Hard But Not Complex
Behind closed doors I regularly meet executives, and especially CEOs, who tell me that they feel like they are the least empowered person in the organization. This often goes along with stress, burnout, incessant thinking through problems, sleep issues, and more. These individuals are without fail exceptionally smart, experienced, aware of the dynamics in the board room and with investors, their executive team, the their often large organizations, products, market dynamics, regulatory requirements, operational challenges, and so on.
And over the years I've seen many of them change, and work themselves and their teams out of this debilitating situation. And more often than not a specific set of skills acquired in practices that I've come to call Hard But Not Complex played a key role in the process.
These are practices that are initially Hard But Not Complex, and many are outright simple. I have rarely encountered them during my upbringing, schooling, and professional development in Germany and the USA. Instead I learned the classic skills that help understand and operate in complicated systems: computer science, management, physics, medicine, foreign languages, history, philosophy, psychology, to name a few.
But increasingly these Hard But Not Complex practices have been taking root in places known for pragmatism and focus on exceptional results: elite military training including the US Navy Seals, high tech startups foster creative flow states, training in traditional martial arts for advanced students, and many more.
Long Traditions
The timelines of traditions that have been teaching and fostering those practices are measured in centuries and millennia, during which they have maintained and honed the instructions for beginners and advanced practitioners. Examples of these practices and traditions include:
Qi Gong: Stand still for an extended period of time.
Meditation: Focus on your breath and when you notice that you have gotten distracted, return your focus to your breath.
Lakota Vision Quest: Sit in a three meter by two meter space by yourself in nature for four days. Don't eat or drink anything.
Zen Meditation: Sit absolutely still for an hour facing a wall with eyes slightly open.
Enso Circles: Draw a black circle using a brush and black ink with a single stroke within one breath.
Breath Work: Take 30 deep breaths in quick succession, exhale and hold your breath, then inhale and hold your breath. Repeat.
There are endless examples and variations of such practices that have been adjusted to certain cultures, times, and applications. Often they are found in eastern schools of thought, philosophical lineages, and other wisdom traditions.
These practices are very simple. Most of them are impossible to do perfectly, and simultaneously very hard to do wrong. The main ways of doing them wrong is to not pay attention while doing them or not do them at all.
All the same, I have rarely encountered practices and challenges like these during my upbringing and training in Germany and the USA. I now realize that western esoteric and contemplative traditions have similar practices, though mainly practiced behind closed doors of retreats or monasteries.
Mindfulness, Flow, and Beyond
Modern science, and especially neuroscience, has begun to explore and document the long-term and short-term effects of these age-old practices. Especially meditation has been scrutinized and validated to the point that even regular family doctors are starting to recommend mindfulness practices to their patients for their medical benefits.
That being said, the US Navy Seals and elite martial artists do not spend time on these practices for stress reduction only. The big payoff for them is effective split-second decision-making in overwhelmingly complex, high-stakes, life-or-death situations, especially when it comes to teams working together.
Hard But Not Complex practices do not only help relax the nervous system, they also cultivate profound states of mind, including a profound awareness of those states and how to navigate them. If you know a practitioner, ask them about it. Inquire about the details of the experiences. Be prepared to spend time and learn a lot.
Flow is probably the most well-known state for purposes of performance and business applications at this time. But it is only one of a vast landscape of states with many different benefits. The ability to navigate those states changes lives as well as business outcomes.
Modern Solutions
One big obstacle to the regular application of states of mind for problem solving in business is the time and effort required to achieve proficiency in these skills. And like every solution that has proven useful but high in effort, the field has attracted companies which are working on devices to help. As it stands right now, none of these companies has produced solutions that are ready for general application in business environments.
What is much less known is that there are age-old techniques that help inexperienced individuals and groups to navigate those states. Some lineages have teachers who have developed "Pointing Out Instructions" to guide students through the learning process quickly. The modern equivalent are experienced guides or facilitators. To be clear, I am not suggesting that today's facilitators have the same experience or impact as masters deeply trained in ancient traditions. Quite the opposite, I suspect that much of the knowledge attributed to such masters has not yet been rediscovered by mainstream science. I also do not suggest using this approach in life-or-death situations that Navy Seals operate in unless you're trained accordingly.
However, I know that this approach is extremely beneficial for executives and executive teams in workshop or one-on-one settings. Facilitators of this nature can absolutely fast-track individuals and groups to states that are beneficial for problem solving, team alignment, and creation of innovative holistic solutions in extremely complex corporate environments.
Here at Naluna, we are deeply committed to bringing the benefits of different states of mind to leadership teams and corporations in ways that are business-appropriate, efficient, and integrate seamlessly with existing structures and corporate practices.
Post Script: It is important to note that working with guides can be transformative for key tasks and processes, it does not replace personal practice and effort if one wants to be self-sufficient.
