<p><em>The magic begins to happen when individual foresight towards one’s self and the leaders’ vision for their constituents find utterance, writes <strong>A.V.K. Mohan</strong></em><br><br>Human beings in general and corporate people in particular have been experiencing greater stress with every passing generation. It is a fact that in the last 100 years, ever since industrialisation took over the world like no other event of the past, the greatest byproduct has been increasing levels of stress. Ordinary lives have been replaced by complex lives and we have been bombarded by relentless change in every aspect of our lives. Change is now such an integral part of to our existence that it creeps into our lives unnoticed, even though we may not want it always. When I read about the lives of people who have taken sanyas or renounced this world, I find that even their lives too are not free from change.<br><br>Against such a backdrop, Luxetta is no exception; the lives of its employees are not very different from those of the average corporate citizen nowadays. The sad and untimely demise of John Kramer, head of global R&D at Luxetta, is a reflection of how we live our lives these days. Rather than learn from it, we feel the pain and anguish of that event for some time, but other overpowering events take us over the next moment and we find ourselves back into the race. The events at Luxetta clearly point out that John did not pay heed to the warnings his body was giving him. We thus feel that Luxetta’s global R&D team, and by extension, Luxetta as a whole, needs to do many things to improve the quality of life of its employees in general.<br><br>Nowadays, we hear of many cases of sudden death where people were not able to identify the symptoms in time. This is unfortunate because we live in an age when technological developments in the fields of science and medicine have made it possible for people to recover from serious ailments provided there is timely detection and proper application of preventive medicine.<br> </p><table style="width: 200px;" align="right" border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4"><tbody><tr><td><img alt="" src="http://bw-image.s3.amazonaws.com/AVK-Mohan_SS-mdm.jpg" style="width: 250px; height: 305px; float: right; margin: 4px;"></td></tr><tr><td><span style="color:#696969;"><em><strong>A.V.K. Mohan</strong></em></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p>The moot question then is: Do we have the time, knowledge, motivation, commitment and respect for our wonderful body to service it as much as we use it? Do we have organisations that make it a part of their corporate objectives to instil that into their people? It is sad that we are more bothered about servicing and repairing our material possessions than ourselves.<br><br>There are many who lead healthy and better quality lives even in this chaotic and stressful world. For every John who is unable to manage his health, there are several others who through sheer focus live quality lives and improve their health quotient. What do we notice in such people? What learnings can we derive from them so that in these times of relentless change and mindboggling pace of events we are able to manage our health better? Yes, only relatively better, not in the absolute sense. I see that these people do ‘one’ thing far better than those who are unable to manage their health — they are able to manage the paradox of life in their minds. They are able to attain a level of equanimity that helps them take the highs with the lows of life with a greater alignment of mind, body and soul.<br><br>Unlike John, who took so much pride in his work but seemed to care little for balance, people who succeed more than others in managing a sustained quality of life are seekers of ‘balance’. Such people show a higher success rate in investing time in all quadrants of life — professional, spiritual, social, mental, physical, etc. In doing so, they are able to de-compartmentalise the stress that gets built in one quadrant of life and de-stress with fulfilment from other quadrants. If success means getting what you want and fulfilment is wanting what you get, then those who succeed are people who learn to balance the two far better than others. In today’s world, we hear so much about success that fulfilment is forgotten. We chase success all the time without really asking ourselves whether we genuinely want what we are seeking. And in the process, we build stress to levels that the body just cannot handle, leading to a breakdown.<br><br>When people become habituated to chasing success, even preventive diagnosis is of little help to them. Such people find it difficult to get off the treadmill of success and eventually pay a price.<br><br>If we closely observe people who maintain greater balance between success and fulfilment, we notice great time management, clarity of purpose, mindfulness, awareness, reflection in the midst of action and, strangely, the ability to see the futility of everything and the capacity to observe oneself. People who can see the futility of all they do learn to take themselves not too seriously if it is damaging to self and others.<br><br>One may wonder that simple traits such as those outlined above make people live better lives than others. If we closely observe people, we will not miss those elements or traits in them. Nature is full of these elements.<br><br>In the pull and push of our lives, we seem to have missed the woods for the trees. But people who do better than others in all aspects of life score more on the above-mentioned traits and hence find the balance within and without. Such people recognise that if something bad were to happen to them, their families would be adversely impacted; they are therefore committed to and mindful of their duties and responsibilities towards their families. They are aware that corporations will soon forget and move on — as it happened in John’s case — but their families will go on suffering for very long.<br><br>We all intuitively know that if we live in harmony with nature, we experience a greater sense of tranquility, lesser levels of stress and a better quality of life and living. What does that really mean? It means a greater sense of awareness and mindfulness of these traits that nature possesses in abundance.<br><br>So, what can organisations like Luxetta do? I think they can create an environment for making fulfilment as compelling as success. It will be akin to individuals working to achieve the balance between success and fulfilment. This will happen when leaders like Marcus Marsh (CEO) and Harry Sugarman (global head of Product R&D), with the help of their Board, reflect on what is well and what is not with Luxetta. This will happen when they will find ways and means to bring this discussion to the forefront as much as other strategically important subjects. It will happen when they persist with this agenda long after John’s memory fades, and are keen to make a difference and differentiate Luxetta from other competing brands.<br><br>The next question is how to go about it. It can be done just the way organisations strategically achieve something by planning, designing, developing, deploying, following, reviewing and re-doing. It can be done by aligning the organisation’s measures to improve the quotient on balance with its deep-rooted culture. Anything that is done as a knee jerk reaction will be alien to the deep-rooted culture and is bound to be rejected. It cannot be done by declaring Yoga week and then following up with odd hours of working; in Luxetta global teams particularly in India routinely work till 10 or 11 p.m. This is what great leaders recognise and spend a great deal of time to think through the issue before acting with conviction. The magic begins to happen when individual foresight towards one’s self and the leaders’ vision for their constituents find utterance. It greatly echoes Dr Nathani’s comment: “Easy if you are a careless idiot and difficult if you know the simple rules of the game.”<br><br>Finally, it is all about discipline. And research clearly shows that all great organisations that succeeded over competition had one thing in common — the discipline of execution. Helping people find balance in their lives is also all about the discipline of execution.<br><br>It is never easy. It never was and will never be. When Buddha declared the ‘Middle Path’, it was so simple as a concept but profoundly difficult to execute. The trick lies in the mind switching on for a new way and overcoming the mind of habits that wants to control for its selfish but utterly necessary need of protecting us. When Krishna unveiled the Gita during his long sermon, a confused Arjun asked him to give him an executive summary of the same. To which Krishna said: When humans have a balance between Aahaar (diet) and Vyavahaar (conduct), they are bound to find balance. And that is what differentiates people and organisations ; we have checks and balances in place to overcome the tyranny of imbalance, which is a byproduct of the times we live in. The memory of John should live long enough to help Luxetta overcome this bias. <br><br><em>The writer is senior director, Group Human Capital with Max India. The views are personal</em><br><br>(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 24-08-2015)</p>
