William Wu Personal Blog

I have been a fan of Tao Te Ching (道德經, roughly translates to “How Things Work” in English) by the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu (老子, 600 B.C.). The idea of Yin and Yang makes intuitive sense, but at the same time the logics are often paradoxical and leave room for imagination. We smile and pause when we hear phrases like “less is more”, “living is dying”, “hating is loving” for the same reason: they are somewhat paradoxical but meaningful. A well-known Chinese saying that describes 3 stages of knowledge discovery as “See a mountain as a mountain; see a mountain not as a mountain; see a mountain as a mountain again (見山是山, 見山不是山,見山又是山).”

1. See a mountain as a mountain. This is our ability to see something as it is.  Most of the time we think we understand what we see, but we may not.  Essentially, we don’t know what we don’t know.
2. See a mountain not as a mountain. This is our ability to recognize that our understandings could easily be the misunderstandings and to appreciate something from multiple facets and not just at a superficial level.  
3. See a mountain as a mountain again. This is our ability to appreciate something as it is but also to understand its core spirit and the fundamental forces that make it so. Most of the Zen masters’ teachings are to encourage this phase of self-discovery.  Your perception creates your world.

To become a better leader often means to go through these 3 phases in order to learn and understand our relationships to those around us.  Experienced leaders are those who are already in the 2nd phase; they have the ability to adapt to situations that are often not as binary as they initially appear. 

Many leadership self-help books are built on the concept of Tao, and these books could be a good learning tool for young leaders who are interested in seeing leadership from a different viewpoint. One example of such a book is The Tao of Leadership, by psychologist John Heider. 

Another book that really opened my eyes to re-examine and reflect my own understanding of leadership is Management of the Absurd – Paradoxes in Leadership, a wonderful book by Richard Farson.

This book is nicely written in 33 chapters, each of which describes a leadership paradox.  Thought-provoking and incredibly insightful, it explains the paradoxes of communication, the politics of management, and the dilemmas of change exploring relationships within organizations.  It offers a unique perspective on the challenges leaders face.  All of the ideas presented by Mr. Farson have to do with grasping the difference between solving problems (a bad thing) and embracing predicaments and paradoxes (a good thing).

Some of the paradoxes presented in the book are easily accepted as leadership wisdom:

• The opposite of a profound truth is also true.
• Listening is more difficult than talking.
• The best resource for the solution of any problem is the person or group that presents the problem.
• In management, to be a professional, one must be an amateur
• Every great strength is a great weakness
• The more we communicate, the less we communicate

Then there are some insightful paradoxes, though not as obvious as previous ones:

• We want for ourselves not what we are missing, but more of what we already have. 
• There are no leaders, there is only leadership.
• Nothing is as invisible as the obvious
• Big changes are easier to make than small ones
• Individuals are almost indestructible, but organizations are very fragile.
• Leaders cannot be trained, but they can be educated.
• We think we invent technology, but technology also invents us.
• Every act is a political act.

Then there are paradoxes that really need a bit of reflection even after reading the book.  Some may even reject the following paradoxes:

• Planning is an ineffective way to bring about change
• People we think need changing are pretty good the way they are
• Most problems that people have are not problems
• Technology creates the opposite of its intended purpose
• Organizations that need help most will benefit from it least
• The better things are the worse they feel
• We think we want creativity or change, but we really don’t.
• Morale is unrelated to productivity
• Lost cause are the only ones worth fighting for

To me, these paradoxes push us to have a higher level of understanding of contradictions from the human nature in order to become more effective in leadership. They teach us that effective leaders are not necessarily in control all the time as most problems aren’t problems – they are predicaments. As one of the paradoxes by Mr. Farson points out, “the more experienced the managers, the more they trust simple intuition.” Good leadership is as much about being as about doing and therefore follows Lao Tzu’s timeless principles on the art of effective leadership:

 “Softness triumphs over hardness,
   feebleness over strength.
  What is more malleable is always
  superior over that which is immoveable.
  This is the principle of controlling things by going along with them,
  of mastery through adaptation.”
  - Lao Tzu

The final phase of self-discovery is also echoed in Mr. Farson’s notion that “the more important a relationship, the less skill matters.” This contradicts most things that we have ever heard in business school and training courses. As Mr. Farson says, “we have come to regard the job of manager as essentially the acquisition of techniques we call ‘management skills… But looking at the relationships that mean the most to us, do we really want skills from our friends and lovers? Not at all. …The people that we care most about are not expert in their relationship to us. After all, we would not want ‘expert friends’. …There are no ‘friendship skills.’ Nor would we want expert husbands, or wives, or lovers, or parents.” And, “Think of the difference between seduction and romance. Technique is required for the former but is useless in the latter. …If you know how to have a romance, it isn’t a romance, but a seduction. Not knowing how to do it makes it a romance.”

Hence comes the ultimate phase of knowledge discovery as revealed by Mr. Farson:

• Once you find a management technique that works, give it up
• Everything we try works, and nothing works

Confused enough? You should be.  Learning is a lot about unlearning and re-learning.  To quote Mr. Farson’s final paradox in the book, “My advice is - don’t take my advice.”