One way to think of business is as a series of problems and a great deal of business activity involves looking for solutions to those problems. From the perspective of Zen Buddhism, however, the light of understanding is found not in the narrow corner of answers but rather in the open spaces of questions. This is not because it is bad to seek answers but rather because the questions we ask often send us down the wrong path. This article provides an overview of the Zen koan, how it is designed to knock our thought processes off their typical rails and how the disruption of these thought processes can lead to new pespectives and solutions.
An Overview of the Koan
The word koan (公案), based on Chinese characters that mean “public case” is a sort of verbal riddle that is used as a teaching method in Zen Buddhism, particularly in the Rinzai school of Zen Buddhism.
Regarding how the koan is designed to work, in the spirit of Zen it is best not to walk around the pool with long-winded explanations but rather jump right into the freezing water. Here is one:
A monk was riding a donkey and came across an angry villager.
The villager said, “Get off that donkey right now and tell me where I can find the road to enlightenment!”
The monk said to the villager, “It is in the exact spot where the donkey starts walking and stops walking.”
I created this koan rather than used one of the standard ones, but it illustrates the central element of koans: they cannot be answered through the power of logic; the more you try to reason it out, the farther you are away from the answer. Is it possible to identify the spot where a donkey starts walking and stops walking? Not any more possible than it is to figure out the first thing you would say if you could no longer speak or how many zeroes can fit inside the number zero.
In the laws of physics as we perceive them, it not possible for something to be completely at rest and in motion at the same time. To solve this koan about the donkey, or rather to benefit from the puzzle it presents, requires somehow escaping the constraints of ordinary logic and seeing things not more broadly through different forms of rationality but directly without the interference of the mind.
This is important because if our premise is wrong no amount of reasoning, regardless of how sophisticated it is, will lead to a correct answer. Understanding, in other words, is not what is found at the end of an infinite number of misdirected intellectual roads but what is left when all of these roads are taken away. This is the spot where the donkey stops and starts walking.
The Koan of Business
One way to think of business is as a series of questions and a constant attempt to find answers to the questions. Will economic conditions change for the better or worse? What is the best way to increase revenues? What types of employees should I hire?
These questions are often extremely challenging for a number of reasons. First, trying to answer these questions requires looking into the future, which is not possible to do.
Second, both companies and the business environments that they are operating in constantly change. Accordingly, even if there were a correct answer to any of these questions at a specific point in time, a right answer can quickly change into a wrong answer as business conditions shift.
Third, there is never one right answer to any question in business. The course of action to be followed in business represents a trade off of many factors, including risk and potential return and what may be a wise strategy for one company with one team and one set of resources may not be a wise strategy for another.
Given that the answers to these questions are constantly moving targets, a practical issue is: what is the best way to seek answers? Doing extensive research? Developing sophisticated predictive models? Taking educated guesses? Each of these methods have their advantages and disadvantages. The koan, for its part, does not point us to a specific target but rather illustrates that the very direction we are looking in may be far from the mark. This redirection of our problem solving energies has a great deal of value.
If we only focus on whether economic conditions will get better or worse we may miss the reality that businesses can succeed and fail under both favorable and unfavorable economic conditions. If we only focus on how to increase revenues, we may miss the fact that the key issue to be focused on is how to reduce costs relative to revenues. If we only consider what types of employees should be hired, we may lose sight of the fact that the key area our business needs to focus on is not employees to be hired but the employees we have already hired.
From Koans to Question Paths
When considering a course of action to take, the underlying lesson of a koan that the answer is the starting rather than the end point can help provide clues regarding new ways to see challenges and how to address them in different ways. This leads not to fixed answers but rather to a series of questions or what could be called question paths.
This switch in how we see issues does not lead to increasing levels of abstraction but rather to increasingly clear and concrete potential action steps. For example, instead of asking “Will market conditions get better or worse?”, we can ask, “Does my business model depend on whether market conditions will get better or worse?” Instead of asking this question, we can ask, “Is there a way my business model can be changed so that my success will not depend on whether market conditions get better or worse?” And then we can ask, “What practical steps can I take so that my business will not depend on whether market conditions get better or worse?” It is highly likely that the answer to the last question will leave our business in a far better position than an attempt to answer the first.
The second question was, “What should I do to increase revenues?” This question could become, “Is increasing revenues the best way to build company value at this stage of its growth?” This question in turn could become,”What is the best way to build company value at this stage of the company’s growth?” The answer to this question may not be by increasing revenues but rather by reducing costs. Or it may not be by reducing costs but increasing costs in the form of long-term investments. Or it might involve making changes to the capital structure of the company.
The third question was, “What type of employees should I hire?” This question could become, “Do I need to focus on hiring new employees or should I focus on improving the performance or working conditions of existing employees?” This question could even become, “Are employees necessary or is there a better way to organize the work of people who work for or with the company?” It may turn out that a more flexible form of work relationship may be better for the company, people who work with the company and the company’s customers.
Creating these types of question paths does not necessarily mean that we will be able to immediately answer the questions that we raise along the way. Questions may lead us to look further inside ourselves for answers or outwards to people with other perspectives or experiences. Often we find that walking this path leads us to conclusions that we would not have considered earlier.
Conclusion
The search for answers is an important component of business progress. While different ways to find these answers have advantages and disadvantages, the central teaching of the koan to focus not on the answer but rather the question can allow us to see business challenges in new ways and explore new paths to solve those issues.