Power Without Force is Greater than Force with Power

You'll never guess who guides businesses

This man provides leadership coaching to enormous clients. Mattel, Capital Group, Salesforce. Business schools, health care providers, universities. Many large and diverse organizations.

His credentials?

David Whyte

He’s a poet.

Excuse me?

Away From Boardrooms

These images of David (and the lake) are from a guided hiking trip in the Lake District of England. It’s an amazing place. Warm and welcoming in villages and streets, rugged and demanding for hikers in the hills. 

Many Americans are unaware of the Lake District

David led the hikes physically and, if I could be so bold, spiritually.

The days and evenings were filled, while also feeling slow. Seemingly a contradiction.

I was attentive in a way that I’ve not frequently experienced. I love hiking and getting out in nature. I’ve been in many serene places, quite literally thousands of times over the years.

This was different. The group’s experiences were different. Being immersed in a unique intellectual climate seemed to allow contemplation and action to coexist in a way they normally do not.

Poetry has never been my thing

I have childhood friends who are skilled poets. I’ve always wanted to connect with their work because they’re life-long friends. I felt bad that I didn’t.

But I didn’t connect with the material, despite several attempts at different stages in life. I now realize why.

I’ve always moved through the world so quickly in whatever I do, poems never had a chance. I move fast. Think fast. Act fast. If I describe it kindly, I’ll say I have a “strong bias for action”. Rushing through poetry doesn’t work, it turns out. Who knew? Might as well not bother. And as a rule, I haven’t.

But things were different on this occasion.

David brings a firm, quiet power to his work and his events. And he made things available to me in a way that others have not. He did this in two ways. His poetry is accessible, with themes that don’t require a lot of interpretation. However, they have a lot to say.

And his oratory approach delivers a strong gravitational pull toward his concepts. It invites attentiveness and contemplation. During a recitation he will frequently, with dulcet intensity:

—

speak a section of the work.

pause.

repeat selected, just-delivered lines of the poem.

pause again.

repeat lines again.

continue through the work.

and perhaps deliver the entire poem again, similarly.

—

And then. People hear the words. Feel them. You can see it as you glance around the room. People take the words in deeply, absorb them, almost as their own.

For a change, I heard and felt also.

What happens next is even more powerful than the moment itself. People see implications of the poems in their own lives, or the lives of people they know, and many of them make changes. They become attentive and connected in a deeper way. Very frequently they are called to action. They Do Things in response.

This is one form of Power Without Force.

During and after my experiences with David, my own contemplations and connections have led to several evolutions for me. Some of these are deeply personal, which I may or may not reveal over time. Others I’m happy to share.

One specific new action is the beginning of these newsletters. Maybe you’ll consider Mr. Whyte to be an agent of the Wrong Kind of Change in this instance! I’ll let you blame him directly if you like.

Here’s another specific thing. I now can read poetry for the first time. I’m able to read differently. It’s not that I’ve completely changed my personality. Not at all. Most of the time I’m still quicker than quick. However, it’s no longer a compulsory behavior when I read poetry or anything else. I’ve added an ability.

Businesses and Organizations

David Whyte moves people, and groups of people, from an elevated, enlightened perspective.  Positive changes result, which is why he gets hired.

At the highest level, there’s this. When people are connected, to themselves and to others, they Do Things. Connected people get things done. Sometimes the things are amazing.

Disconnected people don’t do much. Nope. They do very little. Disconnected people float around, avoid uncomfortable things, and frequently hide. They may cover themselves with the clothing of busyness as a hiding technique. They might do useful things intermittently out of fear, if they feel they can’t escape any other way. But as a group, they’d rather hide. Disconnected people engage in quiet quitting.

Can businesses truly connect?

Here’s the thing.

“Leadership” styles have frequently relied on force as a primary component. Many still do. My way or the highway. Perhaps you know current leaders who routinely berate and apply force to their teams, as Steve Jobs did. In college football Woody Hayes was a brute force icon of the past, and his coaching style had plenty of company. Woody’s style has been overwhelmed by superior methods over time. It’s not gone, but it’s a dying breed.

In many businesses the breed isn’t dying as quickly. Brute force is still chugging along and getting rewarded. As one example, you may have worked for companies that “grow” purely by making acquisitions, jamming organizations together, firing people, and using accounting rules to make it look good. This can be done without any leadership skills if they choose the right targets and do it frequently. That sort of brute force tactic is usually celebrated by investors, and it may persist for quite some time, at least as long as the rules do.

Beyond that type of force, there are still plenty of tops-down houses of misery that make money. Organizations whose leaders employ many thousands of disconnected workers (we don’t even call them people). They lose when pitted head-to-head against better leadership, just about every time, just like Woody eventually did. But often these leaders don’t face sufficient competitive threats to consider change. Many of them face each other. So far.

However, there are indeed better ways to be successful. If you are lucky or determined, you may have also experienced better places.

People can lead companies to great heights financially and soulfully. Not as a balance or tradeoff between the two, but as concurrent ways of being. Ways where everyone involved is, well, involved. Connected places, where people create financial success and also sleep well at the end of each day.

And at the End of their Days.

David Whyte is an agent for this elevated way of being. And the world is better for it.

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Next week, another powerful and soulful person you’ll want to see and meet.

Until then…