The Hard Truth About Softness V1.2

After some personal musings on softness in conjunction with T’ai Chi Chih practice, I found myself thinking and writing about a softer world. My curious mind was compelled to play with juxtaposing Justin’s teachings and the non-TCC enriched world: “Softness proves more durable than hardness. Assertiveness takes a back seat to gentle firmness. Overtly the sage does nothing, and, thereby all things are accomplished.”

Over time I developed a growing sense – that with corporations and government having clearly demonstrated their susceptibility to faulty thinking and the generation of hardness, superficiality and discontent – that there is an underlying build-up of pressure, of potential energy in the form of softness waiting to be released. Maybe the recent economic crises are part of this tectonic change and will serve to increase awareness and motivation for change. And I thought: will the natural evolution of TCC become the pressure relief valve, the inflection point of positive change?

Having spent a career as a corporate executive, my experience is that “softness” is not a term yet at the top of any business or government list of desirable descriptions. And yet business commonly refers to the “hard” skills and “soft” skills of people. In the world of work, hard skills are the functional abilities related to doing a specific job like developing spreadsheets and operating machinery. By contrast, soft skills (also called people skills) are typically hard to observe, quantify and measure. Soft skills are needed for everyday life as much as they’re needed for work. They have to do with how people relate to each other: communicating, listening, engaging in dialogue, giving feedback, cooperating as a team member, solving problems, contributing in meetings and resolving conflict. My sense is that the practice of TCC would likely enhance these skills as Justin writes: “our attitudes change and we become soft like the bamboo rather than hard like the oak.”

I have come to appreciate that we all likely have both a hard and soft nature within us that could be described as yin and yang. These can become part of our personality, emotional make-up and way of being. And they’re affected when our Chi is out of balance. So what’s the hard truth about softness in business? In my experience, problems rarely stem from a shortfall in technical or professional expertise, rather from a shortcoming in the soft skills with social, communication and self-management behaviors. It is as Justin has said: “the soft water wears away the hard rock.” It’s softness that can make or break a career, positively impact the world and have a dramatic effect on our joy as humans. Imagine a world where all its leaders practiced TCC.

I was intrigued by the recent re-print of Justin Stone’s 1985 Vital Force article, “The Essence of T’ai Chi Chih.” He states, “With the accumulation of Chi through TCC practice, permanent changes in the metabolism take place, and the renewed energy conditions the whole way of life. Just as thought conditions the Vital Force, so does the flow of chi condition the way of thinking. As these changes occur, we get in touch with ourselves and the world we see begins to change. Joy becomes our natural heritage.”

For me, the world today requires that we reevaluate, rethink and relearn the way we work and live. The power of the mind to regularly engage in self-analysis will increasingly determine the quality of the outcomes of our work and the joy in our life. There is a degree of humility required to take an honest self-assessment of areas that need improvement, especially since these are generally not the aspects towards which we naturally gravitate. Reading Justin’s writings and based on my own experience after regular practice for the last year, it seems that TCC, with its emphasis on softness, continuity and ability to influence “habit patterns” could be called a soft skill that can make quite a meaningful difference in balancing the hardness of our lives.