August Turak, contributor to Forbes Leadership writings provided a succint summary to the correlation between divergent thinking and zen leadership. How does one manage what one cannot identify? The answer lies in a combination of patience, innovation and creativity in leadership and management.

“What is the sound of one hand clapping? How can success arise from not doing rather than doing? Riddles like these, called “koans” in Zen Buddhism, have long baffled the Western mind. Steeped for millennia in the Aristotelian logic that insists that the truth is either A or ~ A, Zen has long been dismissed as little more than mystical double talk by western philosophy and science. But advances in the science behind creative thinking and problem solving should be changing that misconception.Only recently have terms like creative destruction, controlled chaos, coopetition, fuzzy logic, breaking the frame, jumping outside the system, disruptive technologies, and thinking outside the box entered the lexicon of business.

Technically, thinking outside the box relies on what psychologists describe as “lateral” or “divergent” thinking, and thinking laterally or divergently is highly correlated with creativity. Managing change has meant a value shift away from evolutionary business models aimed at efficiency toward revolutionary models that rely on innovation and creativity. Divergent thinking argues that it is not what we don’t know that is standing in our way, but more insidiously, all those things we are so sure we already know. The CEO of a rapidly growing startup put it succinctly, “It is not what I don’t know that keeps me up at night. It’s all the things I don’t know I don’t know because I think I do.” A Zen master couldn’t say it better or design a better koan.” 

To explore these questions and entrench a combination of patience, innovation and creativity in your workplace, contact info@qdsbusiness.com

Quintessence offers a range of online leadership training programs geared towards Zen Business principles.

Leyya Kalla
Director: Quintessence Development Solutions