I’m reading Get Some Head Space by Andy Puddicombe at the moment. It’s about learning how to meditate. A distant colleague suggested it might be a useful thing for me to do, learn how to meditate that is rather then read the book. She is distant as in distance. I’m only a quarter of the way through and this piece is not about the book. It’s about a metaphor, where a busy motorway was used to describe how the mind can seem, filled with traffic whirring past at break neck speeds.
To start seeing things more clearly you need to imagine yourself by the road. At first everything is a blur with traffic flashing past and the roar filling the air but after a while you can start to pick out the different types of vehicles, their colours, their purpose and even the passengers.
I’ve always liked metaphor and simile and analogy and I got to thinking not about traffic or motorways per se but whether or not the metaphor is useful in a business sense.
How many times at work does it feel like you are standing in the middle of a motorway with issues, problems and opportunities coming at you at great speed? You find yourself dodging to avoid getting run over and find it difficult to see what is coming for the weight of vehicles bearing down on you. Some times? Many times? Perhaps all the time?
Somehow we feel that the best way to manage the traffic is by standing in the middle of the road.
Didn’t Taiichi Ohno teach us anything from Toyota? To understand something you have to observe it, not just pop in and have a look but take time to let the processes take place around you so that you get a feeling for the way they work.
We spend too much time thinking and arguing about the way a process flows, usually several layers of management and years of experience away from the action and not enough time just watching, absorbing, learning and truly understanding.
I need to take some time out, grab a chair and take a seat by the motorway. It may lead to true enlightenment.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 