What, if for a change, we decided to be NON DOERS rather than DOERS?
As we return to work, I suggest that you relieve the sadness of the ending summer with actions that will make you feel good or rather, NON actions that will make you feel proud of yourselves!
In companies and in our daily life, we rarely encourage people not to do something. We usually praise accomplishments: a colleague who has completed a project, a sale that has been concluded successfully, our child who has finished his/her homework. Yet how often do we praise NON action? Try to think about the last time this happened…If you can’t find any example, it is because you don’t consider NOT doing, you are always busy DOING something as if filling your life with actions were something positive. On the contrary you should consider NOT DOING as a way of “clearing your mind” and consequently a source of well-being.
Peter Drucker said: “There is nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency something that should not be done at all”.
An example of something that should not have been done and that caused many damages and the loss of seven lives was the launching of the Columbia Space Shuttle in 2003. It crashed while re-entering the earth’s atmosphere. Some obvious flaws had been identified, yet not a single member of the engineering team stopped the launch.
Let us also consider some sales which we concluded but which turned out to be disastrous profit wise.
Finally, on an individual level, let’s think about that word or that phrase that was just one too many and that should have been left unsaid, since it was the source of conflict on the workplace or at home.
Sometimes not saying or not doing is as commendable as doing and saying. Yet it is complicated to go against the tide: it is so much easier to do what others around us are doing. The Columbia Shuttle engineers did not dare stop the launch because of the enormous financial and public image pressure. Let’s face it: it is so much easier to say “I have sold such and such a product or service” than to admit “I have not concluded a sale”, even though the second alternative may turn out to be more profitable than the first one.
As for individual behavior, who would ever think of thanking a manager or a friend for…
– not having spoken (thus allowing us to express ourselves!)
– not trying to prove that he/she is always the best, leaving no elbow room to others
– not having insisted that HIS/HER solution is the best
– not having said unpleasant words
– not having begun a sentence with “yes, but”
– not being biased when judging a person/team
– not having spoken in anger
– not having been negative vis-à-vis every proposal
– not having withheld information
– not having looked for excuses (but rather acknowledging: “ I was wrong and I made a mistake”!)
– not having said that everything was better in the past
…?
This kind of non-doing behavior is just as valuable as positive behavior!
Peter Drucker also said: “If you do something new, you have to stop doing something old”.
Therefore, instead of going back to work with the idea of DOING, I suggest that you also think about what you no longer want to do and implement your decision by adopting the NON-DOING attitude.
I would also like to invite you to note, and pat yourself on the back for, each action that you have not undertaken and consider it a benefit rather than a loss, as well as a means of coping with the environment’s DO-DO-DO pressure.
Have a happy back-to-work month!
