A conceptual paper on self-management; An essential ingredient for outstanding performance

The broad purpose of this paper is to explore the importance of self-management for the success of an establishment especially to ensure employee outstanding performance. Those organizations that are able to acquire, develop, stimulate and keep outstanding employees will be both effective and efficient.

Contrary to western world approach to Management, where focus lies in in exploration of the external world of matter and energy for improved management, the Indian context has more complete approach, where focus is on exploration of the inner world of the self and harmonising it with external world; Bhagavad-Gita, Chanakya Neeti, etc., follows this path.

Today, the globalization of the world economy and rapidly changing environment brought several challenges for the managers. Globalization provokes a firm to extend their sales, capture new international market, and increase ownership.

More expansion brings more competition and more competition means more pressure to be “world class”, to be much more productive, and to do things with great USP and less expensively.

All such aspects of business demands self-management first. The Bhagavad-Gita also stresses upon imbibing personal management first before personnel management (HRM) in all aspects. Personal management, we refer as self-management here, includes all aspects of management of oneself such as managing emotions, time, stress, harmonising with the greater surrounding, family, friends, nature and more over managing life.

A self-managed employee works on high esteem, reducing egoist state and setting himself free from falsehood, false pride and anger as undivided part of self-management.

Sri Krishna in Bhagavad-Gita described, that, ‘from anger, complete delusion arises, and from delusion bewilderment of memory. When memory is bewildered, intelligence will be lost and when intelligence is lost one falls down.’