My organisation is undergoing extensive change at the moment. Some jobs are going; new systems are being introduced; new offices and in all a general bustle as people look and feel vulnerable with this snippet of information and then relaxed as they hear differently.
Nothing ever stays still - that is the central premise behind the Zen Buddhist proposition of wabi sabi. Accept change and the suffering associated with trying to oppose it will of itself diminish or disappear. We are always looking in whatever business we do, for ways to make efficiencies, reduce costs, simplify our messages and so on.
At a lunch last Friday where this topic was discussed by a small group of colleagues, the consensus was that while morale was low, none could see any other way of effecting change other than in the manner it was currently being approached. However that agreement was conditional: some thought that perhaps the wrong people were being consulted over the proposed changes, that solutions were premeditated and the leadership failing to understand the core business. Trust - a huge word in any organisation - was bandied about.
This notion of managerial ignorance brought to mind the wise counsel of Basho who, when asked how best to write poetry, said: "If you want to learn about the pine, go the pine; if you want to learn about the bamboo, go to the bamboo. When you have become one with them, then your poetry will come by itself."
It is indeed not only arrogant of leaders to impose solutions on those they lead (we know best) but also foolish. The people who know best are generally those who are closest to the service being delivered and, if treated as equal partners in the business of change, will embrace it and even possibly improve upon it.
One man
and one fly in this enormous
guest room.
(Issa)
