6. I know from my personal experience that “overcoming” truly doesn’t work. It doesn’t have any track record of working in the workplace, either. And when you hear people who are newly happy with their jobs now, they say, “I’ve moved on. I’ve just moved on.” They don’t say, “Well, I was able to come to grips with it, wrestle with it, overcome it, conquer it, defeat it.” No one who is truly free of a problem such as addiction says, “I was able to overcome, defeat my alcoholism, and it lies in a heap and I am victorious over it.” They just say, “I’ve moved on. I’ve accepted my powerlessness and taken another path. It’s not a part of my life. I’ve chosen a different way, a different form of spirit than alcohol.”
7. Carl Jung said, “People do not solve their psychological problems, in my experience. They outgrow them. They grow in a different direction and just leave them in their history.” This is what the process of allowing success is all about. It’s the heart and soul of hands-off management. It’s considered a revolutionary form of management because it breaks the old codes of manipulation and mistrust.
8. Some therapists say that in order to move on, you must reenact a conversation you had with your antagonist all over again and resolve that memory that’s inside you. But that’s just giving more strength to the story. And we are looking to free you from your stories. Micromanagers in the workplace do the same dysfunctional thing those therapists do. They relive breakdowns and mistakes and go over and over them, making people wrong all day long.
Why not just leave it there and move on? Release its power over you. See it in a different light so that you can focus on your natural talents, your God-given gifts, and bring the best of who you are to the surface.
The hands-off manager uses this principle to not carry grudges; he meets every person in the workplace with equal trust and understanding. The past is merely something you have learned from. The mistakes were a blessing, because you now know how to do it better going forward.
Most micromanagers in old-school organizations today immediately think that when things go awry, they have to overcome them. They imagine a Rambo figure who can overcome any odds and can fight off 50 or 100 people at a time if he has to, because he is so strong in his ability to overcome. Our national macho mythology nurtures an image of a guy who is really muscular and adept at fighting. So we build into our culture and collective psyches the idea that “If I only became stronger, if I only worked out harder, if I only ran more miles, or went to more seminars, or pushed myself harder, then I’d finally become strong enough to deal with the issues my team is facing.”
But the opposite is true. If you want a strong mind, you must learn to quiet your mind. If you want real power, you must learn to let go. Greatness exists within everyone, and your biggest job is to get out of its way and let it come through.
Doing this will eventually make you incredibly powerful. Not so strong that you can lift hundreds of pounds at one time, but strong in a different, deeper way. So strong that you can discipline your mind and discipline your thoughts to let go of anything that isn’t serving you. So strong that your people draw their strength and calm from you—just from being with you! You don’t have to say anything for them to feel how peacefully powerful you are. They warm up to your vision, and teamwork begins to emerge of its own accord. It’s being inspired to happen instead of forced to happen.
No more team-building seminars
Companies often ask me for a seminar in team-building. I don’t give them anymore. I know that if people are not performing and communicating with team spirit, it’s not a team-building issue, it’s a leadership issue.
I am very direct with the manager asking for the training. I want her to see that great leadership will create a culture in which teamwork will simply grow. They don’t need teamwork training. The manager herself needs hands-off leadership training so she can learn to mentor success instead of trying to impose productivity.
If you are a newly enlightened manager you have begun with a shift in awareness. You’ve pulled your power back from the external world of form to the internal world of energy. You now know how to shift your awareness up and over the bothersome event so that you can see another more productive path to take.
You cannot be attacked from this lofty position. Even if people say negative things about you, you don’t end up giving your power to them. You keep it in yourself. “Negative” occurrences don’t bother you so much anymore because you simply use them for practice. You actually gain strength from them.
Is it a tough discipline? Yes! It may be even harder than working out with weights. Because it’s so counterintuitive at first. It goes against our whole upbringing and training.
Learning the inner game
When you study people in history who knew the secret of inner allowing versus outer overcoming, you find that they usually had long, happy lives. Bernard Baruch, who died in 1965 at the age of 95, was an American financier, stock market and commodities speculator, statesman, and presidential adviser.