Two Examples of the Power of Calm

A truly skilled leader exudes a kind of calm in the swirl and uncertainty which influences everyone around.  

An acquaintance told me about a business conference he attended a few years ago. The audience had gathered in one of those big hotel ballrooms. The crowd noisily bantered while waiting for the session to begin.

A Buddhist monk entered the room and sat down on a stool at the front.  He said nothing.  He was motionless. He was a picture of calm alertness.

After a few moments a calm spread through the room.  The monk remained silent for 10 full minutes.  

No one spoke. My acquaintance said you could have heard a pin drop.

The entire room was electric with anticipation by the end of the ten minutes. Every ear was listening, attuned. “I can remember thinking I should make my breathing very quiet,” he told me. Everyone was primed to hear what the monk would say.

There is power in silence. Power in the state of calm.

A related story that Peter Drucker shares in his introduction to “The Effective Executive”:

“Alred Sloan headed General Motors from the 1920’s until the 1950’s.  He spent most of six working days a week in meetings — three days a week in formal committee meetings with a set membership, the other three days in ad hoc meetings with individual GM executives or with a small group of executives.  At the beginning of a formal meeting, Sloan announced the meetings’s purpose.  He then listened.  He never took notes and he rarely spoke except to clarify a confusing point.  At the end he summed up, thanked the participants, and left.  Then he immediately wrote a short memo addressed to one attendee of the meeting.  In that note, he summarized the discussion and its conclusion and spelled out any work assignment decided upon in the meeting (including a decision to hold another meeting on the subject or to study an issue).  He specified the deadline and the executive who was to be accountable for the assignment. He sent a copy of the memo to everyone who’d been present at the meeting. It was through these memos — each a small masterpiece — that Sloan made himself into an outstandingly effective executive.”

It’s not hard to imagine Sloan’s calm, nearly silent demeanor in these meetings having a profound influence on the seriousness and depth of the discussion.