A boss forwards an e-mail
a one word question:
“Thoughts?”
Oh sweet genius minimalist leadership!
Can it ever substance yield?

No.
Vacuous answers fill the net.
Nothing of real thought in this haul.
Just regurgitated ideas in different clothes
But no one chooses to notice.
They believe they have touched
the face of innovative greatness,
the holy grail that is ‘disruption’.

Self-congratulation, back-slaps
high-fives all round.
Yet if all yearn to be disruptive,
no one really is
except the person standing still
saying nothing, not disturbing,
just observing.
Listening and thinking.
In silence.

Businesses inwardly focussed
drown in self-inflicted noise.
In meetings talk is everything.
The person who just listens?
A penalised non-contributor.

Noise is self-aggrandising.
Attention-grabbing.
The Big Me.
The talker spouts hyperbole
"There's no I in TEAM!"
Re-arranging the letters,
the listener smiles.
"Look AT ME",
the talker's real words.

The listener,
the true disrupter at work.
Ears open, mind observing, mouth shut.
Ignoring the smorgasbord
of finger-pointing and lime-light hunting
going on around her.
Intently focussed
on what needs to be done.
Doing it.

Noise shouts self-importance.
Silence finds wonder in insignificance.
Noise stays shallow on the shoreline.
Silence dives deep into the unbounded ocean of thought
and finds a beautiful stream of creativity,
the path to profound understanding.

No limits exist in silence's depths
just an awesome mind-expanding flow
where thoughts are wondrous fluidity.
Synapses spark and draw connections.
New ideas explode with energy.
A crystal level of consciousness
blocks out all in diamond clarity.

When that level is reached,
you are at ease in your world.
your breathing smooths.
Life is pure synchronicity
and the limits of humanity expand.
All it takes
is a moment’s silence.