Management’s Point of View ~ Employ Your Mind ~

May 31, 2026

I must have been a pretty spacey kid—my teachers often asked me, “Are you even using your head?” Even after I started working, I’d sometimes get reprimanded for not “using my head properly.” While I was muttering to myself, “Of course I am,” the truth was that my thinking was indeed rather shallow.

Understanding matters logically. Setting priorities and making plans. The importance of using our heads to think this way is drilled into us from childhood.

In contrast, I feel like I spent a long time going through life with almost no awareness of “employing my mind.”

When I was starting out, work didn’t always go as planned, and there were times when I felt like I was about to be crushed by the anxiety and pressure of deadlines. Even so, I was still a little thicker-skinned than my colleagues, some of whom ended up quitting because they couldn’t handle the stress.

As I gained more experience and became a manager, I was frustrated when my team didn’t produce work quickly enough, or, even when they did, I was dissatisfied with the quality of their work. Deadlines were looming, but the quality wasn’t keeping up. At such times, I often found myself taking out my anxiety on the people working for me.

Stressed-out managers and stressed-out subordinates. Isn’t this the case in every company? But when you think about it, the underlying feelings of both managers and their team members are the same. “I want to do a good job,” “I want to deliver value to our customers,” “I want to meet deadlines”—if those feelings weren’t there, neither the sense of pressure nor the guilt over delivering subpar work would exist.

If that’s so, then a manager’s focus shouldn’t be on frustration over what isn’t being done, but rather on supporting employees’ growth by asking how to help them realize that. People may not have developed all the necessary skills at the beginning, but they do have the desire to improve — all we need to do is support them in that regard. It’s as simple as that.

Looking back, there were many instances where emotions stood in the way of opportunities for mutual growth. What matters is not letting your own emotions get in the way, but rather understanding the other person’s perspective and focusing your attention on their growth and development.

If you make a conscious effort to be mindful, your perspective on the world will gradually begin to shift. I realized this quite late in life—only in my 40’s—while discussing it with my Zen teacher. Many of you may have already come to this realization. If not, and especially if you are in a supervisory position, I believe that if you start employing your mind of this, your job will surely become easier, and before you know it, working with those around you will become much more enjoyable.