Business Sutra Quotes

“Seduction No one is obliged to receive what we give. No one is obliged to participate in the exchange. Not everyone needs to be compelled into desirable behaviour; customers and employees can also be charmed. Our enchantments can be a trick, a trap, a manipulation, or an expression of genuine affection that benefits all.”
― Devdutt Pattanaik, Business Sutra

“Decisions become good or bad in hindsight. We would like to believe that a decision is rational. More often than not, decisions are rationalized. Often in business we take decisions based on how we interpret the situation, not being sure of whether the call we have taken will work or not. When it works, we are often taken by surprise. But the world at large demands an explanation. We are expected to prove that our decisions were strategic, not simply a fluke. To say that a certain victory was a fluke makes us nervous. Corporations reject this. Once the numbers come, the manager has to spend hours creating a story rationalizing his action so that everything looks as if it were part of a pre-conceived plan.”
― Devdutt Pattanaik, Business Sutra

“Violence Without violence, there is no nourishment. Unless the mineral is consumed, the plant cannot grow. Unless the plant is consumed, the animal cannot grow. Physical growth demands the consumption of another. Only mental growth is possible without consuming another; but it is a choice humans rarely make.”
― Devdutt Pattanaik, Business Sutra

“Animals do not have beliefs. Animals want to know if the other is food, a mate or a threat. Humans, however, are consumed with notions of what is true (satyam, in Sanskrit), good (shivam) and beautiful (sundaram). Belief establishes these.”
― Devdutt Pattanaik, Business Sutra

“Felix has six people reporting to him. Each of them have ten people under them who, in turn, manage teams of about a dozen people who are client facing. Felix realized that while the tathastu of the company (revenue) came from the market, the tathastu of the employee (salary) came from the head office via the boss. Hence the gaze was typically upstream not downstream. People were more interested in boss management than customer management. To change this orientation, when he became head, Felix put the names of his six team members on a notice board in front of his desk. "You are the people who will help me succeed if I help you succeed," he told them in a team meeting. Next to each one's name he put down their individual short-term goals, first personal and then professional. Every week he would take time out to discuss these goals. As the months passed, he noticed each of his team members had similar sheets of papers on their notice boards, with the names of their respective team members. They were mimicking downstream what they were experiencing upstream. Were they being sincere or strategic? Felix did not know, but at least he ensured that his people focused a little more of their attention downstream than upstream.”
― Devdutt Pattanaik, Business Sutra

“Humans have the ability to control fire, water, plants as well as animals, something that no other living organism can do. But we struggle to control the human mind: our mind as well as the mind of those around us.”
― Devdutt Pattanaik, Business Sutra

“He of rajas-guna, will look upon the devata with the bhaav of a conditional follower (vaishya-varna) or a conditional leader (kshatriyavarna). He will always value the devata for his possessions and not for who he is. He will blame the devata for all his problems and resent his own dependence on the devata.”
― Devdutt Pattanaik, Business Sutra

“observers create observations!”
― Devdutt Pattanaik, Business Sutra