Where has the wild goose flown?

On one occasion Ma-tsu and Po-chang were out for a walk, when they saw some wild geese flying past.

“What are they?” asked Ma-tsu.

“They’re wild geese,” said Po-chang.

“Where are they going?” demanded Ma-tsu.

Po-chang replied, “They’ve already flown away.”

Suddenly Ma-tsu grabbed Po-chang by the nose and twisted it so that he cried out in pain.

“How,” shouted Ma-tsu, “could they every have flown away?”

This was the moment of Po-chang’s awakening.

~ from The Way of Zen, Alan Watts

I used to work in various roles at a global I.T. consulting company. Like all jobs, sometimes it was interesting and sometimes it wasn’t. Every year I had an interview with my personnel manager who assessed feedback from my colleagues and gave me a bonus based on her appraisal of that feedback.

One year, halfway through the annual appraisal, she described me as a “lone goose.” I didn’t really have a clue on what she was talking about so she went on to explain how wild geese fly in ‘V’ formations but sometimes a solitary goose flies on its own, apart from the ‘V’ formation. I was one of those lonely geese flying by itself. Quite a poetic analogy I thought and wasn’t too disgruntled to see myself as a free thinker who liked to do things differently.

A couple of months later, I was having a conversation with a senior consultant in my group who was my mentor. Halfway through the conversation, he proceeded to tell me how I was a bit like a lone goose. “Woah!” I thought, “this is just too weird.” Then on reflection I realized that they had both obviously recently been to the same training course, a training course that helped senior staff to identify team dynamics based on different animals. It began to feel a bit like personnel management, A.A.Milne style.

“Don’t underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.”

~ Winnnie the Pooh, thinkexist.com

So, here’s a little animal personality test for you (make sure you write down the answers):

1. Think of an animal, any animal.
2. OK, same question again but pick a different animal.
3. And finally, one more time, write down a different animal.

Anyway, this senior consultant went on to say that sometimes it can be a good thing to be a lone goose and sometimes a bad thing. It’s a good thing if you’re flying in the same direction as everybody else; it increases the “bandwidth of the organization.” It’s a bad thing if you’re flying in a different direction though as you’re isolated, off on your own and you’re not well integrated into the organization.

By now, I was starting to rebel against this pigeonholing or gooseholing and decided that it was probably time to fly away for good. It was time to move on, as advised by the great Japanese haiku writing management consultant 一茶 Issa,  a man whose name means, ‘a cup of tea’ (I lied about the management consultant bit) :

Geese, fresh greens

wait for you

in that field.

- book: The Penguin Book of Zen Poetry, Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikenoto

Still, I think I’m happy with being a wild goose:

“The wild geese do not intend to cast their reflection;

The water has no mind to receive their image.”

~ Zenrin poem from The Way of Zen, Alan Watts