I promised to blog more about Orbiting the Giant Hairball, by Gordon MacKenzie, so here goes. The penultimate chapter in the book is titled “Pool Hall Dog.” MacKenzie describes a scene he witnessed in a pool hall where a playful dog would actually reach his mouth into the pool table to grab a ball (ostensibly to play with). Once he had a grip on the ball, however, he couldn’t remove his mouth from within the pool table. He would just stand there, tail wagging, waiting to begin his play with his newfound prize. The lesson for Mackenzie (and one I resonate with) was about letting go. This is from page 216:

If we do not let go, we make prisoners of ourselves.

To be fully free to create, we must find the courage and willingness to let go:

Let go of the strategies that have worked for us in the past…
Let go of our biases, the foundation of our illusions…
Let go of our grievances, the root source of our victimhood…
Let go of our so-often-denied fear of being found unlovable.

You will find it is not a one-shot deal, this letting go. You must do it again and again. It’s kind of like breathing. You can’t breathe just once. Try it: Breathe just once. You’ll pass out.

If you stop letting go, your creative spirit will pass out.

Now when I say let go, I do not mean reject. Because when you let go of something, it will still be there for you when you need it. But because you have stopped clinging, you will have freed yourself up to tap into other possibilities—possibilities that can help you deal with the world of accelerating change.

This is deep stuff. It’s a little bit spiritual, if you ask me. But I think it is also down-to-earth practical and relevant in organizations. That last sentence nails it. We live in a world of accelerating change, yet the model we were fed growing up (during the slow change days) pushed the goal of narrowing things down, finding the singular answer, being right, winning. That model encourages holding on, not letting go. That’s why it is hard to let go of strategies that have worked (but I won with this; it’s a best practice!!). Remember, letting go is not rejecting. You still may pursue that winning strategy for a bit longer, but you can make that choice within a sea of options, rather than merely doing a limited scan of possible challengers to your winner.

So letting go is not about giving up or being without. It is more a question of opening up to possibilities. And opening up will make you faster, more agile, more creative. That’s the paradox. Letting go of your need to be “right” all the time will actually help you be right more often. Letting go of the grievances you have against your boss, or your employee, or your Board member who is not leading/following/working properly, will actually help you see more clearly what YOU need to do about it. Remember, you’re not ignoring the problem, you are simply releasing that righteous clinging you’ve attached to the problem. Try it on some relatively small issues at work, and see what happens.