If you can recall your first lessons in skiing, you’d likely remember the snowplough. This is where a novice skier turns the tips of both skis towards each other to safely slow down, brake or make controlled turns.
My first day at Mt Buller was dedicated to the snowplough. Watching kids pass me without ski poles only added feelings of inadequacy. But at that time, I had already attained my Black Belt in karate and I understood the value of the “Beginner’s Mind” or Shoshin 初心. The snowplough reminds me to slow everything right down, develop the fundamentals and allow for perspective and insight.
This Zen Buddhism concept is indispensable to the leader who feels stuck - whether it be for a profitable innovative idea, a strategy for elevating culture or a how to have a crucial uncomfortable conversation. A mental block is the signal to apply the brakes because clarity is limited when you’re consumed by reacting to the moguls of the corporate landscape
The Beginner’s Mind is similar to zero-base thinking where you return yourself to the starting line, wiping the slate clean. The distinction is that instead of asking “Knowing what I know now, would I do?”, you ask, “If I knew nothing, what could be possible
Sounds a bit hokey? Well, where did the idea of the ‘horseless cart’, the motor vehicle, come from? It came from a mind unattached to what’s possible and unrestricted by history. It came from the Beginner’s Mind.
Steve Jobs developed his respect for intuition and simplicity after his spiritual journey across India. Instead of concrete business ideas, he sought enlightenment and meaning. His new mental lens led to the unique and minimalist Apple suite of products.
The evolving leader is willing to temporarily drop expertise and intellect in favour of insight and intuition.
Research from the Department of Psychology, Drexel University, Pennsylvania, define insight as “a sudden… reorganization of the elements of a person’s mental representation… to yield a non-obvious or non-dominant interpretation.”
This can be done by thinking of yourself as a genius with access to creative potential.
It’s an identity shift if only for 30 minutes.
This requires you to suspend intellect, apply the brakes and just sit with the problem and ask better questions.
This is the work. This is Black Belt leadership.