The Churning of the Ocean of Milk (ca. 1780–90)
What if a major key to cultural change was hidden in an ancient ocean?
Lessons from the Samudra Manthan, the ancient churning of the ocean
Recently I listened to S. Sivakumar, Group Head of Agri and IT Business at ITC, speak about the challenges leaders face in steering business through geopolitical tectonic shifts. His retelling of an ancient Indian epic story, the Samudra Manthan (churning of the ocean), left a lasting impression on me.
I grew up with many Iranian stories my father told, often drawing analogies for life. And I love including stories like e.g. those told by Idries Shah, or Nossrat Peseschkian, in my leadership trainings and workshops.
So what lies behind this story of two groups churning an ocean in search of immortality?
The day gods and demons worked together
The story of the Samudra Manthan begins with defeat. The gods (devas) had grown weak after a curse, and the demons (asuras) pressed their advantage. Yet for all their power, the asuras could not seize immortality on their own. Both sides longed for the nectar of life (amrita), and the only way to reach it was to churn the cosmic ocean of milk by working together.
So the rivals became uneasy partners. Mount Mandara served them as the churning rod, the serpent Vasuki as the rope, and Vishnu, in his turtle form (Kurma), steadied the mountain on his back. Together they pulled, straining against one another, forcing the depths to yield.
Yet what rose first was not nectar but poison (halahala), so deadly it threatened creation itself. Lord Shiva drank it, held it in his throat, and turned blue. Only then could the many treasures appear, and at last the pot of nectar itself.
Your organization has an ocean too. You just cannot see it
Every organisation has its own ocean. It is called culture. Like the cosmic ocean in the story, it is vast, deep, and often invisible. It shapes assumptions, habits, and decisions long before anyone writes down a vision or a set of values.
In my last post, I described Edgar Schein’s image of culture as a water lily: what we see on the surface is only a fraction of what anchors and sustains it below. The Samudra Manthan reminds us of the same truth. Within the depths lie both toxins and treasures. When leaders churn this ocean, they stir up what has long been hidden, resistance, fear, but also creativity, energy, and resilience.
👉 I explored this idea further in my recent post on Edgar Schein’s “water lily” model of organisational culture. (LINK)
Illustration by Lucila Naves on Unsplash
Everyone wants the nectar, but few earn it
In the story of the Samudra Manthan, both devas and asuras desired the nectar of immortality (amrita). Who could hold it and who was worthy of its power?
The challenge is a useful analogy for organisations and their ambitions. Every company wants the nectar: resilience, growth, and a culture that inspires and enables this. Yet too many stop at the surface. They define a vision, a mission, some add value statements, perhaps even leadership principles, but never look at whether behaviours mirror what is written on paper. The greatest risk lies at the top, when management does not walk its own talk.
Recent research confirms this gap. A Harvard Business Review study of culture initiatives since 2022 found that “72% showed no meaningful improvement in employee trust, engagement, or retention one year later” when the focus was on communication campaigns alone. By contrast, trust rose by 26% when leaders changed how they actually led meetings, gave feedback, and made decisions.
Everyone can declare change. Few are willing to let the mirror be held up to their own actions. That is why the nectar of transformation is so rarely earned.
Before the nectar comes the poison
When churning the ocean (Samudra Manthan), the first thing to rise was not nectar (amrita) but poison (halahala) so toxic it threatened to destroy creation. Only when the gods (devas) and demons (asuras) contained it could the process continue and treasures appear.
Cultural transformation faces similar challenges. The first outcomes of serious initiatives are rarely quick wins. There are always unforeseen consequences to deal with. More often, resistance, conflict, and fear surface before anything positive becomes visible. Too many leaders misread this as failure, when in fact it gives them information about the system and shows that the organisation is moving.
Amy Edmondson reminds us in The Fearless Organization that psychological safety is not about avoiding friction, but about embracing conflict in a way that allows learning, experimentation, and innovation to emerge. Leaders who rush to silence dissent or smooth over tensions only harden resistance. Those who can hold the poison long enough without letting it spread create the conditions for renewal to break through.
Why “good vs bad” thinking will sink your transformation
Many change and transformation programs are designed with a polarising frame of mind, not always obviously and often not even consciously. After all, management is obsessed with optimising. Publicly or not, consciously or not, the case for action usually rests on the conclusion that the status quo is not good enough and that change is needed to move the organisation toward resilience, competitiveness, and long-term profitability. Fair enough.
The danger lies in failing to recognise what the current way of working and the culture evolved so far have made possible. They came about for reasons that served the business, the clients, and the employees. Times change, and so do circumstances and context. Organisations must adapt to survive. Yet one change management truism is often overlooked: you must appreciate the past and the present. Some of it needs letting go, some can be praised for the good it did at the time, and some can even be continued.
Leaders who simply divide people into supporters and resisters, winners and losers, and who communicate in binary terms, only the good side and the bad side, may create short bursts of clarity. But they ignore the deeper dynamics at play.
The Samudra Manthan reminds us that when you churn the depths, what surfaces first is not treasure but poison. Resistance, conflict, and fear are not enemies of change. They are signs that the system is moving. Treating them as problems to eliminate only hardens them: a typical tumbler-toy scenario.
Culture change requires a shift away from simplistic binary thinking. Instead of asking who is right or wrong, leaders need to ask what is emerging, how to contain the toxins, and how to keep the process going until the nectar appears.
(c) 2025 Soraya-Kandan via ChatGPT
Churning complexity: where leadership begins
The story of the Samudra Manthan, the churning of the ocean, is not about one hero defeating an enemy or conquering evil. It is about people collaborating across borders and barriers. They hold steady when complexity rises, when poison surfaces before nectar, and when collaboration feels least natural but most necessary. That is where leadership begins.
Success lies not in avoiding turbulence, but in guiding others through it until renewal becomes possible.
If your organisation is facing its own churning, let us explore how to turn that struggle into resilience and growth.
Book a call with me to discuss how transformation and cultural change can move from resistance to renewal.
References
Surampudi, S. (2025, August 8). Navigating Tectonic Global Shifts: My talk at the IVPA Global Roundtable 4.0 on 24th July 2025. Youtube. https://youtube/iZYZG6GIjdo?si=IpbV3Nbk9_tVAz4d
The story of the Samudra Manthan is told in several classical Hindu texts, including the Bhagavata Purana (Book 8), the Vishnu Purana (Book 1, Chapters 9–10), and the Mahabharata (Adi Parva, Sections 18–19).
Available online sources are these: Vedabase, Vishnu Purana at Sacred-texts, and Mahabharata at Sacred-texts.
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