Asakura Clan House Code - Law #14 | Part 14 of 17 Article Series

ORIGINAL TEXT:

Three times a year, select men of ability and honesty, and send them on inspection tours of the province. They must listen to the views of the common people and farmers, and collect information concerning incidences of misgovernment. It will also be advisable for you yourself to go on an inspection tour, provided you wear a light disguise.

MODERN INTERPRETATION:

You must know what’s really happening in your “Clan” to truly take care of it, and don’t expect even good people to always tell you the truth.  Stay connected to “what is” even when you don’t want to believe it.

Leaders: GET OUT of your IVORY TOWER!!!

How can you be a leader if you live your life in your “Ivory Tower?”  Living in your expensive castle enjoying the fruits of your labour doesn’t help keep you in touch with your people. You’ll have no idea how your people, the ones that KEEP you in power, are living, feeling, and thinking unless you get OUT of your well-protected, sheltered environment and SEEK THE TRUTH!

Ignorance is NOT bliss when you’re a Leader

You must experience the lives of your teammates.  You must know them, feel them, understand them, relate with them.  You must listen to them, know their thoughts and beliefs, know what they care about, what they hate, what they love, who they fear, what they need to have a better life.

Compassionately Expect & Understand Dishonesty

A leader often finds that as their level of respect from their team rises, their team’s level of frank openness and honesty falls.  Often, the team doesn’t want to say the wrong thing around you because they value your relationship, don’t want to upset you and make you dislike them or devalue your relationship with them.  So, teammates will keep minor emotional frustrations and disagreements inside them, until they rise to a boiling point, and usually get communicated in a volatile fashion.

Lying to a Leader is Often NOT a Sign of Dis-respect

A good leader must not take emotional outbursts from their team as a sign of disrespect, but actually, it’s complete opposite - the emotional outburst happened probably because the team member had been keeping it in for some time, and it was allowed to grow and fester.  

What about a Culture of Radical Transparency ie. Ray Dalio / Bridgewater?

Encouraging a culture of direct communication and radical transparency helps, but it can’t completely eliminate the human tendency to avoid sharing each and every single thought and feeling we have in our heads.

A good leader makes time to proactively communicate with the team, to get these bubbles of disharmony to rise up early, and deals with them while they’re still small.

A poor leader doesn’t even pay attention to them!  

What about High-Level Leaders? Warlords & CEOs

But let’s consider the point of view of a Samurai Clan leader, with THOUSANDS of people to consider.  There would be multiple layers of leadership and responsibility.

As a high level leader, one excellent way of maintaining a strong understanding of what’s really happening, is to gain such information in secret.  If you can manage to attain this information yourself, great, but likely you’ll need to utilize loyal and capable members of your close team to engage lower leadership and service ranks.  These loyal team members will have the task to go out and meet your Samurai retainers (“employees”), your customers, e.t.c. and ask questions of them which if you asked yourself, they would not answer truthfully.

A High Level Leader MUST Have a Close, Loyal, Able, TRUTH-SPEAKING Team

You must trust these loyal members of your team to actually communicate back to you what they’ve truly heard.  They must be able to give you an honest assessment of what’s really going on, what’s happening behind your back.  

A Leader Surrounded by “Yes-Men”

Having only “yes men” around you is the sign of a foolish and weak leader.  You want supporters who will tell you the truth even when you don’t want to hear it.  And you must ENCOURAGE the right people to tell you the truth, otherwise you’ll NEVER hear it. And if you never hear the truth, you can never effectively resolve all the little mini-problems out there that will eventually transform and grow into LARGE problems.

The Value of a Direct Friend

Many people say “I wish I had a friend who tells me like it is,” or “I really appreciate a friend who is willing to be direct and tell me the truth even when I hate to hear it.”

Surround yourself with such people, humble yourself to listen to what they have to say, and use this information to adapt and adjust accordingly.

NEXT ARTICLE IN THE SERIES: A PREVIEW

The next article, Law #15, is regarding the control and oversight of power.