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Two Birds in a Tree summary

Name: Two Birds in a Tree
Rating: 3.9 (35 reviews)
Author: Ram Nidumolu

Ram Nidumolu

Timeless Indian Wisdom for Business Leaders

3.9 (35 ratings)

18 mins

Topics

Spirituality Leadership Inspiration

Table of Contents

Two Birds in a Tree
Summary of 9 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 9

What’s in it for me? A more holistic approach to business.

With climate change, rising inequality and aggressive takeovers a plenty, there is little or no doubt that modern business is a winner takes all, short term orientated industry. For the business leader, nothing matters apart from quick profits and happy shareholders, not the destruction of the environment, nor happy staff.

Of course this cannot continue. Luckily, there is a better way of doing business. A path first highlighted millennia ago in what is now India. These blinks, show us how business leaders can use ancient thinking to think long term, and leave the world a better place than when they found it.

In these blinks, you’ll discover

how to identify a worthy sage in business;
why should stop doing and having, and start being; and
find the REAL path to business enlightenment.

Better business means being connected to the world.

What do you do and how much do you earn? Simple, everyday questions, but ones that illustrate a crucial point: the vast majority of your worklife is based on doing and earning. So, what would it be like if you focused more on just being–the essential state that connects all living things?

Well, that question will take you back thousands of years to the Upanishads. This cache of Indian wisdom comes from the Vedas, ancient texts of an 800 BC religion that formed the basis of Hinduism.

They tell a tale about two birds in a tree:

One is in the lower branches and the other is at the tree’s peak, looking out on the view. The lower bird represents the anxious ego, the one that jumps around doing things and trying to attain others, while being blind to the bigger picture. Meanwhile, the higher bird is perched serenely at the top, enjoying a full perspective of the world and its connections.

Unfortunately, business tends to act like the lower bird and it causes a lot of harm. That’s because businesses often see themselves as separate from other areas of responsibility like those to humanity and nature. Instead they focus only on the ones that are explicitly in their domain, like stockholders and investors. Not just that, but it’s this logic that has been foundational in economic and environmental crises, things like the 2008 financial meltdown and climate change.

Luckily there’s a way to change that and it’s called being-centered business. This approach is all about attending to the deep connection between a company and the world it operates in. All business leaders should adopt this approach and one that’s done so in stride is The Body Shop.

For instance, Anita Roddick, the company’s founder, became famous by defending the environment as well as indigenous Amazonian tribes. In fact, it was this deep connection to the planet and its people that helped her build a billion-dollar corporation.

Being is a higher realm of existence that you can lead yourself to.

The Upanishads tell another story about a boy who wants to understand Ātman, or the essence of the world and all beings. So, his father instructs him to place a piece of salt in a glass. The following day, the boy’s father asks if he can see the salt. When the boy says he can’t, the father tells him to sip the water and describe its taste. Naturally, the boy says that it’s salty.

The point is that just like the salt invisibly permeates the entire glass, so does Ātman permeate all being. That means that since we’re all beings, we’re all part of Ātman. For instance, think back to the two birds: the one in the lower branches is focused on material objects and experience, but the bird on the top is different. It’s our universal self, in other words, Ātman.

Business is a part of, and dependent on, a larger system.

Did you know that the english word right stems from the Vedic concept of Rta? It’s the idea about how worldly things fall into the right order. For instance, night follows day, summer comes after spring and a balance is maintained between gods and humans.

The manifestation of this order is called Dharma, or the balance within and between systems.

Business and work can help you connect to your higher reality.

So we, as the lower bird, have seen that there’s a higher reality, a larger system that we’re inside of. But what we’ve seen so far is just a brief glimpse. Then how can we see further?

By aspiring to a higher sense of self through the work we do. That’s because work is the realm in which we develop skills and the aspects of our material selves that are important to us. This fact is abundantly clear in startups, work environments in which people give their work everything they’ve got, often investing more hours to work than sleep or any other activity, with the drive to change the world in whatever way.

Businesses built on the well-being of employees and society are more successful.

Another story told in the Upanishads is that of Bhrigu, a boy who endeavors to understand reality’s mystery. He meditates over what could be essential to humanity and comes to the realization that joy is foundational to our lives. Well, the same is true of business.

That’s because joy means happy employees, and happy employees mean long term profitability. For instance, a business has lots of different stakeholders from customers to employees, but in the hectic capitalist world, plenty of companies devote all their energy and attention to the shareholders. The problem is that this strategy is unsustainable because it lacks dimensionality.

Ethical business practices mean successful companies.

Have you ever read an article on a major corporation’s quarterly report? It’s likely you have and that’s because the businesses of today are obsessed with pleasing shareholders. In fact, it’s common for successful business leaders to hold fast to this ideal.

For instance, a study of over 70,000 quarterly conference calls on the topic of earnings found that leaders were more focused on producing short term profits to attract investors interested in quarterly earnings. However, there’s another route and it goes back to Being-centered leadership, which brings employees to the table as key stakeholders.

Caring for the environment is essential to long-term business success.

Having been inspired by the Upanishads, Mahatma Gandhi died in possession of only ten things, amongst them were an eating bowl, sandals and spectacles. His commitment was based on the intention to have as small a negative impact as possible; that the world is not here for us to take from, but to care for. Unfortunately, this sentiment is rarely shared by the businesses of today.

In fact, business as it’s done today, doesn’t account for the true costs of its actions. For instance, we overuse nature, but don’t see the costs because the environment doesn’t send an invoice. So, at present, the global economy receives $72 trillion in “free goods”, like natural resources, per year and does annual damage that costs about $6.6 trillion. Not just that, but by 2050, the costs of that damage will likely have grown to $28 trillion!

Leaders can inspire change by setting examples.

Have you ever heard of a sage? It’s essentially a wise person whose physical self, as represented by the lower bird, is perpetually connected to the higher bird. As a result, they can be extremely inspirational.

In fact, even some CEOs are sages. Just take Paul Polman, CEO of a gigantic consumer goods corporation called Unilever. For Polman, the 2008 financial crisis was a “crisis of ethics” that lead him to reevaluate the way Unilever operates. He decided to stop quarterly reporting and focus the company on long-term growth.

Final Summary

The key message in this book:

There’s a different way to do business, a departure from the status quo that supports instead of harming nature and humanity. It’s called Being-Centered leadership and it works by linking the goals of a company to the interests of the planet in which it operates.

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What is Two Birds in a Tree about?

Two Birds in a Tree (2013) is a guide to holistic business practices, inspired by the ancient Indian text, the Upanishads. These blinks will teach you how to build a business that is good to its employees, customers and the environment while posting record numbers and garnering huge success.

Best quote from Two Birds in a Tree

We call ourselves living beings, we are neither living doings nor living havings.

—Ram Nidumolu

Who should read Two Birds in a Tree?

Business leaders seeking the inspiration to create a better world.
Managers who want to excel at leadership.
Start-up entrepreneurs who want to build their companies right.

About the Author

Dr. Ram Nidumolu, CEO of InnovaStrat has been a strategy and leadership consultant for 20 years. He has published writing on leadership in the Harvard Business Review and the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

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