There’s a famous parable in Daoist thought.
A rock sits in a river with water rushing around it. Which is stronger? The rock or the water?
It’s the rock, right? It stays completely unmoved.
Well, no. At least, not in this parable.
When the water meets the rock, it bends and curves, flowing smoothly around it. Rather than waste its energy fighting an immovable object, it adapts its route and continues effortlessly towards its goal.
And while the rock appears to be solid and unyielding, the persistence of the water wears it away. Over time, the river still flows while the rock is eroded into a tiny pebble.
The parable is intended to illustrate the mellifluous concept of Wu Wei.
Wu Wei translates as non-forcing or “action through inaction”. That might sound like a skiver’s charter. But, properly understood, I think it is a massively overlooked approach to achieving change while protecting your resilience.
It does not mean doing nothing. Don’t misinterpret it as being unambitious or setting lower goals. Instead, it is the idea that goals can often be achieved more efficiently by working with the forces around you rather than against them.
Let’s look at some practical examples.
Mapping your goals to the flow of energy
One way to use the concept is to identify where energy already exists in an organisation and then work out how to attach your goals to that energy.
That might mean starting with what the chief executive already cares about or where money is being invested. By identifying those forces and connecting your communications objectives to them you can achieve change more quickly and easily.
Say, you’re trying to influence government at the moment. There is a new Prime Minister, and he’s given some insight into his thinking and priorities. He thinks politics has failed people. That “forty years of neo-liberalism” hasn’t delivered fair outcomes. And that too much power is held in Westminster and more should be devolved to Mayors.
Perhaps you are a property development company. You might agree with Andy Burnham. You might not. You can choose to argue that he is wrong. Or you can choose to fit your goals to his agenda.
This might seem obvious. Yet people spend an extraordinary amount of time and energy trying to win arguments that they don’t need to have at all. They become attached to their explanation, their specific proposal or their right to receive credit. But if you’re prepared to take the outcome, not the credit, then many more opportunities become available.
Wu Wei is about avoiding the unnecessary contest in order to find the most efficient route to your goal.
It doesn't mean that there aren’t times when you need to stand and fight your case. Quite the opposite. It means not wasting energy on fights that don’t matter so that you have the time, energy, relationships and political credit to win the ones that really do.
Here are two other areas where I think Wu Wei can be applied.
Yielding to change without compromising goals
First, accepting and responding to change. Wu Wei is about learning to distinguish between a bad decision that can still be challenged and a change that is inevitable but does not compromise your goals or values.
So much upset and unhappiness at work is caused by people resisting inevitable change or by seeking to control what is simply outside of their scope of influence. There are a million things you cannot control. Being able to focus on those things you can control - your choices, your actions and your response - is a skill that can be honed through daily practice.
Sometimes bad ideas can and should be stopped. But knowing when and how to yield to change is an essential skill for protecting your resilience.
In fact, I think this is becoming one of the essential capabilities of any good communications leader. The external communications environment is changing faster than our internal practice. Audiences are already fragmented. Trust has been corroded. And now AI is changing how content is created and discovered. In the race to keep up, communications teams risk working harder while falling steadily further behind.
A better approach is to maintain a single-minded focus on your strategic goals while retaining maximum flexibility and experimentation for how those goals are achieved.
Choosing your battles
I have perhaps been too willing to avoid conflict in my career. Sometimes I have been too keen to lower the temperature or acknowledge a concern when the other person has behaved unreasonably.
I don’t think Wu Wei means avoiding conflict, but I think it does argue for picking your battles. Conflict becomes exhausting when every disagreement becomes a test of strength. So sometimes the best approach is to choose not to spend energy on things that don’t matter. But sometimes you need to stand firm: maybe an important principle is at stake, or maybe unacceptable behaviour needs to be confronted.
Wu Wei is about having the wisdom to recognise one from the other. If you fight one battle after another, you will eventually break. But if you avoid every difficult conversation you will end up compromising on what really does matter.
When the time comes to stand firm, Wu Wei teaches us not to meet force with force. It might be better to let unreasonable energy blow itself out and then redirect it rather than absorb it. Just as with the water and the rock, standing firm doesn’t mean having an immediate or explosive argument. It might mean waiting until the right moment, perhaps when the meeting is over and the issue can be calmly addressed one-to-one.
Conclusion
If the concept of Wu Wei sounds strangely familiar but you’ve never had any interest in Eastern philosophy then George Lucas might be to blame.
The Force in Star Wars is inspired by Daoism. The idea of an invisible energy field that represents the natural flow of the universe is close to the idea of the Dao, and the Jedi mindset of letting go and trusting the Force mirrors the principle of effortless action in Wu Wei.
Just as in Star Wars, we need to start teaching our apprentices (young and old) to use the Force. We should stop simply asking people to be resilient and instead teach more resilience techniques. Helping people to sustain energy and judgement under pressure is not hippyish new-age thinking: it is fundamental to business success.
Wu Wei should be more widely understood. Perhaps part of the reason it isn’t is because it can be misinterpreted as passivity, or accepting second best.
For me, it is about learning to stop spending energy on needless resistance and to work with the energy and flow that already exist. That way, you can achieve goals more effortlessly and effectively, while preserving energy for the moments that matter.
Companies could do a lot worse than teaching people how to use the Force!
Here are the previous parts of my series on leading under pressure and managing your resilience:
