‘師 Shi’ is actually a grouping of an army. In the time of Zhou, one ‘shi’ had about 2500 men, roughly equivalent to a Brigade of the modern army. From a business point of view, it can represent a large organization. In essence, it means a mass of people and resources. Its teaching is about how to manage and mobilize a mass of people to accomplish a mission. It is about leadership and management. See Learning from I-Ching 19臨 Approaching – Leadership too.
Description:
- 贞: uprightness and integrity
- 丈人: respected elders of good moral character and wisdom.
- 吉: Goodness
- 无咎: no faults; no blame.
The textual commentary said that ‘shi’ is about a mass of people. One must be upright so that the people following can also be upright therefore paving the way for one to be a king. Because of righteousness and justice, we can safely go through danger. With such leadership, the people will follow. It is good and there is no blame.
The pictorial commentary, as usual, is the punch line: a wise man is able to gather the people, get their support, and build them up. It is also about building support and rapport among people to be used at the right time. This is true about great leadership. Leadership is about the influence you have on other people to follow you – your vision, values, character, and motivating others.
Moral Teaching: Leadership & Management
The teaching is about how we can mobilize lots of people and resources to accomplish a mission. It is therefore about leadership and management of a large organization.
Leadership is about the setting mission, vision, strategies, and motivations.
Management is about the execution of the strategies to accomplish the vision in the best possible ways – minimum cost, minimum time, and maximum impact. Management is about the organization selecting talents and delegating work. All these are covered in this hexagram.
Management books like to differentiate leadership and management. Leadership is about doing the right things and management is about doing things rightly. The best leader should have both qualities. This is covered in this hexagram. The 19臨 Approaching hexagram teaches leading with integrity and love. For punishment, see 21噬嗑 Biting –Punishment.
Stage 1 Begin Six: Mobilization of large forces required order. Having no discipline is dangerous.
Getting a mass of people to move together to accomplish a common mission requires more than just a shared mission, but also a framework or methods to create focus, alignment, clear communications, motivations, and then discipline. One may jump too quickly into the discipline of punishment. Here emphasizes that “laws and order’ must come first before discipline.
The important step before discipline is to set clear expectations and make sure they are understood. The leader must explain what the mission is, how we are going to accomplish it, what it looks like when we are doing the right thing, how we can tell when are doing wrong, and what the consequences will be if we do not follow. This person being ‘punished’ must know why, what was wrong, and more importantly what is the correct thing to do, in order to improve. Discipline is ‘punishing’ a wrong to ensure we can learn the right thing to do in the future. Discipline is future-oriented. Punishment in past oriented – for the past offense. It tells the punished what not to do. It does not tell the punished what are the right things to do. Punishment without understanding why only creates rebellion for the future when one is stronger. Set clear expectations, rules, and boundaries first before one punishes.
The second part is the exercise of discipline in the form of punishment. The best teacher is the consequence of one choice and action. When we have already established the rules and the consequences for breaking rules, then if someone breaks them, the consequences must be executed.
In parenting, most parents, out of misguided love, tend to save the child from the consequences of the violation, resulting in a wayward youth. A typical example is having dinner at the right time. The mother threatens the playful child to come for dinner now or else he will have to go without it. The child happily ignores the mother and hours later when hunger strikes, he asks the mom for food. What should the mom do? Feed the child or let the child go hungry? Feeding the child now is not an act of love but of evil. Doing so tells the child the mom’s instructions need not be followed – just empty threats. Worse, he thinks he is the boss and can do things any way he likes. The right thing to do is to let the child suffer hunger until breakfast the next day. The consequence of hunger will teach the child to understand the need to take responsibility for his choice. He will grow up to know how to make better decisions and be a responsible person.
In summary, set clear expectations and execute the consequences for any deviation.
Stage 2 Second-Nine: Managing the People with uprightness and justice is good and without blame. The top (original: King) gives 3 additional missions.
The pictorial commentary added that the top takes notice of and likes you. Your vision must be extended to include more territories (original: to contain many countries. Go Global!).
We don’t have to think of just geographical territories. It is the scope of work that needs to be extended and the vision needs to be higher and greater. You are actually doing quite well and hence the assignment of more challenging things for your potential promotion.
Stage 3 Third Six: Carrying back truckloads of casualties. Bad.
Maybe we over-extended ourselves and have taken up challenges beyond us. Now we suffer lots of losses. We may have neglected the wisdom from other Hexagrams like being humble, getting mentors, building relationships, etc. But all is not lost. Let’s see the next stage.
Stage 4 Fourth Six: Withdrawal and re-grouping. No blame.
Taking a step backward to re-organize is important. Back to establish a base to start again. This time with greater wisdom. Don’t let one failure defeat you. Nevertheless, don’t fool hardly charge ahead and do exactly the same thing that leads to your defeat. Learned from the mistakes, seek wisdom from others, and then move ahead again. Einstein said, “Foolishness is doing the same thing again and expecting a different result”. That will only happen if the situation has a structural change.
Stage 5 Fifth Six: Opportunities arise with resources available, good to put the upright principles learned into practice to gain the advantages (Literally: There are animals in the fields, good for executing the upright principles, no-fault). The elder son commands a great army but the younger son trucked back loads of causalities.
The pictorial commentary gives additional advice on how and why things work. The literal translation is ‘Elder Son commands a great army because he manages with uprightness and fairness. Younger Brother trucked back loads of casualties because he managed wrongly – some translation added that he uses the wrong people – people without moral character.
The teaching here is to recruit and appoint people with wisdom and integrity – good moral characters into your management circle. Integrity requires honesty and the capability to deliver the promises he made. Either honesty or capability is no good. Honesty without capability is useless. Capability without honesty is dangerous and will cause great harm. Honesty is the foundation where capability can be built. Getting the right people and assigning them the right jobs with the right practices, especially of integrity, will accomplish well.
Stage 6 Top Six: The King sends out an order to reward the people who contribute to nation-building. Don’t use ‘little’ (inferior) people.
The pictorial commentary added the ‘little’ people will cause confusion for the nation.
Here we have the reminder to reward those who contribute and a reminder not to use ‘little’ people. Rewards can come in different forms – money, the share of ownership, promotion, etc. The key is to share the gains. There is a tendency to over-reward the few top people and not to pass down the line.
There is a need to differentiate intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic Motivation does not take a lot of money. It is more of a heartfelt show of appreciation and acceptance. We can celebrate success with many people together without spending too much. Go by the affordability of the company. For a start-up, there need to be frequent celebrations of successes and progress (reaching a milestone, fixing a key bug of software, and getting an investor or a good staff are all causes for celebration, not just winning customer contracts). As the company grows bigger, please remember to distribute the profits down the line as well. It is the ecosystem of the community, the culture, not just the leadership alone, that produces sustainable successes and growth.
What is the ‘little'(Inferior) man?
Confucius 论语 has many teachings about the difference between the ‘superior man’ and ‘little man’. Here are some sayings and explanations:
- 君子周而不比，小人比而不周。Wise men unite and not collude; Little men collude but do not unite. (the next saying will this even clearer).
- 君子和而不同，小人同而不和。Wise men work harmoniously together even though they are different; Little men will follow one another but not harmonious.
- 君子怀德 小人怀土 君子怀刑 小人怀惠 Wise men are concerned about righteousness and respect for the laws, Little men are concerned about their own interests and benefits.
- 君子成人之美，不成人之恶。小人反是。Wise men help do good things for others; don’t help people to do evil. Little men are the opposite.
- 君子坦荡荡,小人长(常)戚戚. Wise men have peace all the time whereas Little men have constant worries.
- 小人不擅于做，而擅于说 Little men are not good at doing but good at talking only.
- 君子喻于义，小人喻于利 Wise men focus on righteousness whereas Little men focus on benefits (for self)
- 君子求诸己，小人求诸人。 Wise men demand of themselves whereas little men make demands on others
So we can see that ‘little'(inferior) man focuses narrowly on himself, and his own benefits at the expense of righteousness, and the benefits of others. Using them will only result in internal strife and confusion and bring down the organization.
Summary:
Leadership and Management Skills are needed to mobilize and run a large organization of people. The basic qualities of leaders and managers are the character of uprightness and integrity and the wisdom of elders. Leaders lead with vision and shared mission and motivations. Managers execute with discipline, selection, and development of talents, and delegation of authority and tasks.
The stage lines further add the following:
- Establish policies and Have Discipline.
- Manage with clear Policies, Justice, and Fairness
- Be Cautious. The wrong move can bring big losses
- Learn from Failures. Re-group and start.
- Uprightness is the best policy
- Rewards the Contributors. Don’t use ‘little men’ (selfish, self-centered)
Comparing #7 Army and #19 Approach Leadership Styles
If you compare this #7師 Army Leadership with 19臨 Approaching Leadership, you will find that #7 Army is more autocratic and pushy kind with laws and orders, whereas the #19 Approach is more authoritative, drawing, coaching, and encouraging kind. Both leaders are built on a foundation of integrity. Both should work together, The #19 Approach kind for smaller groups and then linked up to form a large group with #7 Army kind of leadership. Both leadership styles have their danger, The #7 Army tends to be too task-oriented, going overboard to get rebellion and the #19 Approach tends to be too loving to spoil the people. These dangers are warned and advised in the six lines of wisdom.
Lim Liat (c) 2/1/2010
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