The Pageless Book

Photo Above by Richard Rutter. Photo Below by Lee Chisholm.

The Master doesn’t talk, he acts. When his work is done, the people say, “Amazing, we did it all by ourselves!” - Tao Te Ching, verse 17, Mitchell Translation.

At work, I’ve been trying to foster people-management skills within myself to further my career and in preparation to go into ministry. Too often I’ve heard that being a minister for a Unitarian Universalist Congregation is like herding cats, so I figured management-skills would be an important asset. What I’ve found interesting, though, is how much management philosophy has in common with my spiritual philosophy.

A great deal of emphasis is placed on achieving success through indirect means. For example, although managers have power and privilege above that of a normal employee, the point of those benefits is not to enjoy them for yourself, but to use them in accomplishing your job. The training material that I’ve read suggests using that power and privilege to reward employees and ensure they have the tools needed to succeed.

For those who’ve never been in a position of management before, it is quite a paradigm shift. Instead of doing something as a means to accomplishing an end, you are influencing people as a means to accomplish an end. Each manager is given the authority to make demands, force results, and discipline employees, but the power that a manager has isn’t derived from using his authority - rather it is from having the authority yet not using it that he is able to get things done. It is through mutual trust, respect, and communication that a manager achieves results.

What is perhaps even more interesting is how a manager finds job satisfaction in the achievement of others. They are like engine grease; it is their job to make sure all of the parts are running smoothly and aren’t causing friction. A manager knows he has done a good job when he is no longer needed to get the job done. It requires a sense of the larger picture - a manager needs to be able to see how all the parts of the business fit together.

How are these thinks like spirituality? The same panoramic understanding of business, when applied to life, helps us see our place in the grand scheme of things. We know that we are but a small part of a whole, greater than the sum of its parts. Power is not within money or fame, but in the trust and respect of others. People are the ultimate power source; they create authority. The trick is to understand that power and authority is most effective when given back to that source of power and authority. Using the trust people place within you against the better interests of those people results in diminished respect… diminished authority.

The lessons are clear - pay attention, respect and be respected, do good unto each other. Moral teaching of the great religions have found a home within effective management philosophy. Of course, that doesn’t mean that learning how to manage people is easy. Then again, neither is religion.