I had this employee, let’s call him Glen, who just couldn’t get it together and stop making mistakes. I tried everything — I taught him, nurtured him, scolded him, guilted him, spelled-out the consequences of his mistakes, warned him — but still, every assignment he turned in was filled with errors . I WAS FRUSTRATED BEYOND BELIEF. Glen was a smart guy, he seemed pretty normal, with the skills of other opposable thumbed creatures, so how, HOW, was it possible that his attention to detail could be so bad ??? What in the heck am I supposed to do about it now???

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Interjection: For all of you  that read the above paragraph and thought, “well duh..of course you are frustrated” or “Glen is a screw-up, you have every right to be upset with him, do what you must” or some other version of,  “my feelings are Glen’s fault and my reaction based on those feelings is reasonable” — this blog is for you!  After the story I will address the issue of how I separate my feelings, or ‘Inside Voice’,  from my roles and responsibilities in the outside world,  aka my ‘Outside Voice’.

I have learned that separating the Inside Voice from my beliefs about outside roles is critical for practice. Without doing this its sooo easy to fall into the trap of blaming my outside roles and responsibilities for my wrong views instead of fixing the views and, by fixing them, having a much clearer sense of how to perform real world duties. If I had just said there is nothing wrong with me, with my frustration, Glen really is a screw-up and it is my duty to fix it,  I would have had all the suffering of my frustration, I would have allowed that frustration to dictate my actions (likely firing Glen),  and then felt guilty, always wondering if I had made the right decision, since I fired Glen in a fit of frustration.  Game over, no one wins… So back to the story…

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First off, whenever I am  truly surprised I know there is a wrong view lurking. I believe something about the world is true in all cases, which is impossible. So,  why couldn’t I believe a smart, normal, human could be detail challenged? I have met lots of absent minded professor types, I have a donor at work who fits the profile –so smart, so nice, so generous, but he can’t remember start times, can’t find concert tickets, doesn’t even know what day it is. I like him just fine… so, is it  really all humans I think need to be attentive to details, or just my employees?

Was it because he was hired to do an administrative job and really I thought all Admins had to be detail oriented? I am detail oriented after all, I hired him, I know what I was looking for, why wasn’t he what I expected? Why wasn’t he like me? Or maybe he was…

Flashback moment… For many years I took piano lessons. I  went to class consistently, I practiced on my little keyboard, I did my homework, I wanted to learn. I think I am a smart and normal human, I definitely have an opposable thumb — but I am a horrible piano player. Sure I improved a little over time, but really, for all my effort, I just sucked. So why can’t I believe that someone else would have something they also sucked at? I was a piano student who sucked at piano. My Admin was an Admin that sucked at detail oriented administrative work. Is this really so impossible? Should I be totally surprised? Upset?

I remember too, my piano teacher didn’t suck. She played well, she was attentive and instructive. I heard some of her other students play and they sounded fine. But, despite all she did to help me, I remained a terrible pianist. I wonder if she was as frustrated with me as I was with Glen. Or, if she saw the truth — no matter what you do, you can’t control other people, you can’t make them something they are not. Those people are not yours, they are not under your power. Sure you can provide guidance, you can give feedback, you can discipline and teach. But in the end,  you can’t make a terrible piano player into a concert pianist and you can’t make a non-detail oriented person into someone detail oriented. At most we can be a factor in someone’s success or failure, it’s not like we are an ultimate cause.

In fact, for as much as I saw myself as a hero trying to ‘fix’ my broken employee. I played a starring  role contributing to the problem in the first place…I hired Glen after all. Glen was my first hire, my first employee, I had no idea what I was doing. I knew what I was looking for (someone detail oriented  like me) but when I look back at the interview questions that I wrote, they were terrible indicators that someone had the skills I was looking for. Glen may have sucked as my Admin, but I sorta sucked as a Manager too…

And now it’s time for another later addition, an insert that doesn’t really follow the timeline of my practice, but which provides extra information I want to highlight. Here I want to talk about a technique (not KPY sanctioned, I came-up with this one on my own),  I call:

Separate the Inside Voice from the Outside Voice:

In this world, we all have duties, we have roles that we have to play.  I  play boss, employee, spouse, daughter, sister, student, customer, patient,  etc.. when I interact with folks outside my own head, I use what I call my Outside Voices. I really try to use my very best outside voice possible — basically because I have noticed that when my outside voice  (words, tones, intensity, timing, actions) is wrong for a situation it can get ugly fast. FYI If you are interested in some more details of a helpful outside voice guideline the Buddha gave us called the Sappurisa Dhamma you can check-out LP Anan’s class: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re9E0G7IsWw&index=2&list=PLVuzoIVk88hhgIMzqmf4sNdoPlULI5DMX

I also have an Inside Voice. This is the understanding that I have of a situation in my head/heart. If I have right views then my inside voice is correct, it is aligned with the true nature of this world (the Dharma). If I have wrong views that inside voice is dead wrong, it sees permanence in a world that is always changing.

The critical thing to realize is that the way we ‘play’ in the outside world, our Outside Voice, does not always have to say what our Inside Voice believes. On some level, I think we all know this. For example, when a store clerk asks how my day is, I say “good” or “fine”; even if it’s a terrible day; it’s really not appropriate to spill my problems to the store clerk after all. Guys out there…when you have already left the house, you’re stepping into an event, and your gal suddenly whispers, “do I look fat in this dress?”, there really is only one right answer no matter how she looks.

By extension, even if we correct our Inside Voice, really see the impermanence and the places we are at fault in a situation, it doesn’t mean we suddenly stop fulfilling our roles in the outside world …its not like we can say, huh I can’t ultimately control my teenager so I won’t bother to punish them for sneaking-out at night. Or, I know this patient of mine will live or die based on their karma, so I’m not going to bother giving them medicine.  Or I was the one who hired this person, that was my mistake, now I am stuck with them no matter how much they mess-up or cost the company. This would be ridiculous and ultimately, the clearer my views become, the more naturally correct behavior comes anyway…

It really was a huge ah-ha moment when I understood that just because I have a duty to manage my employee it does not mean,  in my heart, I need to be upset by their work quality. Even if given the situation it is appropriate  to scold them, fire them, (sometimes for some folks to yell at them), it doesn’t mean I need to be angry, hurt, disappointed, etc. inside my heart.

In the end, I fired Glen. I put him on a performance plan first, tried to support him in correcting his mistakes, but when I felt like I had exhausted all my options, I let him go. I did it with a clear heart as well. By correcting my wrong views I was no longer so frustrated, I saw the role I played in the events and I saw what role (changing Glen) I ultimately couldn’t play. I learned from my mistakes too.. It took a few more hires, I’ll admit, but  I started to change my interview tactics, changed the background checks,  I refined the training I provided, the feedback I gave, etc.