Venkat - Indian Philosophy

Intelligently Interacting with Others

Course Facilitator: Venkat R. Krishnan (http://www.rkvenkat.org)

Great Lakes Institute of Management, May-June 2008

Required Texts:

Baron, R. A., Byrne, D., & Branscombe, N. R. (2006). Social psychology (11th ed). New Delhi: Pearson Prentice Hall. ISBN 81-317-1533-7.

Selections from Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda. Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama.

Swami Prabhavananda and Frederick Manchester (translation). (2002). The Upanishads: Breath of the Eternal (selections). New York: Signet Classics.

Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood (translation). (2002). Bhagavad-Gita: The Song of God. New York: Signet Classics.

Overview

This course is designed to help enhance your interpersonal skills -- the skill of interacting with others intelligently. Success in every walk of life depends the most on how well you can interact with others. "Few people consider their lives failures if they have not mastered the calculus, memorized Chinese ideograms, or learned how to play chess at a championship level. Instead, what we all struggle with -- and gut-wrenchingly so -- are our relationships with other people" (O'Toole, 1999: 54). You could of course acquire interpersonal skills through trial and error by learning from your own experiences in life. However, this could involve a huge cost for you and others. For example, learning through trial and error how to interact with one's spouse or one's boss intelligently may be expensive for the person as well as for others in terms of emotional energy drained, career failure, or broken relationships. This course will take you through the accumulated wisdom on interpersonal skills. After all, wise people learn from others' experience and from the accumulated wisdom.

This course also draws lessons from the Upanishads, the most wonderful texts and the foremost gift of India to the world, on interacting with others intelligently. A study of the Upanishads would help identify the near-universal values that could form the foundation of authentic interpersonal relationships. It will help you better understand what a human being really is and what the life goals should truly be. Understanding your and others' true nature will not only enhance your interpersonal effectiveness, but will also enrich your life by making it multi-faceted, more balanced, and less stressful. Comprehending that human beings are not merely sheep, but that they are in reality lions, will enable you to work wonders in every walk of life.

Pedagogy

This course follows the method of education and not training (O'Toole, 1999); emphasis will be on 'why' and not 'how'. Training focuses on how to do something, providing cookbook recipes for achieving specific predictable outcomes. Education, on the other hand, focuses on why people do something, helping you learn to ponder why people like to achieve various outcomes, so that you can yourself identify, if and when needed, the appropriate means for achieving those outcomes. Education is thus not application-oriented and immediate usefulness is not the main objective. It focuses on developing your capacity to think independently and thereby reach your own solutions to various problems.

The learning method that we will use will be one of interactive discussion that evolves out of questions and answers drawn from a thorough reading of the assigned materials for every session. Skimming through the readings in a superficial manner will not help in this regard. It is expected that you will come fully prepared to every session to engage in a fruitful discussion. My role in this interaction is that of a guide and facilitator, inserting useful additional material at times, but seldom interpreting the readings for you or lecturing about them.

Grading

10% Attendance. You will get 10 percentage points if you attend all sessions in full. For every session or part thereof that you miss, the score will be reduced by 2% points till it becomes -22, irrespective of the reason for not attending or not being allowed to attend.

10% Preparedness for class. You can attend a session only if you complete all the readings assigned for that session (attending a session without completing the readings assigned for that session will result in the student being asked to leave the class). You should come to class fully prepared with each session's prescribed readings completed (prepared means being capable of summarizing any section and being able to raise points for discussion). Preparedness will be tested individually but scored group-wise. The depth of your understanding of the required readings and the extent to which your preparedness enhances class learning and fun will be the basis of evaluation.

50% Quizzes (2 Quizzes carrying equal weight). The quizzes will have multiple-choice questions from prescribed readings, lecture material, class discussions, and everything that takes place in class.

30% Team Project. The class will divide itself into teams of size four or five each. Each team will do a karma-yoga project (Bies, 1996) lasting three terms. The project will involve each student doing at least 3 hours of service per week to a group of relatively powerless people. The objective will be to bring about enduring change in their lives while addressing their real needs. Effectiveness in transferring project learning to managerial life will be the basis of evaluation.

Randomly selected teams will take me on a field visit, to provide a direct glimpse of their project.
Each team will submit an update on its project work by the end of first and second terms and a final project report by the end of third term through e-mail as text or HTML file. A diary of fieldwork done should be included as an appendix.

Time Line

[01]

Baron Ch. 2. Social cognition: Thinking about the social world.

[02]

Baron Ch. 3. Social perception: Perceiving and understanding others.

[03]

Baron Ch. 4. Attitudes: Evaluating the social world.

[04]

Baron Ch. 5. The self: Understanding "Who am I?"

[05]

Baron Ch. 6. Prejudice: Its causes, effects, and cures.

[06]