged another an unreasonably high price for a product, one's own staff or suppliers or someone else will do likewise toward you. As one is to life, so life responds in one form or another.
Secrecy, concealment, hiding are conditions in which falsehood thrives. As man and his institutions develop he relies less on such means, cultivates an open and illumined climate for conducting affairs and advances more rapidly in this brighter air.
It sometimes happens than an institution is treated falsely by others even when its own attitudes and behavior have been true. When this happens it is a good indication that the institution is on the verge of a progress to a higher level of functioning and these lower forces come to impede that movement. The only support they can ever have is from the tinge of false methods the institution sometimes permits. The solution is to fight the falsehood only by Truth. Review the past and present behavior. Examine and correct lapses in attitudes and modes of functioning. Falsehood can never be fought by falsehood.
A nationally known firm in the U.S. was awarded a large contract by one of the State Governments. The official in-charge said the only condition was that the consultant must demand an extra large fee and hand over the excess to him. The consultant refused the illegal preposition and lost the job. Some years later under a new government administration the same consulting firm was awarded the largest consulting contract the state had ever issued. This time it was all legal.
One's own latent capacity for falsehood, slander, ill-will and jealousy, even when unexpressed, leaves one open to over negativity from others. The best protection is a sincere examination of the roots of such vibrations within oneself.
