Much Ado About Doing Nothing

Yesterday I shared a provocation:

Have you considered doing nothing about it?

After all, some things do just take care of themselves! In order for this option to be useful:

1. You have to be patient and calm enough to let go of any sense of control.
2. There must be a process that is likely to unfold in a general direction you can live with.
3. You have to be able to survive the wait.

When you compare this "strategic non-doing" to micromanagement or heroic efforts to control everything, it can sometimes be the better move.

The easiest example that comes to mind is when someone is about to make a mistake. Do you intervene in order to control the situation and prevent the mistake? Or do you let them make the mistake? After all, as long as everyone can live with the consequences, failure is a great teacher!

In that example, doing nothing also presents a more potent moment of doing later. If someone is about to make a mistake, you can foresee that they will experience that failure, and you can plan accordingly to do what you must to maximize the potential learning moment. For instance you might clear some time on your calendar so you can be available to sit with them and listen as they process what happened.

I'll end this thought with a quote from Deciphering Sun Tzu, by Derek M. C. Yuen:

Action in a system is anomalous to it... One of the foremost tasks of a strategist is to limit any action/interference so as to prevent negative unintended consequences form arising and to eliminate any chance that they will lead to a reversal of the tide.