Free The Hands-Off Manager by Steve Chandler

productivity, and turnover. The human system can only take so much fear before it cuts and runs.
    But what if success simply became the process of growing? The same sense of growth a flower feels as it reaches for the sun? Here you are in this moment: improving, evolving, and progressing. How does that feel?
    What if success were nothing more than the satisfaction you get right now from doing a little better than you did yesterday?
    As you learn hands-off management, you can return your future-addicted people to the present moment. You can show them that being in the here and now is not hard to do. It’s returning their focus to the one thing they are doing instead of “all the things I have to do to this week.” It’s taking them out of feeling swamped and overwhelmed and returning them to a time-management system that has them doing only one thing. Their consciousness is now being used to see what they can do to merely take the next step. It’s not straining to see what life will be like when they have finished everything or when they have more and more money in the bank. It’s helping them see what they can do to move forward one more step right now, in this moment, today.
    That’s the hands-off approach to managing life: Don’t do everything; just do the one good thing that’s next.
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The only difference between a problem and a solution is that people understand the solution.
    —Dorothea Brande
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    Laurel was rushing off from work to a night class when she said, “I don’t know why I’m taking these classes. I’m searching, I guess. I read everything I can get my hands on. I don’t know what I’ll do for a living in the long run, but I’m going to keep looking for it. And I’m going to keep studying, and I’m going to read all the books until I find it.”
    Laurel would be better off sitting alone in a dark and quiet room all by herself. As Pascal famously said, “All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.” Notice that he said “all.” Not some miseries. All.
    Why doesn’t Laurel see that she’s chasing something that’s already in her? Because the chasing keeps her from seeing. Try looking quietly into your own heart while you’re running across the street. All Laurel really has to do is sit in a quiet room alone. And sooner or later she will ask her innermost being, “What would I love to do?”
    People often say, “I’d love to go on vacation,” because it’s a place where they can let go of the chasing. It’s a place where they can stop attaching and adhering to their stressful thinking—where they can stop judging themselves, where they can close the door on self-critique and just relax and enjoy the moment and be entertained by life.
    The hands-off manager wants that “vacation mind” in the workplace. A workplace where you can incorporate relaxing and enjoying yourself, and allow what’s natural in you to come through.
    But wouldn’t that slow down productivity? Not at all; in fact, our experience has shown that the opposite is true.
    Steps to hands-off success in your life
    Three action steps to take after reading this chapter:
1. The next time you take a shower, stay in a little longer than normal just to observe how easily ideas are flowing to you from your right brain into your left. Relax in the warm harmonic of the water and the sensation that you are taking your own sweet time. Let yourself notice the connection between relaxation and letting go, and inspired ideas.
2. Have a meeting with a key player on your team and bring no agenda to the meeting. Simply ask her how life is going for her right now, how she’s feeling about her work, and what she sees as possible improvements in the work area. Let ideas rise to the surface.
3. Change the way you manage your time. Have only one item on your to-do list. Make the top page your to-do list for just today, and leave only one thing on it. Have the second page contain all the other tasks