By Kesava Krsna Dasa
Some temple presidents might think that because many of our managerial problems occur at department heads’ level, that they themselves are blame-free. In fact, they are to blame because they have allowed bad management to happen under their watch. It seems to be a simple solution to remove a ‘lower-level’ leader due to bad people skills, but when they do continue, it means that temple presidents and those above them also require people / devotee skills training.
Removing certain devotees from leadership roles does not solve the problem of bad self-perpetuating management repeating itself. Because Srila Prabhupada seemed to favour a hands-off, lazy intelligent approach to management, our version of that may likely be a hands-off, “Ask others to do what I wouldn’t like to do…” In other words, to do one’s ‘dirty work’.
In these circumstances many lower-level leaders are expendable. Meanwhile, perpetuating types of management continue and everyone wonders why they do. It is a mystery with the answer being visible before us all. Our strategic aim of having happier devotees then remains some distance away. Should it not embolden us to know that this Happiness factor should particularly apply for all devotees who have volunteered their lives for Krishna? Is it so obvious?
The uniqueness of volunteering one’s life to Krishna is so rare and special, yet it often gets reduced to the normalcy of chores and results-driven servility. Who is to blame when innocent devotees get hurt by these consequences of familiarity? Institutional ISKCON is trying to deal with these problems, because world and regional institutionalism is a recent development in Vaisnava history. Our corporatism has to be tempered, or rather, dedicated to serving devotees to help them serve Krishna – with due sensitivity.
If there are incremental steps by higher management for implementing needed improvements in their areas of concern, they can begin with inviting senior and experienced devotees to formulate people / devotee skills manuals and training for all levels of management. When mandatory training sets in motion, it will help in absorbing more idealistic forms of assistance from strategic initiatives.
The intention is to instil not only awareness and to build bridges between the congregation and management, but to have workable standards. However busy a temple schedule is with festivals and other programs, management should be obliged to send all their leaders for such courses. Such is the importance of this that our ISKCON will benefit. Here are some more no-no’s:
Taking Advantage Of A Devotee’s Good Will To Serve
In the real scheme of devotion unto the Lord, there is no such thing as any service being too menial – it is all high. However, depending on the receptive ability to carry out ‘menial’ service, a devotee willing to be humble and submissive can be asked to perform services that cause a lack of enthusiasm, or worse, to distance him or herself from service altogether. And others will probably say that that individual was not sincere anyway. Is this always true?
Many devotees will say that whoever wants to do some service for the temple should wash pots and clean the toilets, and this will prove how sincere they are. Is this also true in every situation? And if someone is not disposed to do such services because he or she is not yet receptive, are they really insincere? Is there a difference between volunteering to do such services, rather than be coerced into them?
And if the volunteer volunteers anyway to prove his or her sincerity, even though he or she might be a neuro-surgeon, an established playwright, an academic or musical conductor, would that not also reveal our severe limitations in service opportunity? If we have to have talented individuals engage in very few and narrow definitions of ‘sincere’ service, it shows how culturally immature we are.
If our temples offer limited service opportunities, we shall only attract certain types of individuals who fit in to these narrow ranges. And devotees often say that those who can persevere in these conditions are simple and brahminical. Is this true? The ability to expand service opportunities and to engage intelligent people according to their capacity also has to form part of leadership training.
There are situations where even the humility of a devotee can be exploited. A manager might think, “This devotee is so humble, he’ll do anything I ask of him…he won’t protest, so I’ll ask him to do things that I myself wouldn’t want to do…and I’ll get the credit…” If any leader uses devotees to enhance their own standing, it does not belong to Vaisnava culture. Within results-driven corporatist management, these temptations are very real, and do inevitably cause fall out and hurt for others.
Creating A Fear Factor For Devotees
Some managers know they have bad people / devotee skills and have a polarising influence within a congregation. They also know that they get things done and authorities depend on them for this. Taking advantage of these favourable sanctions from higher up, a leader may resort to fear tactics to try and manage effectively. “Conform, or you’re out…” becomes the spoken or unspoken motto. Does, “Put up, or shut up” sound familiar?
Such tactics might be overt or subtle. The idea is to convey the perception that “Everything depends on me…if I go, then the whole temple will crumble…even your gurus cannot touch me…” Even with our Succession Planning in place, a potential successor might be afraid to say anything against such leadership that they are ineffectual as successors. It is one thing for a manager to be surrounded by ‘yes-men’ in order to manage – and it usually helps – but it is another thing when reasonable and well-meaning help is rejected because everything has to be done “My way!”
We do not expect a manager to have no-men on his team. This can be useful when having to manage diverse and volunteer-based devotees, which is not always easy. When the easy gets difficult, to create fear comes with a long-term price, and that is the example set for younger future leaders to follow. In any case, if fear is used rather than inspiration and love, and we tolerate these things, it is going to be ever harder to transform ISKCON management to how we would like. Fear is used to control a temple in the absence of inspiration. Consultive types of leaders tend to be more inclusive.
If higher management is dependent on such ‘fearful’ managers, allowing the perpetuation of bad management, they are also implicated. Such fear can be used to stifle legitimate progressive suggestions for improvement. This in itself is harmful for any cause. When devotees are dependent on a temple, these are the most vulnerable to fear tactics – they have nowhere alse to go sometimes. If these conditions exist, visitors will not experience a joyful Vaisnava experience, but rather a muted, artificial one.
If dependent temple devotees are serving under unhappy conditions, or congregation members realise that in order to do any service, they simply mind their own business, it too is symptomatic of a broken spirit. Will their sadness be a sign of insincerity? These would be cases of emotional exploitation. Such emotions are easily detectable by newcomers who thought that Hare Krishna people are happy.
Judgemental Sincerity Indicators
If a temple has a narrow offering of service opportunities, the chances are increased that anyone not fitting into them will be a sincerity suspect. A manager’s sense of community will evolve accordingly. Because we in ISKCON have high moral standards and we mix in community, village style, any breach of these standards by others becomes the talk of that community – it is human nature.
These same dynamics can operate on a managerial level as well. This is also human nature. When managerial duties commence on the basis of narrow definitions of who is sincere and who is not, we arrive at the same perpetuating form of leadership. If sincerity is only measured by managerial yardsticks, this indicates that there are many more sincere well-wishers besides, because sincerity is not easily measurable. After all, isn’t the time of death the real yardstick?
When matters of sincerity are defined for everyone to know, the wish to defend them with judgmental forms of management can make life hard for others. An atmosphere of oppression permeates. Difficulties of yes and no, do’s and don’ts can mean instant emotional flare-ups when interpreted differently. Wishing to ensure the ‘integrity’ of ISKCON can also mean alienating others who may be able to offer substantial services with their fame or resources.
Within temple affairs, it is problematic for judgmental management whenever any devotee or congregation member says something that might challenge narrow perceptions with sincerity. Even if such ‘dissenters’ are following proper protocol – they themselves are deemed insincere. These ‘insincere’ individuals eventually feel side-lined or ignored. A simple, sincere word of advice can effectively end collaborative prospects for an individual who wishes to help.
These sorts of thought patterns cannot appeal to people with broader intelligence. We speak of having a house for the whole world to live, but the whole world is not attracted to limited forms of managing or narrow definitions of Krishna consciousness. It is somewhat like trying to merge all the colours of a rainbow into one colour – say grey. We need to expand our greyness accommodation in terms of service, thought and culture.
Human Nature And Vaisnava Nature
Since we are all human, we can be expected to display human social and emotional traits. On a devotee managerial and leadership level, somehow we all expect superhuman Vaisnava traits to emerge, whatever that means, and it will probably never happen.
Vaisnavas are very human, but their ways and mannerism reflect a selfless nature. Devotee leadership is best undertaken by selfless devotees who exhibit selfless traits of empathy, compassion and understanding – to be broadminded. It is easy to give our own wish list for ideal management, and we know much of the attempts at improvement is still work in progress. However, a few no-no’s can hopefully create awareness towards excellence, as we would expect from Vaisnavas.
Ys Kesava Krsna Dasa
I have personally observed, through the last 34 years, that our problems within ISKCON are multiple.
At first, we would need to select and put devotees in charge, be it from the temple level, up to the GBC level, according to both material and spiritual qualifications.
Indeed, we have seen either material or spiritual qualifications lacking, and sometimes both.
Of course, this may vary from yatra to yatra, as well as from time to time.
So, devotees around the world may have had various experiences.
By material qualifications, one has to understand skill, competence, expertise. Srila Prabhupada wanted us to be expert in whatever we were doing, so as to deliver a first class service and promote a good image of our Movement…
For instance, in the Seventies, one of his disciples was very eager to cook for him, but Srila Prabhupada told him that he first had to learn how to cook properly. Then, it is only once he was trained and qualified that Srila Prabhupada accepted his service as a personal cook.
So, the criteria of seniority cannot stand as a substitute for competence and replace expertise, as we have too often seen in ISKCON.
As it is, in society at large, the main criteria to select people is competence, whatever be the professional sphere they have to perform in. Moreover, the theoritical knowledge acquired through studies, sanctioned by passing exams and getting various diplomas and degrees, most often requires to be validated by some practical experience and some measurable success.
Whereas in ISKCON, since rank and file devotees serve in a volunteer and often benevolent way for the most part, we tend to give credit to whatever good will they may display and tend to overlook, amongst the few who kept living within temple grounds, whatever ulterior motives some of them may have, such as finding a shelter and not having to worry about their own maintenance, having a position and access to some outstanding status as per our own hierarchical structure, or even becoming a brahmin in India, hankering for name, fame and adoration, not to speak of becoming a guru bhogi and later on a guru tyagi.
As a result and also due to the fact that we often lack numbers, especially in the West, in terms of temple devotees, we often award devotees a position, even though they may lack some of the necessary qualifications.
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One reason for that is, of course, that we cannot have an open and large public recruitment as companies do and that the choice is being made most often amongst the few resident devotees only, who may be present and available at a given place and time.
Yet, despite whatever lack of material qualification there may be, the most painful part is the lack of spiritual qualification when witnessed or, worse, undergone, when one has put one’s faith in Srila Prabhupada and his ISKCON Movement.
This is where lies one of our main responsibilities as ISKCON members, i.e. not to disappoint sincere souls who may be willing to take shelter and place their faith in ISKCON.
Moreover, the better we become both individually and collectively, the better our ISKCON Movement becomes in its presentation and organisation, the better we welcome guests and look after devotees, the more we will attract materially qualified and spiritually advanced jivas.
Thereby, the more our credibility will increase in society at large, the more we will be able to reach out beyond the group of people of Indian origin who may have been devotees from birth, the less we will be perceived as an ethnic religion.
Then only will we be able to establish the message of Krishna as universal: sarva dharmam parityaja, “Mam ekam saran am Vraja…”
Then only, will our preaching be considered as successful.