Words shape worlds – watch your words

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret normally something when we do best we don’t regret it but when we speak hurtingly because we are angry we speak hurtingly because our emotions are unfiltered we may even speak very forcefully in a good speech in terms of the forcefulness of the speech but in terms of the hurting effect it will be something which we will regret so the Bhagavad Gita tells us how we can tap the power of speech in 17.15 it states so all these are austerities of speech it says that speech non agitating truthful beneficial palatable beneficial lastly it says that by recitation of scripture all these comprise austerity of speech now we are discussing this as a part of our discussion of leadership sutras based on the Bhagavad Gita so leaders need to be effective communicators they have to inspire guide and at times correct the subordinates and all this requires essentially indispensably effective communication throughout history reformers, revolutionaries pioneers and all other epoch making leaders have always had good communication skills as a part of their arsenal for actualizing their mission and yet we know that effective communication is not easy the communication doesn’t happen just by our sending the right message it happens when the receiver understands the message rightly and that is often a challenge when leaders speak in ways that are not clear or effective then no matter how visionary they may be their team members won’t buy into their vision and if they don’t buy into their vision then they won’t implement it and leaders may feel desolate, isolated as if they are trying to do everything and no one is understanding or cooperating to counter such feelings of isolation and irritation leaders need to learn effective communication skills now communication has two parts as can be usually of two components it is of course of these two components verbal and non-verbal now when such communication occurs especially nowadays if we look at internet in the digital age with social media we send text messages, we send emails we have talks in phone now many of these forms many of these forms of communication do not allow the various non-verbal forms of communication that can qualify nuance, soften or otherwise complement our verbal communication as it happens in personal face-to-face talks and the Bhagavad Gita itself is an example of the power of communication Krishna, the leader transformed his team members attitude, Arjuna’s attitude from dejection to rejuvenation from confusion to determination, from darkness to illumination and what did he do primarily? Bhagavad Gita has a non-verbal component in terms of Krishna is demonstrating the Vishwaroopa but primarily it is verbal communication so for verbal communication words are indispensable tools for conveying our thoughts and emotions now how can we tap the power of words so let’s begin we’ll look at several of these we’ll look at one more direction from the Gita, 16.2 which talks about Apahishvindam, aversion to fault-finding so Anudvega Karam Vakyam speak words that are non-agitating so we need to speak words that connect not alienate now words can serve as many different things it can serve as with respect to they can serve as walls or they can serve as windows, walls mean they block vision, perception, communication and windows means they allow vision, they allow understanding, when our words act like walls then they prevent people from understanding us and thereby they breed misunderstandings when words act like windows then people can see through them that means that they get clear understanding of our plans, our ideas our vision and then they, that breeds understanding further so now if we use words insensitive if we speak in ways that agitate others so then immediately their reflexive defensive impulses go up and when they go on the defensive then they close down emotionally their rational faculty goes into the background and their defensive instinct kicks into action when that happens then any calm intelligent discussion becomes nearly impossible and sometimes some people in the conversation the conversation becomes reduced to a shouting match and a name-calling competition and whatever words are hurled at such times they just become bricks in the Chinese wall that blocks their menace and this can be tragic when such walls occur then communication completely breaks down and all began with inability to follow by speaking words that alienated instead of connected now how do we connect? what do we do? does this yes we don’t want to use words that are walls we want to use words as windows now does that mean that we need to just hide the facts no not at all what we need to do is communicate the facts in a sensitive way so when we are sensitive to others feelings when we try to speak to the best of our capacity in a way that they don’t get agitated then we can have an open-minded discussion now of course we can’t determine how people will react but still we can try our best to ensure that people understand and for that we need to speak sensitively so sensitive speech how do we do that? actually one aspect is just being judicious being careful not just blurting out words but checking ourselves now another aspect would be recognizing that speech is an austerity speech is a discipline we can tap the power of divine sounds and therein we come to the next part of swadhyaya visnam so recitation of scripture now we do know that inconsiderate words can cause great wounds the words that we speak are like arrows once they are discharged from our tongue they cannot be taken back and they can penetrate into the hearts of people and therein they can cause terrible wounds thoughtless words can inflict cureless wounds they can shatter hearts and break relationships even when their effects are not so devastating and even then the heart may not become shattered but it can become scarred and those scars can also be deep or incurable and that’s why we need to be careful while we speak and these wounds are especially hurting when the harsh words come from people who are held in high regard and generally leaders have authority and they are in a position where their words can hurt others a lot so it’s not that we don’t know this destructive hurting power of words we all do and we all have not just witnessed but probably experienced how much painful words can hurt and that’s why we do resolve to choose words carefully and yet when we get provoked at that time we find ourselves blurting and speaking in ways that we had resolved not to so how can we avoid utterances? for that we need to tap divine power and that divine power can be accessed by recitation of scripture recitation of scripture verses and especially recitation of the holy names that are the conclusive gist of the scriptures by sound, sound is a mean divine sound the sound of the scripture verses the sound of the holy names is a means by which we tap the power of God so when we recite scripture that by connecting us with the power of God gives us the strength to check our impulses it gives us the clarity to understand the consequences of what we are going to do and thereby change the way we speak it gives us the calmness by which we can actually speak effectively so one so actually this fact that speaking with austerity indicates that it’s a discipline means that it will not come automatically we have to it has to be brought about consciously and conscientiously just because we have a mouth that moves doesn’t mean that we have the skill of communicating effectively so we need to cultivate that and one aspect of cultivating that is at our level we try to choose judicious speech but along with that we also tap the power of divine sound by choosing words by reciting scriptural sounds by tapping the power of divine sound thereby now we may say that if I am in a corporate setting and I feel angry towards someone how can I speak how can I recite scripture actually it’s not that all decisions and all corrections or whatever have to be done immediately when we know that we are in a angry mood we may delay in fact we should when we are angry delay speaking those angry words we can take a brief break wherein we can recite some scripture or recite tap the power of divine sound or when that is not possible at least we can just take a few deep breaths when we internally recite or meditate on some form of divine sound and even such small investments in divine sound will give great dividends in terms of calming us down and helping us to judiciously choose our words so this is swadhyaya reciting scripture as austerity so this is one verbal discipline that we can start off not just at a time of urgency but on a regular basis and when we do this that will give us the strength by which we can apply the other disciplines also now we may say all this is fine but actually we do have to correct people we do have to correct people especially as leaders that is essential and sometimes people take negative feedback very negatively they close down and become alienated what can we do about that actually speaking how people will take negative feedback we can’t determine that that depends on their own freedom their own sense of responsibility now and their desire to improve themselves but their response is actually determined much more by us than what we presume how is that because when we speak something to people especially we give negative feedback people don’t just see what we speak they also see how we speak and they also try to sense why we speak so if they feel that we get pleasure in pointing out their faults then that shuts them off then that they become closed down by that they become not ready they don’t actually refuse to hear and that’s why we need to speak the truth yes it is required at times but we have to speak the truth palatably pleasingly now some leaders may just rationalize their harsh speech by saying that if people can’t take feedback then they can get lost they can find a job somewhere else I can’t mall recorder people I have projects to complete I have deadlines to meet yes but actually speaking carefully is not about mall recording people it is about helping people to learn or at the very least not creating more obstacles on the learning curve of people than what is necessary so what does this mean if people see that we are actually trying to help them and if we speak in a way that is sensitive then they are usually ready to learn and we may say yes people can go and find a job somewhere else yes leaders may have the option of firing their team members but what happens by that? actually they lose a member and then they have to get another member and not only have to search to find another team member but also they have to spend money, time and energy on training so in today’s ultra competitive world organizations need every advantage that they can get and they need to avoid every disadvantage that is avoidable so a high turnover rate is definitely a disadvantage and just as we try to fix up other weaknesses in our organization similarly we can and should try to fix a high turnover rate also so now if we find that too many people leave us because they find it difficult to work with us then maybe the fault doesn’t lie only in people’s incompetence it may lie in our insensitivity in our fault finding mentality and and by correcting that we can we may actually play a significant role in decreasing turnover rate and actually palatable speech can do much more than just retain people it can even motivate people to high levels of performance now what inspires people to perform is not just remuneration but appreciation everyone wants to feel valued when people are paid they bring their hands to work if their work is intellectual they may even bring their heads but when they feel valued and they bring their hearts they put their everything into their work so leaders who know how by careful speech to make people feel valued then they will most certainly have a committed team and actually to value it’s not a matter of just verbal expertise so valuing others stems from a heart that cares so now this valuing others brings us to another important point that now we are not talking about how we speak to others but we are going inwards to see how we perceive others and let’s look at another injunction in the Gita that where in 16th chapter second verse Krishna talks about apayishunam, aversion to fault finding now it’s a very specific and insightful word aversion to fault finding so that means that actually we should be not eager to find faults we should try to avoid finding faults as much as possible why is that? because fault finding is often a degrading temptation how is it a temptation? how is it degrading? actually fault finding is a temptation because it gives us a cheap pleasure a cheap pleasure in the sense that actually we delight in looking at the dark side of others everyone has a good side and a bad side when we focus on others faults then we are delighting in their dark side and when we delight in their dark side then actually very often that doesn’t help them to improve because they feel that we are sadistic we are delighting in their dark side and then they just don’t want to improve for us but more importantly in the present context we actually when we delight in their dark side we are actually capitulating to our dark side because our good side makes us see the good in others our dark side makes us see the dark side in others and actually delight in their dark side the good side in us may also see others dark side but that is for the sake of improving them so now when we succumb to our dark side that’s our dark side becomes stronger and that makes our overall character weaker therefore it’s not just a temptation it’s not a cheap pleasure but it’s a cheapening pleasure it degrades us now some people actually delight in fault finding they pass biting comments towards others and then they think the more biting the more hurting the comment is they think the cleverer I am and when they pass such comments they may even get cheers from other similar people similar mentality similar people who delight in finding faults with others and they may think I am so cool but actually what will happen is such things will dry up people’s heart so so we will discuss about that in the next section more but here let’s focus on fault finding so it’s a degrading temptation now we may protest no actually fault finding is not always a degrading temptation sometimes it’s necessary it’s an obligation sometimes when people have faults then we may need to tell them their faults and especially if the faults are going to hurt them, hurt others or harm the organization’s prospects surely we need to tell them their faults and so we either have to tell them or if they are incorrigible then we have to tell others who may otherwise be affected by those faults so at such time fault finding is an obligation but even that obligation can be done carefully so carefully and prayerfully we have to be sensitive we need to be truthful so for example we can before telling others about their faults we can pray remembering that like all situations in life have come about by God’s arrangement and they are an opportunity for us to go deeper and to help us and others grow then we can also pray for others when we pray for others then actually we pray that they can get the right understanding they can get the open-mindedness we can pray for ourselves that we get that we choose the right words to convey the corrective feedback and we can pray to them that they get the open-mindedness by which we can understand what we are saying and accept it so now actually if we pray for others that can have tremendous power not just power in terms of invoking God’s grace on them but also power in terms of actually removing the emotional blockages between us and them when we pray for someone the emotions and energy generated by the praying shifts our perception of them you know shifts our perspective of them actually instead of seeing them antagonistically oh this person is a troublemaker who needs correction we see that person also as a fellow human being who is trying to bring out one’s better side just as we are trying to do that and in that when we see them as partners then actually we can do the subsequent job of fault-finding with much greater sympathy rather than criticality so that’s how we can do the fault-finding activity also without too much of fault-finding mentality so when we do like this we are not actually doing fault-finding although in content it may seem like fault-finding, in intent actually it is education it is education for their betterment and for others betterment so this is with respect to what attitude we can have now one more important point is that what we speak about others speaks about us leadership is not just about acquiring a position there may be an appointment or position but a leader becomes effective to the extent the leader earns the trust of those with whom he has to work in that position he or she has to work in that position now how do leaders earn trust? by integrity and leaders can lose trust very easily also I know the fastest way leaders lose trust is by passing, by cutting comments about their team members especially when those team members are not there to defend or clarify and how does this happen? suppose there is a group of people when the leader passes a negative comment about someone who is not present others may laugh at it snicker at it but then the problem is what are others thinking internally? oh this leader speaks about me speaks about that person like this in future if my equation changes if my relationship changes if we become hostile this leader will speak like this about me too and that actually loads away the faith the trust in the leader on the other hand the leader stands up for the team member when the team member comes under fire and especially when the team member is not there to defend that actually earns the trust of others so in this way what we can do is try to earn the trust leaders can earn the trust of others and when leaders earn the trust of others then they can do wonders now the bhagavad gita itself is a dramatic example of the power of the world shaping and the world shaking power of words so how is it? a world war is about to take place and one of the most important team members had just capitulated had just decided to quit almost so now Arjuna was transformed just by a short speech in just a couple of thousand words which is actually less than the number of words present in just two pages of Times of India so what happened in such a short span Krishna completely transformed Arjuna’s vision and inspired him so such is the power of words it can inspire people to do great things and leaders can actually learn the power of words they can shape words not just the world of their organization not just the world of their followers but they can also shape the outer world at large of which they are significant parts thank you RIGS