Looking at the history of the world, from ancient ages to now, from a global to a local scale, from groups to individuals, violence principle emerge as a key driver.
Civilizations have been battling against each other, groups of people have been opposing each other, individuals have been competing with each other and so on. It's all the same in the economic world : companies run to win market shares, organizations battle to keep sustainable competitive advantages, employees jockey to gain position inside organizational pyramids, executive comitees struggle to convince Wall Street that their strategic orientations are the best and so on.
This violence principle is taken for granted by us from deep within our culture. We have foreverbeen struggling to transform initial English colonies of Virginia in the inspiring United States of America. Furthermore, Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1976: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and pursuit of Happiness[1]." As a consequence, we obviously admit we have to struggle for life and in life, that success is the result of hard efforts, that being competitive minded is both essential and valuable. By the way, it is probably why the English philosopher Herbert Spencer has been so much the voice of American feelings.
Therefore, the economic world we are from now on leading is built around this violence principle and draws to a Management Consensus built on three pillars: doers, from CEO super heroes to employees bordering burn out; shareholders, 20% return on obsessed; and thinkers, playing the game of the winners. All the three living, admitting or involved in keeping violence principle as if went without saying.
But a closer look at the history of the world reveals three exceptional men who have been involved in immense battles and have been winning amazing victories using non-violence principle (NVP).
Buddha succeeded in the spiritual era at a global level. He invented an alternative religion (Buddhism), softer than the existing religion of his time, because he considered it too hard for people. Twenty five centuries later, half the people on earth are declaring themselves Buddhists. Non Violence Principle is inherent to Buddhism from the religion itself to the way people came to it.
Gandhi succeeded in the political sphere on a continental scale. He gave battle to English colonialism in the 20th century. He obtained independence of India following Non Violence Principle in the way he politically struggled against his opponents.
Rickson Gracie succeeded in sports at martial arts level. He demonstrated the superiority of his martial art: Gracie jiu jitsu, versus any other martial arts, with an historic undefeated record of 450 fights between two men. Non Violence Principle is part of his martial art and is the way he followed to defeat all his opponents.
The purpose of the book is to draw from the lesson learnt from those three exceptional men and to establish Non Violence Principle as key success factor for tomorrow’s management. The thesis of the book is that current management approach must be revisited, enriched and completed for success in next decades.
The book is divided into five parts:
1. The first part is fact orientated and introduces the three men who fought and won huge victories using non-violence principle (NVP): Buddha, Gandhi, Gracie.
2. The second part is analytical and reveals the twenty one characteristics they all have in common to win that way.
3. The third part is theory and set up the seven principles of Non-Violence Principle Management (NVP Management).
4. The fourth part is practice orientated and studies what to learn from Buddha, Gandhi, Gracie for tomorrow’s business and management.
5. The fifth part is action orientated and provides twenty one ideas of simple things to start injecting NVP Management in your company as early as tomorrow morning.
This book intends to make realize how much a prisoner we are of mindsets, common believes, frameworks, schemes of thinking, all part of a Management Consensus. It offers alternative thinking, and ideas... freeing us from the Management Consensus matrix. It protracts new leaders, overtakes the usual "Think out of the cubicle" scope of the business management field and gives fresh ideas for tomorrow managers and leaders of a world that will never resemble to the one we knew in the 20th century.
Our way of thinking is circular rather than linear. So despite a sequential plan for reader convenience, the five parts of this book can be considered as five rolling circles, each one nourishing the next, each one fed by the former.
[1] Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson: The Man In His Own Words (Starwood Pub, 1993).