Organizational Change
Everything Changes; Nothing Remains without Change
How Can You Handle Reorganizations, Mergers, and Acquisitions Mindfully?
Do not chase the past.
Do not pine for the future.
What is past is gone.
What is future is not yet.
What is here, what is there,
Looking, you see clearly.
Unfooled, unshaken,
you expand the heart.
Urgently do your dharma today,
because tomorrow may be too late.
There is no bargaining with death.
If you live thus mindful,
through the light and through the dark,
the sage will say, His was a good day!
—Majjhima Nikaya 131
IF YOU’VE READ the first two sections of this book before coming to the third, we think you just might know what the Buddha would say about reorganizations, mergers, and acquisitions: they’re perfect embodiments of change. They’re anicca, impermanence in action. Nothing is solid, even if it appears to be so, even if we wish it were. New things come into existence; old things go out of existence. Things fall apart and come together in new configurations. This is as true of jobs and organizations as it is of trees, fish, clouds, atomic particles, islands, and human beings.
Pema Chödrön has a wonderful twist on the classic Buddhist parable of existence—we’ll paraphrase what she says. Imagine you are walking along on solid ground and you come to a river. On the other shore of the river is a different land that you think is awakening. You discover a raft on your side of the river, a raft called Buddhism. So you get in it and head across the river, hoping to reach the far shore. But halfway across the river, your boat falls apart, and there you are in the middle of shifting currents, the water roiling all around you. Your feet are frantically trying to find solid ground, and your arms are moving as you hope to grasp something that will make you feel more secure. But your kicking and grasping will not gain any shore, only the formless current. When you make peace with that reality and relax into it, you will awaken to the only peace, the only goal there is. This is learning to be mindful; this is a good day.
Likewise, the waters are constantly moving in the turbulent Sea of Organizations. Currents swell one way; the tide surges another. The winds of change blow strong, and the waves roll and crash, sometimes on top of you. You may cling to the wreckage of the past and wish you could bring back the good old days, but there is nothing left but flotsam and jetsam.
The Buddha would understand your distress and empathize with your longing for solid ground; nonetheless, he would gently but firmly teach you to swim, surf, paddle, or just float for a while. Maybe, when you’re a full bodhisattva, you’ll walk on the water—for right now, the Buddha would just say, “Love it.”
What Can We Do about Outsourcing?
Whenever Buddhism has taken root in a new land, there has been a certain variation in the style in which it is observed. The Buddha himself taught differently according to the place, the occasion and the situation of those who were listening to him.
—The XIV Dalai Lama, Letter to the Fourth International Conference of Buddhist Women
THE BUDDHA’S TEACHINGS show us again and again how we are all interconnected and interdependent. Separateness is an illusion. Recall the metaphor of the hand from the answer on job security. You may think that you have four separate fingers and a thumb. But if you look a little closer and think a little longer, you realize that your fingers and thumb are all connected together at the palm of your hand. And not only are they physically connected by flesh, blood, bone, and nerves; they work together in a coordinated fashion to get things done. Your hand is a wonderful model of interconnection, interdependence, and cooperative coordination; as Thich Nhat Hanh would say, it inter-is.
So, too, inter-are the worlds of business, commerce, government, philanthropy, medicine, agriculture, banking, and higher education. Our world, and all the countries in it, is interconnected in ways that most of us can’t see or fathom. Currency fluctuations in Europe affect the cost of goods sold in the United States. Changes in the education and skill levels of workers in one part of the world affect where multinational corporations do their work. Money ebbs and flows; people and jobs move; power and influence shift—all is impermanent.
To the extent that we can adapt to shifting job markets and literally go with the flow, we will know peace. If we rail against change and lament the injustice of jobs moving here and there around the planet, we will suffer. There are no other choices, and the choice is ours.
We can be the thumb who complains that our job was outsourced to the fingers, or we can be flexible and develop new skills to fit ourselves with new work. The Buddha would suggest that we join with the fingers in cooperation—typing on a keyboard, carrying boxes, using tools, or folding our hands in prayer and gratitude.
How Can Buddhist Principles Help in Dealing with a Corporate Crisis or Scandal?
Through attention, effort, and restraint,
The wise make islands floods cannot erode.
—Dhammapada 25
RECENT BUSINESS HISTORY and today’s news pages confirm the wisdom of the Buddha’s words. Remember how well Johnson & Johnson came through the Tylenol tampering crisis, back in 1982? The CEO took initiative instantly, pulling Tylenol products from store shelves, at enormous cost to the company. The speed and wisdom of his response to a deadly crisis ensured that the company would rebound, which it did with renewed public confidence and resulting strong sales. This is how to handle a crisis effectively. But this example is 30 years old.
Unfortunately, we see far too many examples of how not to handle a crisis. Calculating damage control and manipulating the audience is not the way. Consider these crises: the phone hacking by News Corp. employees, the nuclear accident at Chernobyl, Hurricane Katrina, a sexual scandal in the highest office in America, endemic child abuse in the Catholic Church. When these crises hit, spin did not help. Wisdom was called for but was not forthcoming. The damage was permanent.
Crises happen to all kinds of organizations: military, government, health care, church, philanthropic, professional, and so on. You cannot protect your organization from all crises, but you can help ensure that you and your organization are not destroyed by them. Think of the Buddha as the first crisis management consultant and heed his advice: through attention, effort, and restraint, you stand firm as the crisis swirls. You are ready to work again when the flood subsides.
How Does a Buddha Turn around a Troubled Business?
My supernatural power and marvelous activity:
drawing water and chopping wood.
—The Record of Layman Pang
IN INDIA, HOLY persons are expected to perform miracles—Buddhas included. But the Buddha taught his followers not to reveal any miraculous powers in public. Why is this? Because such powers distract people from what really matters. People get all absorbed in the supernatural, and they forget to attend to the natural, the things that form the backbone of life—and work. Layman Pang shows us how Buddhism and work are all about being there and getting it done without complications and without show.
Why do organizations fail? The reasons are varied, of course, but often it’s because they lose sight of the fundamentals. They don’t get done what they need to get done. If you’re making a product, you have to make it well and price it right. This is not so complicated. It’s about focusing your attention on the basics, just like Layman Pang, living in his forest hut, getting water and wood: simple and essential. The core activities of an organization are what keeps everything going and makes the organization successful. In today’s language, we would say, pay attention to “where the rubber meets the road.” It’s the modern equivalent of “drawing water and chopping wood.”
The Buddha would turn around a floundering business by getting back to basics, making sure there was water and wood when needed. Even at the top of an enormous corporation, the boss has got to remember this. Think, for example, of Apple Computer. It was floundering in the late ’90s and given up for dead by many business analysts. The company brought back its visionary founder, Steve Jobs, to turn it around. What marvelous thing did he do first? He slashed the product line and the budget to focus on designs that worked. He got back to Apple’s basic strength. Does that reveal miraculous powers? No, but it sure was miraculous for the stock price.
It is basics, always the basics, that make things run. Not necessarily core products, but core processes. Sure, there must be vision, but vision doesn’t create anything without good ol’ simple work. Drawing water, chopping wood.
How Does a Buddha Start a New Business?
Now mountains are mind; rivers are mind; earth, sun, moon,
and stars are mind. In this moment, what appears before you?
—Dogen Zenji, Shinjin Gakudo
IF YOU LOOK around you, no matter where you are, virtually everything you see—except natural objects (if you’re Dogen, even natural objects)—began as an idea in someone’s mind. Skyscrapers, telephone poles, roads, carpets, smart phones, TVs, bedpans, cardigans, microwaves, and Mini Coopers—each material thing in the human world began in a human mind.
So that is where the Buddha would go for inspiration: mind is the source. Look at the first words of the Dhammapada: “All things come at first from mind. / Mind creates them, mind fulfills them.” The Buddha would trust his imagination and intuition over trends and tweets. He’d follow his muse.
Next, he would talk to people about their lifestyles, their interests, their needs. The Buddha knew that happiness and success come from serving others, so he would look for ways to put his unique talents and skills in service. He would look at demographic shifts and changes in people’s lifestyles, here and abroad (remember, we inter-are). New needs grow from these changes, and new needs mean new openings for business. His guiding questions would be, “What do people need and want now?” and “How can I fill those needs?”
The Buddha would think about money, of course, but that would not be his primary incentive or concern. The Buddha knew that financial success comes as a happy by-product of providing needed products and services. Money is simply a way of keeping score—telling you whether or not goods and services are meeting people’s needs and desires. Meet needs, and you never need to think about making money.
The Buddha would surround himself with people who shared his values. He would hire kind people who understood teamwork. The Buddha knows that you can give workers a new skill, but you cannot give them a new character. He would model interbeing. He would show his workers how they could be more successful in collaborating rather than competing with one another. He’d understand their needs and be happy for them to telecommute, take advantage of flextime, and so on.
The Buddha’s new business would be green. He understood sustainability, that humans are interdependent not only with other humans but with all living beings—indeed, all inanimate things as well. The Buddha’s business would be a good steward of environmental resources, recognizing that stewardship is the highest form of leadership.
And finally, the Buddha would be humble. No need to plaster his name on tall buildings. Since he would wear modest clothes and live in a modest house, he wouldn’t need a seven-figure salary. He’d use the same bathroom as his employees and eat with them in the cafeteria. He would carpool.
The Buddha would reinvest his profits in innovation, always taking risks. When his business was flush, he would give plenty of money away to reduce dukkha at its sources. And he’d remember that someday his business would pass away, as all things must. Everything is impermanent, even a Buddha’s business.