The Inspiration of Buddhist "Six Harmonies" to the Corporate Team Building

ORIENT ACADEMIC FORUM
The Inspiration of Buddhist "Six Harmonies" to the Corporate Team
Building
LIU Zhenqun
School of Business Administration, Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics, P.R.China, 330013
[email protected]
Abstract: Buddhism as one of three major religions , can spread more than 2,000 years, be still active in
the world, hundreds of millions believers it, a very important reason is that it build one and one good
team based on "Six Harmonies" .The contents of "Six Harmonies" are: Body Harmony, Mouth Harmony,
Spirit Harmony, Discipline Harmony, Interest Harmony, Opinions Harmony.Our enterprises want to be
century-old and enhance the international competitiveness of enterprises, they must also build more
health and efficient business teams, the Buddhist "Six Harmonies" theory provide a lot of useful lessons
to our good corporate team building .
Keywords: Buddhism, Six Harmonies, enterprise team
1 Introduction
many entrepreneurs dream to build Century-old companies, bring business to the world, but the
Buddhism has been going no now for thousands of years, attracting the hundreds of millions of believers
from the different countries and regions.Buddhism, despite several years and Built to Last, very
important reason is that it build one and one good team based on "Six Harmonies" . The guiding
ideology of Buddhism building good team is the "Six Harmonies.""Six Harmonies" thinking not only
had a very good effect on Buddhist organization and management work, and also, with the introduce of
Buddhism to China, they were incorporated in the traditional Chinese management , provides good
guidance to for the ancient Chinese society harmonious building .Today, we can absorb the useful
elements of "Six Harmonies" thought, providing reference for the corporate team-building.
2 Ideological Meaning of "Six Harmonies"
"Six Harmonies" thinking, is the shared disciple of three major Buddhism languages - Pali, Chinese,
Tibetan.Six Harmonies have rich inner meanings, Six Harmonies thinking is the monastic code of
conduct of life, is the management basis to build the Sangha team.It includes the following :
Body Harmony is to ask the public to live together, must be clean, live in harmony, no kicking,
punching and other barbaric act.In behavior, not violations of people, music get along, help each other,
respect and tolerance; the event of illness, care for each other, equality of the Home, Hop to live.
Mouth Harmony, is to ask the monks' voice tone, to modest manners, sweet cute, not bad mouth to
result in an argument .The speech, be harmony without Zheng, friendly language.Sangha community,
together believed in Buddhism, praised law, respect Monk, must be verbal purity, speak sincerely,
speech soft, peaceful coexistence.Making nonsense of the argument outside, not selfish to litigation.
Spirit Harmony, is to ask the monks to be pure Italian, which have good intentions, honest mind, there is
something worthy of favor, delightful, need to work together and harmony, will never allow personal
happiness over suffering in the public.In spirit, to do like-minded.Sangha community, the same
confidence in the pursuit of Buddhist truth.
Discipline Harmony, is to ask the guardian own life standard, "YiJiao scriptures" cloud: "Discipline
is the root of positive smooth release", by the pure precepts to realize the truth of life, and has shown a
more complete warning phase.Discipline is the fundamental of Inspirational Wisdom II study, without
Discipline, Inspirational Wisdom is like castles in the air.Mission commandment is the foundation to
maintain the cornerstone, the guideline and code of conduct that all monks must abide by.The so-called
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"Discipline fellow" is keep common system and statute,under the common organizational framework,
common code of conduct and guidelines, common rectify its conduct - verbal behavior, physical
behavior and mental behaviour.
Interest Harmony, is to prevent the fall of human nature and too selfish, it requires things to be equal,
without discrimination, to be uniform Cherry; must lay down moral and material greed and irrational
thoughts, many acts of generosity.Most of human conflict was due to competition for resources, the
absence of team members' common share sense, the long run, the team will tend to divide or crash.Of
course, there are also not speaking the same average distribution of the absolute, but rather focus on the
share.
Opinions Harmony, opinions, that is insight.opinions with the solution is to be a high degree of unity in
the ideology, the concept.Opinions decidethe trend and the success or failure of a person or group , the
most important thing of Buddhism is to know right view .If the views on all issues are not uniform, will
result in differentiation, it will not produce the common goal of the truth opinions.Only if all the living
members maintain a high degree of consistency in the public thought, the concept , the power of the
Sangha will not divide.Otherwise, each member has its own set of ideas, people armed with their own
views, self-righteous, then, the group is also difficult to have peace, purity, and will also lead to the
overall spirit of the slack, can not make achievement.
Buddhism is profound, baskets 12 voluminous, it can propagate the Millennium without failure, because
it established excellent teams with large number of both ability and integrity, based on Six Harmonies
thinking.Without the support of many good teams, whether Buddhist culture be so bright as now, it is
difficult to say.
3 The Importance and Problem of Corporate Team Building
Competition among enterprises is the competition for talent, it depends not only on individual talents
and qualities, but also depends on the ability to build teamwork among professionals.As companies
increasing international competition, team spirit is increasingly prominent.
American scholar Jon Katzenbach thought that the team is formal group composed by certain
individuals which are complementary skills, willing to collaborate for a common goal, teams groups
encourage cooperation among team members awareness by collaborative advantage, to create an
atmosphere increased job satisfaction and thus gain competitive dominance.
Good teamwork is important foundation to build the competitiveness of enterprises.Through teamwork,
the team can output the group effect that greater than the individual performance , the team members in
the team can do each other, so that the individual strengths of each member can play better, but avoided
their respective shortcomings. Through teamwork, could promote better to promote corporate cohesion,
corporate cohesion is not strong, which many enterprises can hardly avoid, through teamwork deepen
mutual understanding of corporate members, and thus provide the conditions for the formation of
common values for the enterprise, which is a necessary condition for business to enhance
cohesion.Today's world, there are many excellent companies having excellent team as support.
Although the team has many advantages for enterprise development, but to build a good team is not an
easy task.The current team building, there are still various problems, it is highlighted in three areas.First,
team members lack the spirit of cooperation.Some team members are self-centered to human thought,
will impose personal ideas and determination on others, present no organization, only to become
interested in the team star, but do not want to become a part of team development.Second, team
members care too much about.Always thought that other people get less contribution and more reward,
too concerned with personal gains and losses, seriously affected the unity and trust among team
members.Third, there are many problems in training team members.Team training system can not meet
the actual needs, training methods are unreasonable.Many enterprises in China train team members by
traditional training methods, such as job rotation, student, self-directed approach, can not meet the
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individual needs of team members, and Professional and pertinence of training teachers are also
relatively poor.
Team is the basic unit to ensure the productive capacity of enterprises to carry out normally, without any
one can work independently,especially in the professional company.Enhancing the team spirit of
employees has become a priority. In the face of modern customer diverse and complex demands,
knowledge and ability of employees is limited, mutual communication,exchange and cooperation
between staff, has become a Biran, only the team cooperation, could produce better products, better
serve customers, enhance the competitiveness of enterprises.
4 The Enlightenment by "Six Harmonies" for Corporate Team Building
How to solve modern business problems in team building, has been a very topical issue.Buddhism from
India to the world, attracting hundreds of millions believers of all nationalities, heritage thousands of
years, a very important reason is that it established the Six Harmonies Sangha.Therefore, we need to
study what enlightenment role for our corporate team building the Buddhist Six Harmonies
organizations play.
"Six Harmonies" idea can be further divided into Spiritual Harmony and Material Harmony.Spiritual
Harmony is that the trouble we all cut and the truth be proof are the same , the objects pursued are the
same; Material Harmony, is that body,mouth,spirit are on the phase medium, abide by the six points, not
contrary, is the root to built a healthy and efficient team. Spiritual Harmony focus on the values building,
Material Harmony focus on the code conduct.Enlightenment of Six Harmonies to Modern team building
could analysis from two angles:Spiritual Harmony and Material Harmony.From the perspective of
Spiritual Harmony, we build the business team, must pay attention to the following two points:
4.1 Shared Values
Team members are from different departments, different professions, different from past experience, the
formed values are many different.Values are the foundation of human behavior, values are different, the
behaviour brought about may be different.For example, the different behavior , if not understand each
other, may be bring conflict, thereby undermining the team harmony. In Buddhism, the common values,
"What evil don't do, the public good practice." This is the Buddhist values, which means that all the evil
things are not done, all good things must do our best.People have a benchmarking in the daily conduct ,
first according to Buddhist ethics, to judge what kind of behavior is evil, what is good, the good is to
make, the evil is not to do .And there are such common standards between Buddhist disciples,
behavior standards of each other can be expected.
4.2 High Values
The second should have high values."What evil don't do, the public good practice, to purify their mind,
is the Buddhism." Starting from the mind is an important feature of Buddhism.Buddha monk then can
be said to have a high degree of character and morality.He was then a prince, wisdom, excellence,
having excellent living conditions, but out of deep concern to the fate of all living beings (not just
humans),he wanted find a way out from birth, old , sickness and death and resolutely monks,Many of
his many disciples monks holding the same purpose.Six Harmonies Sangha can appear and continue so
far, the fundamental basis is also of such values as support.High values are the most fundamental basis
of the team healthy and sustainable development, in the Chinese revolutionary war, Mao Zedong, Zhu
De and so the leaders, living conditions are very difficult, but they are promising the people's well-being,
the establishment of new China, greatest difficulty in their eyes are extremely small.
The Spiritual Harmony of "Six Harmonies" enlightent that we build a healthy and efficient business
team, the primary is to do construction value work, team values are a manifestation of corporate ethics,
which is the key to the success of team building factors, enterprises have high values, to be Spiritual
Harmony.And the high moral need to be reflected in specific behaviour, therefore must be Material
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Harmony,at the point of Material Harmony, enterprises in the team construction must act in the details,
pay attention to details of the management, in particular the following is most important.
First, the interests share appropriately.Six Harmonies emphasize both the advantages and the same,
although the monks do not sake of money, but the general monks, in the initial stage of practice, it is
difficult to get rid of the material attached.The persistence of the material, is easy to interfere with the
clean of people's hearts; to break people's persistent through Interest Harmony,to help them get peace of
mind and help the relief goals.Employees of corporate team are ordinary people, their demand for
material larger are more and persistent, so it must be emphasized that the proper distribution of benefits.
The consistency of people's views and beliefs is the most major reason of psychological compatibility
and common beliefs can be a strong influencing factor on an actionpeople decide to take or not , but the
rationality of the distribution of material interests between group members is the source of mental
compatible.Therefore, the reasonable allocation is the basis of harmonious relations and mutual trust
between members of communication .With good mutual communication, corporate team will go beyond
the limitations of individuals, play a collective synergy, and produce 1 +1> 2 results.Thus arouse
widespread enthusiasm of employees and teamwork to achieve business goals.
Second, the behaviour is elegant and standard.Team members need control their own behaviour, can not
be arbitrary, should take care of the team's life and atmosphere, a harmonious world begins in the mind
and body language should meet the general code of ethics, to be able to understand by the man .
In IBM and Cisco, the management system and organizational system obviously broken the traditional
business boundaries and hierarchical pyramid.No matter what level you are, you are equal, are each
other's services and support, leadership is not the bureaucracy above on the staff, the system boundaries
will become increasingly blurred, structure tends to Network.Staff behavior is the external expression of
the corporate philosophy and values; the quality of staff, collaboration and cooperation of internal group
and teamwork, are the source of the vitality of enterprises.
Third, the language is kind.Words are the voice of heart,the heart is harmony, and the language is also
harmony, and the language civilization, in turn promote spiritual civilization.Now many companies are
doing etiquette education, conduct behaviour norms of staff from the external, to extract some
vocational language specification, not only provide better help for the internal management of the
company, but also establish a better corporate image.
Language is an important communication tool, mouth Harmony is to talk not only with the facts, but
also the other party willing to hear.Objective reality, the speech is effect, if false,that is
misleading.However, consistent with the facts, then can not arbitrarily talk, should express by a way that
the other party willing to accept .Team members arenot only talk to each other friendly and kind, to the
customer should also do so.Should also kindly attitude customer, in the exchange will be fully passed
good faith to customers, think what customers are thinking, obtain trust from the client, so as to get
market valuedemand information.
Fourth, the implementation of rules is powerful.Ring and fellow practitioners, is to observe a common
code of conduct.Team should formulate and publicize the necessary code of conduct, propaganda the
requirements of code of conduct to the publicity, always monitor behavior.Always pay attention to
adjust, enforce not only through the system, more importantly, repeatedly reminded by the staff,
self-reminders, reminding each other, mutual supervision, to ensure the effective implementation of the
precepts.In Buddhist Sangha, there is life review meeting ever time to time, in accordance with precepts
to open mutual criticism and self-criticism.What they should not do, what should do, need a clear and
detailed code of conduct.
All the good corporate,the governances are relatively standard, if the size of the company is big, strong
is power , the company's management and staff do not have appropriate professional ethics, it will
eventually fall apart, such as Enron, the world's five hundred companies, because the company lack
moral standards, culminating in bankruptcy in a short time to zero, so that many stakeholders suffered
tremendous losses.In the implementation of norms, sometimes need to criticize staff, in criticizing and
processing staff, note the sake of discussion, and refrain from personal attacks.Before dealing with staff,
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should talk with him , it is better to let him convinced, to be fair, just, so as to ensure that criticism is the
progress to promote, rather than the factor manufacturing team split.
Fifth, maintain a sense of balance.As Zen said: the greatest enemy of people is the concerns, anxiety,
weakness and ignorance generated by heart.We can opinions that the success or failure often caused by
its own heart, the real enemy is not competition, but his guilt and dedication.
Mentality determine success or failure.In the commercial competition, managers let myself in successful
position, should forget the gains and losses in this process, to be treated with a sense of
normalcy.Common mind is the Tao, the manager can only own panic stability and encourage the team
morale.Because there is a sense of balance can be achieved calm and finding the course and nature of
things can help decision-making of further process . Calm mind is the Tao, it is as important as the role
in psychological adjustment of employees.
Master Tai Xu said : "Yang-chih Wei Buddha, completed in personality, as Is Buddha into, is the name
of true reality." It shows the true meaning of Buddhist wisdom is to attend ethics, cultivate a sound
personality.We bought Buddhist "Six Harmonies" thinking into the team management, not only can
improve the efficiency of the organization and management, but also enhance the moral quality of
members, provides a good foundation to the harmonious development of society.
References
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Jon R · Katzenbach, Hou Ling translation,"Team's Wisdom: Creating a Efficient Organization"
Economic Science Press, 2000.
[2]. Wan Xi," Six Issues in the Team Building" Leading Scientific ,vol.4,2004
[3]. Ye Hongchun, Wang Xin, "Out of the error in team building", China Human Resources
Development, vol.8,2005
[4]. Xin Hui," Adjusting Mentality of Team Members is an Effective Method to Achieve Win-Win "
SAR Practice and Theory ,vol.3,2010 Immortal mage," Basic knowledge of Buddhism " Human
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