[Vnbiz] Leadership -- Policy making

[Tran Dinh Hoanh]

Dear sister Bich Lien & CACC,

Thanks for the series of wonderful questions, sister.  They are truly good
questions.

Before answering your questions, please allow me to cover a couple of
important points:

1.  We talking about the art of living, the art of mastering our own heart.
After all, as Bich Lien said, you can't be a great leader with a great
heart. And when we are talking about art, we are talking about two things:
Practice and experience.  Logic and reasoning have some very limited role in
arts, not much at all.  Say, we can't play music by reading books and
arguing about music.  We just have practice, practice and practice again and
again everyday.  Talking is only a very limited way to communicate some
sketchy idea, but not a good way to understand, not mentioning master, an
art.

2. Art is creativity.  There is no absolute truth in art.  So, if I share my
experience and knowledge, that is my experience and knowledge.  Someone else
may come up with something else equally good or maybe better.

3.  Leadership involves exclusively dealing with people--yourself, your
employees, your citizens, your followers.   And we master the art of dealing
with other people by mastering the art of dealing with the person most
intimate to us first:  our Self.

We all can cite a lot of good characters we would like to see in a leader:
Caring, honesty, wisdom, loyalty, trustworthiness, etc.   They all are
good.  But if we should reduce them into one single thing to make it all
manageable, all the traditions I have studied, such as Confucianism,
Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, Christianity, Communism and New Age psychology,
teach one common thing:  The compassion for your fellow men (and women too
:-)

"Compassion" in my studies and experience is the mother virtue of them all.
>From compassion, other virtues will follow.  When you have compassion toward
someone, there is a great chance that you won't lie to him (honesty), won't
betray him (loyalty), won't treat him stupidly (wisdom), won't put him down
(respect).

All leaders, good or bad, are moved by the compassion for a group of people,
including Hitler and Polpot.  So the question is "How to have compassion in
a way that we do not fall into the trap of loving a group of people while
killing another group?"

After studying various tradition of the world, here is my assessmentt:
 Confucianism has become too rigid in formula and today has only theory
left.  If there is any ancient way of training, it has disappeared.  Taoism
is a very good philosophy but its ancient practice has all but
disappeared.  Islam, I haven't studied and practiced it well enough to
master its concepts. Communism is beautiful in theory but too divisive and
violent in practice.  New age psychology is too superficial, at least for
me.

I am more well versed in the teachings and practices of Jesus and the
Buddha, so I mention there names often.  But please keep in mind that when I
talk about Jesus and the Buddha, I have NO intention to talk about anything
religious.  I only talk about the methods of living and training the heart
of these two men.  (Please note:  And by "Jesus and the Buddha," I NEVER
mean anything about churches or temples because, in my experience, churches
and temples often ruin Jesus and Buddha teachings with their own petty
teachings and politics)

Both systems has two main things:

First, the practice of compassion in your daily life and activities

Second, the regular time of quietness (to pray like Jesus, or to meditate
like the Buddha).  As far as I am concerned, both praying and mediating are
the methods to calm the heart.  Pick whatever method you feel comfortable
with.  Or you may just want to be quiet and listen to classical music.  That
may work too.  But I realize that your regular quiet time every day is a
crucial part of the practice.

When the heart is calm, it will have capacity to be compassionate and will
see better.

You can try other systems or create your own system, if it works for you.

In the following I will highlight chi Bich Lien's questions.

What I find fascinating in Sis. Bich Lien's first question is  *"Any one in
this forum can share good/reliable literature on the topic so that we all
can learn how to deal with our hearts the right way?   What I mean is the
knowledge that has been achieved through high quality researches and studies
instead of personal/individual experience?"*  Now, this is truly
fascinating.  What do you mean by "high quality researches and studies"?
 Say, Jesus and the Buddha teachings have been studied and practiced by
billions of people for more than 2000 years and are still practiced today by
many people around the world, including some of the most sophisticated minds
on the planet.  If that is not "high quality researches and studies" then I
don't know what would be.  You mean a bunch of PhDs writing a report?   If
there is such a PhD report, do you think that it will add anything to the
personal testimonies of millions of other people before them, many of whom
did have a lots of PhDs?

I myself, with my extreme logical mind, rejected these ancients method for
years, because I didn't like, and still don't like, any think religious, and
I mistakenly thought that they were religious.  But after trying many
things that didn't work, I decided to check out some ancient teachings that
had survived the test of time.

*Now to answer sis. Lien's "How?" question:* *  *In these two traditions, I
find these common requirements:

1.  We have to practice compassion in our *action* and *thinking* every day,
*always*.  Meaning, every day we have to do things that express the belief
that we have compassion for everyone.  When we spot ourself getting angry at
someone, we have to tell ourself, "I am angry at this man.  I should love
him instead."

2.  We have to learn to be compassionate to *real, concrete people*, not an
abstract concept.  Saying "I love my people" is very abstract;  saying "I
love my people, including this brother Thuy, sis Lien, this lousy noisy
neighbor Nhu, etc. is very concrete.

3.  We have to be compassionate to* ALL* people, including the bad guys, the
enemies, the opponents.


*Will it works?   *Of course, it works.  But as anything in life, when you
do things the best way, your chance of success increases, but you still may
fail.  Success depends on many different factors, including the
uncontrollable factors that we call "luck."  Like driving, if you study
driving well, you may have a bigger chance of being safe on the street, but
you still may have an accident nonetheless.  There is no warranty of
absolute success.

President Ho Chi Minh is a great leader and very compassionate to his
people.  But he still made the big mistake on the land reform movement,
because, first, even great men make mistake (The only kind of man that
doesn't make mistake is dead man).  Second, Ho Chi Minh committed the
mistake of loving the *abstract* concept (of a world of equality) and not
paying sufficient attention to the *concrete* (the pain and suffering of *real
people* who were dau to in front of him).  Third, Communism itself is very
divisive:  It classifies the nation into different classes and one class may
be taught to treat another class as enemy.  Communism has a lot of passion
and fire (which I love), but it is NOT compassion for ALL.

The concept of compassion for ALL is important, because it allows us to do
what we have to do (say, putting a criminal in jail) but doing it with
compassion (say, a jail that is a good educational and rehabilitation
environment to help the prisoner grow in wisdom and goodness,  not a living
hell).  When we don't have compassion for all, we can fall easily to the
mental trap of being ultra-good to one group of people while mistreating
another group of people.

And we have to value the *concrete* over the *abstract*, otherwise we may
fall into the mental trap of serving an abstract goal (like, loving my
country) while bringing misery on many real people (say, torturing
anyone who may slow us down on that goal).  Real people count!

*Is it adequate to use "emotion" as a key factor to assess policy's impacts
on people's lives?*  I am not sure I understand this question.  It is too
abstract for me.  I am just telling the obvious truth in management:  The
more people are happy with you, the more you will be successful as a
leader.  Of course, someone is bound to be unhappy with your decision, but
if you try to reduce their unhappiness as much as you can (while still
moving toward your goal), that would be your best management solution.
Every single business man knows this principle very well. because if one of
your employees is upset, you still may survive, but if one third of your
employees are upset, you will definitely go under.

What I am saying is that when you do a policy you will have to know who will
be adversely impacted, and tried to lessen the adverse impact as much as you
can, because that is wise.  The problem is that policy makers usually are so
wrapped up in their goals and plans that sometimes they are blind to the
adverse impact on their people.  (Say, "Go to New Economic Zone,
period").    My solution is that if you train your heart to be very
sensitive to other people's difficulties and pain, chances are you will see
the problem clearer and won't be so blind.

Of course, in any public policy we always have the typical rational analysis
and calculation of economic, social and political efficiency, the
development goals, etc...But these rational calculations are only an
easy part of the plan.  The other crucial and difficult part is that the
people have to be happy with it, because all plans will fail if the people
don't support it in their heart, even if they pretend to support it in the
outside.  It is that simple.  And that is the part where the ability of the
leader to sense pain, hardship and discontent is crucial.  And that is what
really distinguishes a great leader from a mediocre leader.  Any group of
average specialists can come up with wonderful rational calculations and
plans.  One the real leader can see deep into the human heart to sense the
trouble from within.

*Just wonder how many among 300 thousand students are actually "suffering"?
Does one suffer when one intentionally cheat?  *Of course, you can do a
scientific research to find out if how many actually suffer and how much
they suffer.  The problem is that in many public policy settings, you as the
leader don't have the luxury of good research.  And even when you have a
research, no good research can replace the ability of a leader to sense
things.  Most great business and political successes come from the leader's
ability to see things that researchers cannot see.  So you just have to know
the answers yourself before you act, with or without the aid of a research.
I train my employees to spot unhappiness in a client even when the client
says nothing, and even when the client says, "Oh no, everything is OK."  You
have to be so sensitive to other people feelings that we will know when they
may be are unhappy.  That is how you beat all your competitors away.

Needless to say, one can assume that when you flunk the test you will
suffer.  And in Vietnam, where everyone has cheated just to pass the test,
flunking the test probably brings more pain and misery than in any other
part of the world.

The question *"Does one suffer when one intentionally cheat?"* is very
interesting.  Why do we keep sating that these flunking students are
cheating?  Does anyone see them cheating?  At least, THIS YEAR they didn't
cheat, otherwise they would have passed the test already.  "Non-cheaters"
would be a more accurate term to describe these flunking students.
But heree we have a big problem from the management point of view--the
politics of LABELING.

Say, during the dau to period, the landowners were labels "Dia chu" and
"Phan dong" and "boc lot nhan dan."  So if you were a landowner, you would
be stuck with these labels and everyone would treat you like you were an
animal that couldn't feel pain, or if you could feel pain, your pain didn't
count.  If we label the flunking students as "cheaters," we will
automatically block our mind from compassion, we can't feel their pain.
That is the danger of imprisoning our own mind by labels.  We need to keep
our heart so sensitive to other people's pain and happiness at all times, so
that we won't be blindsided and will be able to come up with the best policy
for everyone.  That is why training the heart to be COMPASSION for ALL is
such a critical element in leadership.

Great day, chi Bich Lien & all.  Wonderful probing questions, Bich Lien.
Thanks!

Hoanh


**
**

On 6/26/07, Bui Lien <lien.bb at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> [ Vietnam Business Forum ]
>
>
>
>  CACC and anh Hoanh,
> >
>
> I'm a little confused about these grand topics.
>
> You mentioned "training your hearts to be right".  I cannot agree more -
> it's likely impossible for one to become a great leader without a great
> heart.  My questions, however, are:
>
> - How to do it? (ie how to "train our hearts to be right")  With this
> question, I actually bypass another question of how to define "right" and
> "wrong" in this increasingly complicated world.  Apart from Buddhism, is
> there any other ideology that addresses this matter?  We all know that it's
> easier said than done (your message below made this point so clear - what
> matters is the means to achieve the goal).  Any one in this forum can share
> good/reliable literature on the topic so that we all can learn how to deal
> with our hearts the right way?  What I mean is the knowledge that has been
> achieved through high quality researches and studies instead of
> personal/individual experience.  I must say that Anh Craig has set a great
> example on this.  He has load of good info and is always willing to share it
> with those who are interested to learn.
>
> - Will it work? (assuming that a leader has a perfectly right heart, is
> this a guarantee that his/her citizens will not suffer from policies made
> under his/her leadership?)  Was Ho Chi Minh a great leader?  Did he have a
> compassionate heart?  And did land reform happen during his time?  Is it
> adequate to use "emotion" as a key factor to assess policy's impacts on
> people's lives?
>
> That comes to the next question that I'd like to ask.  When we discuss
> about the grand/complicated topic of "governance" or "management" or "quan
> ly nha nuoc" whatever you call it, what should be the right approach? When I
> say the "right approach" I mean an  approach that can shed lights on the
> problems we are facing.  Is emotion a sufficient solution for governance
> problems?
>
>
> You've mentioned the needs to have citizens voices/feedbacks on policies.
> I agree wholeheartedly.  But again, how to make make this works is a
> different story.  Experience from a number of "public participation" or
> "grassroots engagement" projects show us that sometime we need to rethink
> whether our definition of "people's needs" are actually what the people
> needs.  Plenty of examples are available, but I don't want to get into
> details here.
>
> I guess that no one would deny the bad quality that Vietnam education is
> delivering.  Just wonder how many among 300 thousand students are actually
> "suffering"?  Does one suffer when one intentionally cheat?  In other words,
> are the students suffering from the system, or are they reacting to the
> way the system is set?  Is there anyone who happen to know a good survey on
> pupils/students' perspective?  The example of pain caused by touching finger
> in boiling water is a close example.  But I guess that biology and politics
> are two different areas of sciences that may not always intertwined.
>
> Lien
>
>
>
>

-- 
Tran Dinh Hoanh, LLB, JD
Washington DC
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