Application to collaboration challenges in work teams and business organisations
In 2007, HR magazine highlighted the fact that the 21st century is likely to be the age of collaboration because many of today's problems are complex, often demanding cross-disciplinary expertise. Leveraging Knowledge Blog states further that because knowledge is the most important asset today, this century has become the age of collaboration as a direct consequence of the knowledge economy that we live in. Strategic partnerships may optimise project management, enhance innovation, and ensure sustainable change. Despite these clear advantages, collaboration does not come easy for organisations and very few companies know how to collaborate internally and externally according to David Smith of Accenture.
In this paper we will discuss how Advaita Vedanta — a Hindu philosophy of non-dualism — and Yoga Sutras of Patanjali can provide meaningful perspectives on collaboration and how they can be applied to teams and organisations. In addition, we will describe how these perspectives are grounded in brain science, and how combining the insights from brain science and Advaita Vedanta and Yoga Sutras provides unique strategies for collaboration.
Premise
How can a non-dualistic perspective be applied to increase ROI on collaboration?
What are the brain mechanisms that support a non-dualistic perspective?
How can this brain state of collaboration be achieved by managers?
What is the relevance of this to the overall consciousness of the business?
Core Concept
Advaita Vedanta is the non-dualistic system of Vedanta expounded primarily by an 8th century Indian philosopher named Sankara. This philosophy rests on the tenet that non-duality does not mean the non-existence of a second thing, but its non-existence as other than yourself. In the collaboration context, this would imply the importance of being aware of the unifying principles underlying two parties coming together.
Brain science and psychology research teach us that there are several lines of evidence that support the idea of non-duality. The notion of a shared self is exemplified in the phenomenon of mirror neurons which are neural systems that represent the point of view of another person automatically. Thus, there is evidence that we automatically represent the actions, intentions and emotions of others in our brains. In addition, recent studies have demonstrated that when actions are performed jointly, there is an automatic formation of a new agentic identity (a ‘we' identity) that alters the prior sense of agency.
The neural substrates for self and other agency are remarkably different and we discuss the implications of this, including such facts as the evidence that meditation can reduce activation in the self, space and time processing brain regions. In fact, automatic self-transcending and pure consciousness show distinct neural patterns on EEG.
Furthermore, research on joint attention shows us that people are more likely to be allocentric than egocentric under such conditions. This may be because reciprocity, cooperativeness, and social rewards activate reward processing areas with strong dopaminergic input, such as the ventral striatum in the human brain. Joint attention activates the brain's mentalising ability as well.
Unique contributions of Advaita Vedanta (AV)
The old view would purport that collaboration involves two separate intelligences working together. The AV view would suggest that the two intelligences give rise to a new intelligence that can be leveraged differently. The older view would suggest that people work independently in collaborations. The AV view combined with brain science suggests that collaborations would benefit from mirroring in certain instances and counter-mirroring in others.
The old view would suggest that it is important to focus on coordination whereas the AV view would suggest that internal coherence is as important as coordination and that without internal coherence, the result of collaboration does not benefit either entity and the time and effort put into collaboration leads to delays and frustration instead of co-creation.
Conclusion
Expressed as an equation, 1 + 1 = 11 is the desired result of collaboration and by applying lessons from Advaita Vedanta and brain science, we believe organisations and teams can achieve this result.
(Abstract from a paper presented at the IIMK conclave. Srinivasan S. Pillay is Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, and CEO, NeuroBusiness Group; Prasad Kaipa is CEO Coach and Advisor, Kaipa Group, California. Both authors are associated with Center for Leadership, Innovation and Change, ISB, Hyderabad.)
Read related article alongside.
References:
India's Decade of Collaboration, Radjou N, Prabhu J, Kaipa, P and Ahuja S. - Harvard Business Review
The New Arithmetic of Collaboration. Radjou N, Prabhu J, Kaipa, P and Ahuja S. - Harvard Business Review
Keywords: HR magazine, Advaita Vedanta, Prasad Kaipa, Srinivasan S. Pillay
Alright! Science, spirituality and business are connecting. The next
step: How can managers foster a true collaborative experience so that a
coherent collective mind can form? How can coherence be measured so that
efforts can be optimized?
A brilliant, brilliant article. Multiple intelligences collaborating correctly form a joint intelligence, as bees in a hive make joint decisions; they can access a higher intelligence. Nor is this exclusively a Hindu concept: Rudolf Otto, in "Mysticism East and West" compared Meister Eckhart, a 13th Century Christian thinker, with Sankara, and found them nearly identical.
What rubbish!. Whatever philosophy as expounded by Adi Sankara was withing the context of knowledge then available. This shows that there are ways and ways of deluding oneself.
The goal of advita is to shed all connections (vasanas) and be
yourself in purest form. At that level, there is no difference between
individuals and individual and world. They neither love not hate
anything for that matter. If one goes to that state, he would be
omnipresent. There is no second thing there other than him. Then with
whom he collaborate and on what.
"Thatra ko mohaha? Ka shokaha? Ekashya manupashyatha!" The translation
reads " There is only one thing present. where is love? Where is
sorrow? ". This is from Eeshavasya upanishad..
Advita pronounces that happiness is not in the worldly matters and you
are the source of happiness and finding yourself truly is the ultimate
destination. Where all physical sciences leads to technology advances
that provide creature comforts temporarily. These paths will never
meet...
Capitalism has no room for all such nonsense!
No doubts we are living in global world though separated by location
and regions.Further knowledge and innovation have a definite edge to
guide the success stories in the this century to find solutions for the
expanding population in an uncontrolled manner to sustain further
progress already achieved in the last century. So this concept may be
worth exploring.
We all know about Adi Shankaracharya and Patanjali' Yoga Sutra and the Indian School of Advaita Philosophy revived by Sri Adi Shankaracharya. He is said to avatar of Vishnu appeared at the time when Buddhism was sweeping Indian subcontinent and Vedic Sanatana Dharma was threatened to extinction.
I commend the authors for their brilliant attempt but I felt that as scientists, they could have simplied it for understanding keeping in view the larger masses who are non medical people.
God bless
It is an interesting effort. But the fact is AV is not invented by Sri
Adi Shankara, he only promulgated. Bhagvadgita acknowledges that there
different paths for self-realisation.
Collaboration among people is necessary but not a sufficient
condition. If a person can think beyond the narrow boundaries of
dichotomous thinking of modern science, then where is cross-
disciplinary? The greatest problem that organisations (actually
people) face is not duality, it is their failure to see/ understand
beyond their realm!
That's the very motivation which made me coin the following slogan:
"The mark of leadership is the inability to differentiate the Art and
Science."
I am not sure whether the philosophical pursuit to experience the
'grand oneness' is identical to the 'materialistic thinking' of
creating successes for an organisation through collaboration.