Ajay Piramal: The spiritual negotiator

For once, Head Office takes me to a familiar destination—a corporate office where I have attended workshops, listened to bhajans and even celebrated my wedding. This is the 10th floor of an office block in Lower Parel, Mumbai, and its inhabitant is my paternal uncle, Ajay Piramal, chairman of the Piramal Group, which is valued at over ₹ 18,000 crore. The group has interests in pharmaceuticals, real estate, financial services and data analytics.

Piramal shares the corporate floor with his wife Swati—they have different offices—and a handful of key executives. I am visiting with a specific objective in mind: to understand the link between workspaces, spirituality and negotiation. Piramal, having completed transactions with multinationals such as Abbott (2010) and Vodafone (2014), has adequate experience in the art of negotiating. I’m curious to know if his workspace provides any clues into his work style.

Space for serenity

The 59-year-old chairman’s floor is marked by tranquillity and spaciousness. This is one of the few corporate offices I know of whose corridors themselves are large enough to stage a small music performance or host a family gathering. “It is a luxury. Frankly, today in Mumbai you can’t have such large corridors that are vacant,” Piramal says, adding that “the large expanse leads to peace and quiet, which is important”. Piramal’s private office is equally generous—a sun-lit room with a large desk, armchairs and a coffee table, a marble floor and Kashmiri rugs.

The centerpiece of the office, and the prompt for the conversation, is a series of granite sculptures by artist Adwaita Gadanayak, placed at various intervals across the 10th floor, including in Piramal’s personal workspace. Each sculpture depicts a particular verse from the Bhagavad Gita, selected by Piramal, and communicates a specific message that is relevant to business life.

For example, in Piramal’s cabin, a stylized collection of sculpted stones is displayed museum-style, depicting that moment in chapter 11 in the Bhagavad Gita when Krishna displays his vishwaroop or universal form to the warrior prince Arjun. Piramal had it placed in clear line of sight, directly across the room from his desk to be able to “see Krishna”.

Spirituality at work

First, spirituality is as integral to his business philosophy as deal-making is to his business acumen. Piramal points to the conference room, which is named Partha (another name for Arjun). “All our conference rooms are named after Arjun. We are disciples of Krishna and we look at ourselves like Arjun in the battlefield. Our philosophy always teaches us that you can have intense activity but inside you have to have peace. The office has to reflect that.”

Some might consider this to be a far-fetched statement, but Piramal re-emphasizes the application of the Bhagavad Gita to daily life. “The Gita has not been told to a person who is living right up in the Himalayas. It has been told to a warrior who is young, who is in the midst of a battle, full of emotions. In life, there are always intense battles, and yet we must practise the lessons from the Gita.”

Second, spirituality fosters mindfulness and equanimity, which are vital in any negotiation as they help in being clear-headed. Piramal cites the famous shlok of the Bhagavad Gita (chapter 2, verse 47) that prescribes working for the means, not the fruit of one’s action. “If you concentrate on action and forget the results, you actually perform much better, because then you are not worried what will happen. If you don’t concentrate on action, either you start dreaming too much or get worried,” he says.

Focusing on the process is “the most powerful thing to do in any negotiation”, he says, adding that it leads to greater value creation. For example, one of the fundamental rules of any negotiation is that multiple options create greater value; an axiom that can only be implemented if one remains mindful during the negotiations. “We do that all the time. How do we create win-win options? That’s how I found that we always gain, to understand what is in the interest of the other party and which may not cost us so much,” Piramal explains.

Jaya Row, a well-known Vedanta scholar and Bhagavad Gita exponent, endorses this approach. A central message of the Bhagavad Gita is that clarity and equanimity, along with the strength of a powerful intellect, allows for better decision-making, especially in uncertain times, she says in a phone interview.

Finally, Piramal uses the notion of trusteeship in the Bhagavad Gita to guide his sense of legacy. “The beauty of the concept of trusteeship is that you don’t look at your own benefit. You have to look at the benefit of all shareholders; there is no question of ego in it,” he says. This approach frees him from being too attached to any one asset or business, he adds.

Some have argued that this approach, of continuously buying and selling companies can be confusing as it becomes difficult to understand the group’s business direction. Piramal disagrees: “We will do whatever is in the best interest of the shareholders. We keep evolving. None of our businesses were our old family business. If you don’t change, if you don’t evolve, you remain with the past.”

This approach doesn’t preclude mistakes. Piramal acknowledges that there have been times “when we negotiated too hard and the other side walked away” or “when we bought a dud company and spent years fixing it”, but a focus on process, over outcome, has helped him to learn from failures.

Many offices have a temple of worship, but this one is a tribute to our inner battlefields and our divinity. By integrating spiritual belief with business buddhi (business insight), Piramal is trying to align head, heart and hand in daily life.

Aparna Piramal Raje meets heads of organizations every month to investigate the connections between their workspace design and working styles.