Relax, it’ll all work out. The universe is taking care of everything. Let it go. Let it be. Let it happen.
Isn’t that a wonderful philosophy? My wife is like that, and I admire it … well, unless she forgot to call the plumber, or unless I’m sitting at a restaurant waiting for her. She never considers herself late because time is plastic, flexible, perhaps circular. She is one of the “-ish” people. Seven-thirty is seven-ish, if need be. It’s the American version of the Asian philosophy of nonattachment. Zen-ish.
What got me thinking about Zen-ishness was reading the latest book from Steve Chandler. (This one is co-authored with real-estate executive Duane Black, although it’s written in the first person with Chandler doing the talking.) It’s called “The Hands-Off Manager: How to Mentor People and Allow Them to Be Successful.” As with all of Chandler’s books, it’s chockablock with wisdom and sly wit (for instance, in the acknowledgements, he thanks his wife, calling her his “hands-on manager”). Here’s a passage where Chandler is coaching “Kerry,” a sales manager who’s contemplating an upcoming meeting where she’s changing the pay structure, trying to push her team to higher output:
“I’m worried about this meeting,” Kerry said.
“Why?”
“I know they’ll argue against this plan and ask for more guaranteed salary, which I don’t want to give them because they will all get lazy on me if they don’t have to work for commissions.”
“You don’t trust them.”
“They haven’t earned it.”
“People have to earn your trust?”
“Of course. I’ve been burned too many times not to know that.”
“I’m not surprised that you’ve been burned.”
“Really? Why?”
“You don’t trust your people.”
Chandler tells us that it took a year of coaching for Kerry to “make the trip from micromanaging to mentoring.” She says of her new spirit: “It’s funny how much I look forward to work every day. It’s such an adventure not knowing.”
Info Overload
There aren’t too many managers who consider “not knowing” something to look forward to; no, they need to know—who will be where and what they’ll be doing and what will result from it. Plan the work; work the plan.
The typical “hands-on” management style is contrasted with “hands-off” management in co-author Black’s description of his attitude toward real-estate sales: “I don’t like goals that are results-oriented. We don’t use them in our organization. We have forecasts to help our financial planning, but we don’t have goals. Therefore we don’t think, ‘Man, am I disappointed in myself because I didn’t sell 10 this month.’ Our inner dialogue is: ‘I sold only nine this month, and that’s OK, because look at the way I pleased these [home buyers]. And look at the way I took care of my customers. And look at the quality of what we delivered. And you know what, they’ll tell other people. And next month, I’ll probably sell 11! So I’m not worried about it.’”
Chandler adds: “Trust the universe to reward the inner game. It’s a process of being who you want to be right now, this very moment, instead of straining to reach a future goal.”
Does it work? Well, if it’s an inner game, without external measurements, you declare victory whenever you choose to. You’re always right—or right-ish—anyway. That’s the advantage and disadvantage of the approach. And what could be more Zen than being both and neither?
So, OK, I haven’t quite mastered nonattachment. For one thing, I’m quite attached to the work of Steve Chandler. I’m not sure where he’s heading in his writing, if he’s going to become the Deepak Chopra of business coaches or what, but I know this: I look forward to it, whatever it is, and delight in the not knowing.
Dale Dauten is the founder of The Innovators’ Lab. His latest book is “(Great) Employees Only: How Gifted Bosses Hire and De-Hire Their Way to Success”.