Ram Nidumolu has not let the sound of his own wheels make him crazy. Not judging from Two Birds in a Tree: Timeless Indian Wisdom for Business Leaders. The author, a social scientist, entrepreneur and consultant, starts off by unilaterally declaring that contemporary business leadership no longer works and needs to be replaced by “being-centered leadership.”This is the kind of management style that involves “the effort to lead from a place of seeking to realize leadership.”
The road map for the journey to being-centered leadership consists of four vital steps: “Recognize a higher reality, or the larger context of business (sat);” “experience this recognition through your consciousness (chit);” “anchor this experience in a mindset that promotes joy (ananda);” and “lead by example from this place of anchoring so that you become a being-centered leader (atmana) in thought, word and deed.”
If this formula sounds suspiciously close to Donald Trump’s The Art of the Deal, so be it. One can only hope that the success of Two Birds in a Tree will lead to Two Condors in an Even Bigger Tree: Timeless Bolivian Wisdom for Business Leaders and Two Self-Actualizing Canadian Geese on an Ice Floe: Timeless Eskimo Wisdom for IT Guys.
Two Birds in a Tree: Timeless Indian Wisdom for Business Leaders, by Ram Nidumolu (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, $18.95, 216 pp.)