ZEN AND STRATEGY

There is a Zen saying... “The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.” In Zen, the true nature of things or Tao can be found in moments of choiceness awareness. To deny the truth of things is to miss reality. If we allow our personal preferences to impact our choices, our choices will be grounded in personhood rather than reality. 

The Jesuits and many others understand personhood this way. “Give me a child until they are seven years of age and I will show you the adult.” EEG scanners reveal that in the first years of life our brain frequencies are much slower and we spend a great deal of time under the influence of Theta waves. Theta waves are pre-conscious in nature, which means as little children we are highly impressionable and programmable. These preferences and conditions in our holding environment, before the age of seven, are systematically laid down in our personality. 

Our personality based choices are spontaneous, unconscious and automatic. Many of us tend to behave more like machines than people. This is the reason why good strategy and good choices are best made consciously in a group, rather than unconsciously as an individual. Groups and teams, where power and merit are shared equally, make the best decisions, as personality-based preferences get replaced with greater objectivity.

Making choices is often something we have to do on our own. This can be risky, given the programming we already have. In business, we consistently choose among alternatives. To be successful, we need to consistently select ideas and activities that drive future customer value and that are do-able. 

ACTIVITY

On a blank page, create a 2 x 2 table with column headings: Highly Do-able and Hard-to-do; and row headings High Customer Value and Low Customer Value. Fill out this table with all your business ideas, strategies, and current products and services. As you complete the table, sort entries by Do-ability and Customer Value.  

Now label each box using the following four names.

‘Reduce efforts here.’

‘Create new stuff.’

’Increase efforts here.’

‘Stop doing this.’ 

Once completed, share your findings with two or more colleagues.

Do they concur?

What wisdom did you gain about how to make the right choices?