Zen Business & Dry Stone Walling
by James
A quote from a Derbyshire dry-stone waller:
When you pick up a stone, you have to use it. Otherwise it’s just wasted effort.
If you’ve ever watched a dry-stone wall being built, you’ll know that it’s a beautifully haphazard, half-planned process of improvisation. Strikes me that the same is true about business (and life). Don’t think too much; just act. Do something with what you have to hand. Improvise as you go along.
I’ve seen hundred-strong government organisations here in the UK waste weeks — literally weeks — of working time because they planned too much up front. Completely false veneers of “this is what’s going to happen when” strangled everyone’s ability to think on their feet! This kind of over-ambitious forward thinking is pointless: you don’t know what’s going to happen in six days, let alone six months, so why pretend otherwise?
In most cases the best, and most realistic, course of action is to keep in mind a general sketch of the outcome you want, and fill in the details as you go. Like building a dry-stone wall, this approach empowers you to act in the moment, intuitively, without having to stop and think, “what happens next?”.
Photo by jansmith on Flickr (license)
James, I love reading your thoughts! Now, in the illustrious institution in which I currently work, we would pick up a stone; discuss what to do with the stone for an hour; set up a committee to decide what to do with the stone; put the stone down again to wait for the committee to report back!