Have you ever been in this situation?

You’re put in charge of a restaurant that is underperforming. There is a team of people working in that restaurant already. Morale is low. Everyone on the team is either unsatisfied with the way things are going, or else taking advantage of the situation to their own benefit.

Everyone you talk to has their own idea of what should be done to fix the situation. You’re dealing with several problems. One is the economic issue - the restaurant is the economic engine of a temple, and the temple is pulling out all the available cash, so you have no capital to work with. At the same time, the temple is putting pressure on you to put out more, as the production of the restaurant is too low.

Another problem is the problem of the personnel. Because things have been left for some time a culture has developed, and there is resistance to changing it on the part of some people. They don’t mind change as long as everything stays the same for them. You don’t have a lot of good will to experiment with, so your changes have to be spot on or you will generate a massive backlash. You can’t easily replace them either, because you have to hire practitioners of Krishna Consciousness. Finding devotees who want to work in this particular job is not easy. The existing employees are aware of this and leverage it to maintain the status quo.

Sound familiar?

What’s your recourse? Do you pull out the book “ISKCON Leadership and Management Series: What to do with a struggling restaurant”, which is filled with case histories and lessons learned, discussions of underlying principles and how they should be applied in different circumstances?

I couldn’t find that book either, but don’t worry - you are not alone. I experienced this a few years ago, and I have a feeling that this is quite a common scenario. (If it sounds familiar it’s not because I’m describing your situation, that’s a direct description of the circumstances I found myself in four years ago. I suspect that this is not a unique occurrence).

Or how about on the other side of things (I haven’t been there, but I’ve seen it): you’re an upper level manager, and you put someone in charge of the economic engine of your temple, the restaurant, which is not doing as well as it could, and they start making changes, seemingly at random, knocking customers and staff around. I mean, you wanted things to be improved, but you weren’t imagining that the restaurant was going to become a laboratory for experimentation. Where’s an “ISKCON School of Leadership and Management” graduate when you need one?

I went out and tried to find some books that dealt with these issues and that could give me some guidance. One of the books that I stumbled across was “Good to Great” by Jim Collins. It is a review of an academic study of high performing organisations. It took me a few years to absorb the information, which was not quick enough to be of use in my restaurant situation, but I’m no longer completely in the dark about the principles involved in organizational excellence.

Anyway, I bring this up because of a post over at Tony Morgan’s blog, introducing a recently released supplement: “Good to Great and the Social Sectors“, which deals with volunteer and religious organizations.

Actually, I’ve been thinking about it, and the majority of people will get little or no benefit from reading this book. There are a small number of people who can actually process the contents. If those people can do so, and put these principles to work in the service of the sankirtan mission, then they can write further books which explain these principles and their application in the context of Krishna Consciousness. I’ve found one of those books, and I’ve reviewed it above.

I’m still waiting for that book to be written, the “ISKCON Leadership and Management Series: What to do with a struggling restaurant” one. Collecting case histories and interviewing managers needs to be done. While I was there in Peru I was crying out for a book on management set out like Nectar of Book Distribution, where different devotees come out and recount their experiences: “I did this for five years, then I discovered this, now ten years later I realize this…”

I have been for some time with the idea of generating some questions and interviewing experienced leaders in the Krishna Consciousness movement, and collating their responses into something along those lines. Perhaps that’s a task that could be undertaken by the Bhaktivedanta Leadership Institute. I’ve never been able to do such a thing due to lack of qualification. Whenever I have the opportunity to spend some time with experienced leaders I always ask questions about their experience and realizations in their service for my own edification. If that could be codified more for wider benefit, that would be from good to great.

Anyway, in the meantime, Good to Great represents a study of successful organizational principles that can be understood and then applied in a Krishna Conscious setting. We have to utilize anything and everything, and ultimately depend completely on Krishna.

The ISKCON Management and Leadership course taught in Mayapura is a good collation of principles presented in a Krishna Conscious framework. If I were in a position to do so, I would send my potential leaders to this course (or at least some). Failing that (time and laxmi are not unlimited resources), and while we wait for a more distributed educational program and books written from a specifically Krishna Conscious perspective, Good to Great is a cutting edge book on the principles that underlie organizational excellence. I highly recommend it for persons who have the additional bandwidth to absorb it.

Whatever may be there is alright, simply add Krishna and it becomes perfect.