Take It From Zen: How to Regain Joy in your Job

AKA-Zen and the Art of City Management

© 2013 Jim Schutz. Printed in Public Management (PM) Magazine, October 2013.

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Executive Summary (30 second read): The article addresses the challenges faced by local government managers post-Great Recession, advocating for Zen principles like mindfulness and inner peace to navigate these difficulties. It emphasizes the importance of being present and mindful, applying Zen's "big mind" approach to focus on community well-being rather than individual concerns. Managers are encouraged to view work challenges as opportunities for growth and to prioritize the process over outcomes. The piece highlights the need for self-compassion and understanding to manage stress and build strong communities effectively.

Full article:

Not long ago there was joy. Then came a long set of rogue waves called the Great Recession. The first wave was named “hiring freeze,” but it was quickly followed by its close relatives, each bent on destruction. They arrived with names like “furloughs,” “early retirements,” “layoffs,” “pay cuts,” “new benefit tiers,” and the tallest wave of them all, “unfunded liabilities.” They shattered services that had taken decades to develop and left bewilderment and anger in their place.

Public confidence was also left wet and cold. At the federal level, public trust in government is at or near an all-time low. Though state and local governments fare better in opinion surveys, a cursory read of any local newspaper may suggest otherwise, especially if one dares to read the letters to the editor or, for the boldest among us, the online comments.

In such times, it is easy for local government managers to become dispirited or overlook the laudable reasons we got into this profession. How do we rediscover the joy? Is it possible to find the Zen of work during these complex and trying times?

What might we learn from an ancient tradition that is still useful and relevant today? I have assembled several lessons of basic Zen teachings that will come in handy whether you find yourself in a 13th century zendo in Japan or a 21st century town hall meeting.

Find your inner monk

Zen offers practical techniques to cultivate calmness in the face of adversity, let go of anxiety and stress, pay attention to the moment, and find peace and contentment. Such characteristics are amazingly relevant in today’s local government environment of depleted budgets, regional consolidations, contracting out, and partnerships with an increasingly skeptical public.

The “being-in-the-world qualities” emphasized in Zen are no different from the character traits encouraged in management, says Zen teacher and former IBM executive Les Kaye in Zen at Work. A great Zen master might look for the same traits in a student as you might find today in a job announcement for a local government executive: integrity, strong morals and ethics, personal conviction, calm and even-temperament, adaptability, and perseverance. We are all capable of such traits; it is just a matter of living them in a focused and intentional way. How can that be done?

The path to your inner monk is through the universal human qualities of attention and awareness that are the key ingredients of mindfulness. The problem is, according to mindfulness teacher Jon Kabat-Zinn, “in our society, we tend to take these capacities for granted and don’t think to develop them systematically in the service of selfunderstanding and wisdom.” That needs to change to be successful in this post-Great Recession world.

Discover the present moment

Zen master Shunryu Suzuki, in Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, uses some simple words about cooking to illustrate the concepts of mindfulness and staying in the moment. He says, “To cook is not just to prepare food for someone or for yourself; it is to express your sincerity. So when you cook you should express yourself in your activity in the kitchen. You should allow yourself plenty of time; you should work on it with nothing in your mind, and without expecting anything. You should just cook!” This is equally true for managing a local government.

With a task list longer than your arm, e-mails multiplying in your in-box, and beeps and chimes from our mobile devices reminding us how late we are, it is natural to feel scattered. Local government executives, however, should strive to keep the mind on one task at a time. Kaye says, “When we choose to perform an activity, we make it a gift by dedicating our entire body and minds to it . . . this is how we express complete understanding in our work.”

Between past, present, and future, there is really only one (the present) in which we physically spend any time. Most of our mental and emotional time, however, stays clamped in the past or future. We dwell on some disappointment of the past or get anxious about anticipated future problems.

We ask ourselves questions like these: Will my performance evaluation go well? Will there be public opposition to staff recommendations? How will the local newspaper characterize a recent issue? The worry is often far worse than the actual outcomes. Just cook.

Quiet your monkey mind

Post-Great Recession life is a stressful place given unemployment rates, fiscal instability, underwater mortgages, rising costs, and other pressures. With public trust in government low, community meetings can sometimes take on the feeling of a “no holds barred” wrestling match on pay-per-view. When criticism is being hurled like a metal folding chair, it is hard not to take it personally. While the folding chair is metaphorical, the suffering caused may be real and long lasting.

Arthur Jeon, author of City Dharma, writes, “Negative things happen [but] there is very little that happens to us on a daily basis that is really ‘bad,’ and when it does occur, it passes quickly. But we then create endless suffering through our interpretation, our conditioning, and our identification with the thoughts around the event.” In short, our monkey mind, an ancient term for restless thoughts, chatters away.

The Zen approach is to notice any negativity, but pass through it without dwelling on it. Humorist Michael Pritchard says, “Anger held longer than 30 seconds is just ego.” This mindful concept is similar to a common trait of successful local government managers: “having a thick skin.”

Managers should filter the noise to take in what can be useful in strategic decision making, without getting bogged down by it. The goal is to be patient, not take things personally, attempt to understand the reasons behind any negativity, and keep a supple mind to find the creative solution.

Just sit

When asked the path to enlightenment, Zen masters are fond of saying, “Just sit.” But meditation isn’t just for those seeking nirvana anymore. It is increasingly mainstream.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services suggests meditation for a number of ailments. One of Google’s most popular employee training courses, “Search Inside Yourself,” teaches meditation, mindfulness, awareness, and compassion.

Zen meditation involves sitting with a straight back—typically with some sort of cushion, stool, or chair—with a focus on the breath, stillness, and a restful mind. When the monkey mind inevitably asserts itself with daydreaming or random thoughts, it is important to notice the thoughts, acknowledge them, release them without attachment or judgment, and return to the breath.

Kabat-Zinn suggests looking at meditation by viewing the process of thinking itself as a waterfall, a continual cascading of thought. He says, “In cultivating mindfulness, we are going beyond or behind our thinking, much the way you might find a vantage point in a cave or depression in the rock behind a waterfall. We still see and hear the water, but we are out of the torrent.”

Managers should make time for regular meditation. Kaye explains it as a stress prevention activity that allows us to go home from work feeling buoyant instead of wiped out. He says, “Instead of worrying about the stressful situations waiting for us tomorrow, we have the confidence that we will be able to respond to them in a positive way.”

Open your “big mind”

In Zen there is the “small mind,” akin to ego, that is the product of our life’s conditioning and our attachment to people, experiences, and material possessions. Zen also uses the term “big mind,” which emerges when our concerns turn from ourselves to others.

While a local government manager’s small mind may be concerned with authority, reputation, or the aggravation of some conflict, the big mind is clear, peaceful, and focused on helping the community achieve its goals.

While big mind is not typically in the manager’s lingo, seeing the “big picture” is, and there are many similarities. The big mind recognizes the interconnectedness of all things.

Kaye points out that seeing the big picture requires acknowledging the web of relationships and connections in an organization and throughout a community. Managers should pause on key decisions and consider whether their big mind or small mind is making the call—and adjust accordingly.

Tend your garden

The problems that barge into the office of local government executives tend to be the ones that are the most difficult, thorny, conflict-ridden, and emotion-laden. It makes sense, because any problems that could be dealt with at another level probably already have been. This can lead to the feeling of managing in wait of the next sucker punch.

But we create the imagery framework for ourselves. Kaye acknowledges that a stressful workplace can take on a hard, rocky feeling as if in “an endless desert of problems to overcome and goals to attain, always in danger of stubbing [your] toe.” By changing our perspective to be mindful, we change the work landscape.

By doing so, Kaye says that “Work [becomes] like a garden, with new and interesting shapes, textures, and fragrances at each turn.” At the local government executive level, we are good at solving problems. Let them just become shapes and textures that we tend to for the health and vigor of the overall garden.

Focus on “how” not “what”

Local government management should come with a warning label stating “actual results may vary.” While managers do not often control a particular result, we do control our effort.

Author Suzuki says, “The most important point in our practice is to have right or perfect effort,” rather than the perfect outcome. Right effort includes a mindful awareness and carrying out responsibilities in a Zen-like manner—with sincerity, deep listening and understanding, and compassion whether we are meeting with staff, elected officials, or the community.

Jeon writes, “It is not what you do but rather how you are while you do it that creates happiness and meaning.” This may seem to run counter to government’s data-driven focus on results. However, with a focus on “the how,” the results take care of themselves.

Show yourself compassion

Compassion is a key part of Zen as it is based in an understanding of the true nature of our lives. But we can’t build compassion for others until we have it for ourselves.

Kaye writes this is different from self-pity. Instead, it means we have an internal awareness and a desire to take care of ourselves by doing such things as taking vacations, enjoying our families, and making time for meditation and exercise.

Compassion for ourselves, says Jeon, softens our stance on others. We can recognize our judgments and shortcomings and be more forgiving when we see them appear in others. He writes, “We do not take it personally, because we understand. We’ve been there.”

The above strategies may be useful for those in local government who are still trying to dry off from the rogue waves of the Great Recession. As managers in these uncertain and stressful times, finding the Zen of work may be a clear path to rediscovering the joy.

After all, like Zen, working to build strong communities is inherently meaningful, powerful, and rewarding.