The
next few posts will introduce a new series on Round and Square—one that
is intimately linked to my large project called "The Emperor's Teacher"
(the management book that will change the world. This series focuses
intently on the ways in which Sima Guang's great historical work, the Comprehensive Mirror, "works." You've read the Art of War, perhaps. Now get ready for the main course—the Art of Warning.
Click here for other sections of this introduction to The Art of Warning.
Lesson Three—Remonstrance
Now
we come to the tricky idea that puts it all together. We have learned to
understand the nuances within and between our multiple roles, and have come to
see the vast managerial landscape as undulating terrain—ever aware of it slopes
and curves. To complete the picture, we need to find a way to convey necessary,
but unpleasant, information, not unlike what we have already seen in our Comprehensive Mirror examples. In other
words, roles and hierarchy must be set in motion. So let’s imagine the
following. You know something that your boss needs to know. She made a mistake. If you tell her, she will be
irritated at best, and flaming-mad at worst. Here’s the twist—you don’t,
exactly, have to be the one who criticizes her. You could just let it go…for
now at least. Sure, she’ll keep on making mistakes, and the organization would
be better for it, but...
You
are the messenger, after all, and no one has ever quite figured out how to make
that work.
Remonstrance,
in English and Chinese (諫), is the art
of warning—the art of the junior member of any unit telling the senior what she
needs to hear. Think back to Confucius’s quotation. It is the official
critiquing the ruler; the son teaching the father. Sima Guang highlighted
remonstrance for a reason. It is this vital shift that puts the other lessons
into motion and creates an organization that learns. The Comprehensive
Mirror contains ten thousand pages addressed to this very question, and it
is never easy. Criticizing your boss is just about as fraught as life gets in
relative peacetime. And while bosses surely can teach their employees a good
deal, they need information too. People closer to “the ground” are often the
best positioned to give it. They know the details, and are in contact with
people who put policy into practice (from elementary schools to empires).
If
the news is bad, the junior usually just keeps silent.
By
contrast, the Comprehensive Mirror is
filled with colorful, and sometimes startling, examples of ministers of government
staring down emperors and telling them what they need to hear.
The
situ junyi yuan, Dong Xun, sent up a
memorial, remonstrating with
the emperor: “I have heard that upright gentlemen
of antiquity spoke out
their minds for the sake of the state, not fearing death
and perishment…
loyal and upright by nature, they went ahead and did not shrink
in the face
of drawn swords and boiling water; they did so because they loved
the
empire on behalf of the sovereigns of their time.
[A
long list of criticisms, from unremitting warfare and lack of perspective
to
ostentatious imperial extravagance follows].
I am well aware that once my words are out, death will be my certain lot, yet
I
compare my own person to a single hair of an ox. If living, I serve no
purpose,
then what loss can there be in my death? With the writing-brush in
hand, I weep
and take leave of this world. I have eight sons, who will have to
be taken care
of by Your Majesty after my death. Having washed and purified
myself, I submit
this memorial, waiting for your command.
[When
the memorial was brought in], the emperor said, “Is Dong Xun not
afraid of
death?” The official in charge memorialized to have him arrested,
but the
emperor’s order was to leave him alone.
It
is difficult to give an adequate sense of this “art of warning” in just these
few passages. Lively examples, such as this one, sit side-by-side with less
dramatic reminders to the ruler (the boss) that the criticism is not personal.
If you recall the language in the passage I just quoted, the subordinate’s
loyalty is to the organization and its ideals, not just to the person who
happens to be in charge. That is a powerful message that can embolden employees
and make bosses shudder.
This
is generally a good thing for organizations.
One
point is certain, and Sima Guang knew it well. When knowledge moves upward in this manner,
organizations prosper. Remonstrance is the dynamic that sets the organization’s
“learning structures” spinning. When practiced as an organizational art—the way
that Sima Guang articulated throughout the Comprehensive
Mirror—it contains the kernels of powerful growth and continual learning
for individuals, divisions, and corporations.
The
failure to function in this manner has serious consequences. For example, the Financial Times ran a story a while back
bemoaning the fact that diversity has not created a greater interplay of ideas
in the boardroom. Sima Guang would not have been surprised. Diversity alone
does not generate new ideas. Without powerful and empowering “teaching” (“warning,” as it were), organizations will
only accomplish an uneasy overlay of unity—head nodding assent in fidgety
meetings. A Chinese writer from the Song dynasty (960-1279) said it in a
particularly memorable way.
Why
would one take water and give it the flavor of water? Why would someone create a lute with but one
note? There is no harmony in these
things. Such is the inadequacy of mere agreement.
Remonstrance,
in its many guises, is the multi-flavored, multi-vocal potential lying within
the organization—from families to corporations, to the ruling of all under heaven. The Comprehensive Mirror shows the necessity
of this feedback loop, and gives thousands of examples of how to move from, as
I like to say, remonstrance cooperation
to remonstrance coordination.
Cooperation can be seen in our quotation above; it means that the boss agrees
(gritting teeth, perhaps) to listen to advice; you agree (heart palpitating,
perhaps) to tell what you know. It is not an efficient process, but it is still
necessary.
Could
there be more? Could it work even better
than shuddering employees confronting crabby bosses? Yes.
The
greater goal, which should be the focus of all twenty-first century
organizations, needs to be something else—not mere cooperation, but coordination. Coordination results in
this transfer of knowledge as a matter of course, like playing the notes on a
scale. This may sound impossible. Sima Guang thought quite otherwise, and I do,
too. The details are for another lecture at another time, but we have already
seen how the Comprehensive Mirror can
teach us to focus on that goal, and to begin working toward it in our own
organizations.
Click here for other sections of this introduction to The Art of Warning.
