Purpose and Integrity for Sustainable Success in Turbulent Times
The Art of Leadership: Effectiveness
Sections 38–43
What is leadership? Why is this important? How do you lead successfully? The Art of Leadership provides timeless answers to these eternal questions. It is a modern reading of Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching — a guide for sustainable success in turbulent times. All Parts. Other reading formats.
38. Effectiveness
Lao Tzu
Those with integrity collaborate
and so reach the highest effectiveness.
Those without integrity compete with peers
and so are without effectiveness.
The most effective avoid pressure and control
and get everything done.
The least effective use pressure and control
and things are left undone.
The most compassionate act
without pressure and control.
The most righteous act
without pressure and control.
The most obedient act with pressure and control
and if nothing happens
roll up their sleeves and drag others along.
Therefore,
lose purpose,
and integrity follows;
lose integrity
and compassion follows;
lose compassion
and righteousness follows;
lose righteousness
and obedience follows.
Obedience dilutes loyalty and sincerity:
confusion begins.
Opinion tinsels purpose:
ignorance begins.
And so skilled leaders
abide in substance, avoid dilution;
abide in reality, avoid tinsel;
keep one, leave the other.
Danah Zohar
The greatest effectiveness is achieved when one “goes with the flow”, harmoniously aligning oneself and one’s actions with the natural way of events rather than forcing one’s will upon them.
Outside control imposed on a complex adaptive system interferes with the internal self-organisation and robs the System of its creativity
Merrelyn Emery
As soon as people are forced to compete, they have to look after their own interests and so self interest comes to dominate life. All the team building in the world cannot change this dynamic.
Ames & Hall
Preassigned responses are forced and, because coercion only serves to diminish the creative possibilities of a situation, they are dehumanizing. Even in the cultivation of one’s own character, efforts to excel according to stipulated behaviours only compromise one’s natural moral proclivities, and will not do the job.
Technical morality, imposed from without, is no more than a record of steady moral deterioration.
Robert G. Henricks
“Opinion” (or “foreknowledge”) means to have one’s mind made up before one enters a new situation about what is “right” and “wrong” and “proper” and “acceptable” and so on.
Jonathan Smart
Invite over Inflict. Invite participation, with intrinsic motivation. The words ”resist” or ”convince” should not enter the vocabulary.
Peter Senge
The harder you push, the harder the System pushes back
Kent Beck
Purpose is a surer path to productivity than pressure.
Pressure keeps knocking you off the path.
Purpose keeps bringing you back onto the path.
39. Wholeness
Lao Tzu
Of old, these realised wholeness:
climate seen as a whole
became clear;
landscape seen as a whole
became stable;
river valleys seen as a whole
became full;
things becoming whole
became useful;
leaders seeing the whole
became skilled.
Without clarity,
climate would perish;
without stability,
landscape would crack;
without fullness,
river valleys would run dry;
without usefulness
things would disappear;
without skills,
leaders would fail.
Therefore,
noble has humble as its root,
high has low as its foundation.
Skilled leaders call themselves
poor,
lonely,
unable.
This is using humility as a root.
A carriage is more than its parts:
clattering like stone over shining like jade.
Ames & Hall
While it is easier to see things as a manifold of separate events, it is more difficult not only to understand the “wholeness” and “continuity” of the process but to further act upon this understanding in our transactions with the world.
What we call common sense is simply coordinating our own behaviour with all that is coherent and persistent within the life experience.
Stefan Stenudd
This section focuses on the necessity for the parts to be in accordance with purpose, or they will cease to function and there will be disorder. That goes for all the parts. They are equally needed in the grand scheme of things. So, there is no point in any one of them being exalted above the others. It’s a team work, one might say, a great harmony where every piece fits, and nothing could be removed without damage to the whole. That’s reason for modesty. Humility is also the trait of Tao. Therefore, it would be hard to stay united without equal humility.
40. Returning
Lao Tzu
Returning is how purpose moves.
Yielding is how purpose works.
Everything originates from something,
some things originate from nothing.
Derek M.C. Yuen
“Return” corresponds to the movement of Tao, according to which everything reverses its course as soon as it has reached its extreme, as exhibited in the working of Yin — Yang. However, even when the internal logic of Tao has been understood it will not be transformed into effect automatically. It still requires a corresponding scheme to bring about the effect. And that scheme is “yielding” or “being weak”. That is why it is called the function of purpose — integrity/effectiveness. Therefore, just as purpose is the fundamental principle and effectiveness/integrity its practical application, “return” represents the fundamental principle while “yielding” denotes its practical application that affects the manifestation of “return”.
Stefan Stenudd
Most of what takes place in nature is cyclic. Day and night take turns, the moon’s phases are just as regular, as are the shifts of seasons through the year. Plants grow and then they wither. Animals have their lifespan, but also their offspring. That’s the rhythm of mankind, too. Everywhere there is procreation, maybe including the universe as a whole. What to make of it, but a cyclic principle ruling existence?
Zhang Ruimin
Haier is like a tropical rain forest where every day some organisms are born and some die. The ultimate point is that the ecosystem is able to facilitate the generation of new species.
41. Without Laughter
Lao Tzu
Thoughtful people hearing of purpose
try to practice it.
Ordinary people hearing of purpose
sometimes get it.
Thoughtless people hearing of purpose
laugh at it.
Without laughter
purpose is beyond reach.
Hence, as the saying goes:
the bright road seems dark;
the road ahead seems to retreat;
the level road seems rough;
supreme effectiveness seems hollow;
perfect purity seems sullied;
far-reaching effectiveness seems lacking;
solid integrity seems hollow;
reality seems fluid.
the greatest square is infinite;
the greatest vessel is unfilled;
the greatest sound is hushed;
the greatest image is formless;
hidden purpose is nameless.
And, for these reasons
successful completion needs purpose.
Ames & Hall
The function of purpose as the site and source of creativity is discovered only in and through things. Further, as the forum of creativity, purpose must remain provisional and incomplete. Otherwise true novelty — the spontaneous, uncaused, and unexplained emergence of the new and unique — would not be possible.
François Jullien
True effectiveness seems deficient. If it is to make an impact, true effectiveness seems the reverse of a completed effect; it never quite achieves its result, which is precisely why it continues to result. The point is not that effectiveness is really lacking, but it is legitimate that it should seem to be so, so that, by having to continue to operate, it continues to follow an urge to come about and yet never allows itself to become completely actualised.
As we have learned from modern painting, setting a high value on a preliminary sketch makes it possible for what appears to be lacking in it to allow the work to continue to evolve and produce an effect.
Stefan Stenudd
We look at the world with prejudice, because we don’t see what is, but what we want and expect.
Its progress seems retreating, because it makes little noise and shuns the spectacular. Its course seems curved and twisted, because it accomplishes its goals indirectly and discreetly.
42. Shady and Sunny
Lao Tzu
From purpose to wholeness;
from wholeness to pairs;
from pairs to climate, landscape and water;
from climate, landscape and water to everything.
Everything has a shady side
and a sunny side:
shady and sunny,
energy blending into harmony.
People hate to be poor, lonely, and unable,
yet skilled leaders use these labels for themselves.
Sometimes, less is more;
sometimes, more is less.
What others teach, I also teach:
pressure and control destroy themselves.
That is the basis.
Sun Tzu
When engaging:
first, do the expected, then surprise to succeed.
Skilled combinations of surprise and the expected is:
as infinite as heaven and earth;
as inexhaustible as rivers and seas;
ending only to begin again like the sun and the moon;
dying only to live again like the four seasons.
Momentum in engaging with stakeholders arises only from the expected and the surprising, yet combining them form more ways than can ever be known.
Each brings on the other, like an infinite cycle.
Who can exhaust all possibilities?
Zhang Ruimin
All things have Yin and Yang, which constantly fight with one another only to achieve an equilibrium or a synthesis in the end. Opposites don’t have to be adversarial. We are looking for a synthesis, which creates a higher goal.
Derek M.C. Yuen
While Yin and Yang help us look at things from the opposite viewpoint and hence, get a more complete picture of the situation, we should not forget the dynamic nature of Yin and Yang — they are at once interconnected, interpenetrating and interdependent.
All Correlative Pairs like Yin and Yang are in a constant process of shifting from one end to the other. Such an organic paradigm is essential for acquiring fundamental insights and enhancing our adaptability. Since the Yin and Yang concept was originally derived from observations of nature (Yin and Yang originally represented the shady and sunny sides of a mountain), it offers a universal law of describing the interactions and interrelations of natural physical forces. And because of its emphasis on wholeness and its dynamic nature, the Yin and Yang concept is also able to deal with social and human systems, and, in the case of The Art of War with war as a System.
Yin and Yang helps to cut through the sense of paradox that may be caused by seemingly contradictory attitudes, and it can even resolve contradiction and paradox.
It can be a mistake to reject conclusions because thy seem formally contradictory; such conclusions are merely reflections of things, and it can sometimes be more sensible to admit that an apparent contradiction exists than to insist that either one state of affairs or its opposite is the true one.
François Jullien
Instead of excluding each other, other Correlative Pairs like Yin and Yang mutually condition each other, and this constitutes the logic from which skilled leaders derive their strategy. For, instead of seeing no farther than the opposed aspects of things, as common sense pictures them, and keeping them isolated, skilled leaders are able to discern their interdependence and to profit from it. This is what they exploit instead of wearing themselves out in efforts of their own.
Ames & Hall
Yin and Yang is a vocabulary of contrast, suggesting possible width of experience and the degree of diversity. Particular events in the world emerge as unique combinations of this diversity. In this creative process, it is a balancing and harmonising of extremes that are most productive. Hence, sometimes less is indeed more.
43. Water and Stone
Lao Tzu
The softest thing in the world
rushes over the hardest.
Only the least substantial
can penetrate the seamless.
This teaches the benefits of avoiding pressure and control.
Teaching without words,
benefits without pressure and control
Few can realise these.
Sun Tzu
Torrential waters rumble rocks thanks to momentum.
Bruce Lee
The natural phenomenon which the gung fu man sees as being the closest resemblance to acting without pressure and control is water. Water is so fine that it is impossible to grasp a handful of it; strike it, yet it does not suffer hurt; stab it, and it is not wounded; sever it, yet it is not divided. It has no shape of its own but molds itself to the receptacle that contains it. When heated to the state of steam it is invisible but has enough power to split the earth itself. When frozen it crystallizes into a mighty rock. First it is turbulent like Niagara Falls, and then calm like a still pond, fearful like a torrent, and refreshing like a spring on a hot summer’s day.
Ames & Hall
The way to optimise the creative possibilities of all the elements in any particular situation is to allow them to collaborate in doing what they do non-coercively.
The Art of Leadership: All Parts
Contents: A very short summary of all parts
Introduction: How to make a difference
- Sections 1–6: Purpose
- Sections 7–13: Attending to needs
- Sections 14–19: We did it ourselves
- Sections 20–23: Grasping the whole
- Sections 24–30: Self-organisation
- Sections 31–37: Knowing yourself
- Sections 38–43: Effectiveness
- Sections 44–49: What is enough?
- Sections 50–55: Integrity
- Sections 56–61: Living with change
- Sections 62–66: Serving without interference
- Sections 67–73: Effectiveness without contending
- Sections 74–81: Balancing
Glossary: Explanation of key terms
Acknowledgements: Standing on the shoulders of giants
Sources: Where to learn more
Other reading formats: Hardcover, paperback and PDF
This is provided as Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International by the author, Erik Schön.
