I’ve always enjoyed watching kung fu movies. The fluid movement of the fight fascinates me, but it was only recently I realised how much I also enjoy the philosophy that is usually found in these types of movies. I watched the documentary Be Water, that recounted the life of Bruce Lee1.
The documentary carefully explains that Bruce Lee, whose movies I have seen many times, was not only a martial artist and a movie start, but also a philosopher. I became curious how his philosophies affected his thinking and his martial arts, and whether there was something I could learn from that man that I could apply to my own work.
So I ordered the book The Warrior Within: The Philosophies of Bruce Lee, written by John Little2.
In the book, Little combines the philosophical teachings of Bruce Lee and explains how his unique position of unification of West and East affected his thinking and teaching. I was able to draw a lot of inspiration from this book, and I will now attempt to summarize some of that wisdom in this blog post.
Moving with determination
I had a nice conversation with some colleagues about organizational reaction time. That is, the ability to go forward swiftly when necessary, for example when a lengthy offering process ends and you win the customer. That is the point where often you are slowed down because of the lack of readiness. If you start to think about equipment, resources, accounts or even employees only at that point, you are too late. A fitting quote from Bruce Lee to think about if you find yourself in that kind of situation often:
You have to keep your reflexes so that when you want it — it’s there. When you want to move — you are moving. And when you move, you are determined to move!
Moving in this case does not mean only physical movement in martial arts. It can also mean to be prepared for any kind of situation by honing your skills.
In DevOps context it could mean developing things in a way that when you want to deploy you can deploy. Not blindly, but with determination. Trusting completely the process you have honed to detect problems beforehand and the ability to revert or fix the deployment with equal ease in case something still goes wrong.
So how does Bruce think we should approach this level of mastery in our craft?
Be water, my friend
Young Bruce Lee had an enlightening moment about water during his training. Frustrated when he was not getting what his master was trying to teach, he punched water surface in anger. Water easily averted his punch, and he realised that he could never hurt water, because it was instantly able to adapt to his movement. Bruce understood that to overcome adversity, one must adapt and become like water, to flow with the situation. If you try to oppose adversity with similar force, you will only end up hurting yourself. But by flowing you can discover how to actualize yourself and eventually overcome the situation and become like a crashing wave.
Flow is also a concept found in lean-agile world, though perhaps with a slightly different meaning. Ideally, a work item should be able to “flow” through the process steadily and predictably, and if the flow stops, there’s a chance for the work going to waste or becoming stale.
How do these two concepts of flow fit together? I think the answer lies in the ability to adapt to change. If you flow within a stream, you respond instantly to the slightest changes in the flow, without any intervals. Similarly, the teams that are the most in tune with the flow of their work can adapt to any changes almost effortlessly.
But change is scary. What does Bruce Lee have to say about change that could help us?
Changeless state
Bruce believed in a “changeless change”. While it appears that we stay the same, both our body and the system around us is still constantly changing. In order to stay stable within that system, we also must change. That is the paradox of changing to stay the same. If we try to oppose that change around us, we are doomed to fail.
To keep on changing, we must become self-regulating. If we try to centralize the thinking and separate it too much from doing, we become paralysed by the constant analysis. For example, if we think too much about our breathing and how our respiratory system works, we become too self-conscious about breathing and need to focus our energy to just keep breathing. In a very Taoist way, we need to organise ourselves harmoniously within the system we live in.
I can personally see the similarities between this self-regulating way and the self-organizing teams that I often talk about. Self-organized teams are not governed by outside forces, but they are supported and given freedom by those forces. Because of this structuring, they can move more effortlessly, since they can do both the thinking and doing within their own team, and not succumb to this outside analysis paralysis.
However, the analysis paralysis can still occur internally, and we must learn how to deal with that within the self-organizing unit.
Do not think, feel.
In a famous scene in Enter the Dragon3, Bruce Lee’s character says to a young student: “Don’t think, feel.”. At first I felt a conflict with this and my own thinking. I always talk about how we need to analyse and find root causes and whatnot. How can we not think. Is there something I could learn from this?
Well, the quote from the scene in it’s entirety goes:
Don’t think, feel. It is a like a finger, pointing a way to the Moon. Don’t concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory.
And there it is. If we think too much, we become lost in the thinking itself, and miss the beautiful things we were trying to get to. In software projects, this would mean thinking too much of the future by overplanning, or about the past by overinflating retrospecting. After all, while both of these are required in moderation, to actually manage to create something valuable, you must also live in the now and do. Or as another Bruce Lee quote goes:
Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.
There is also another thing to learn from the finger in the metaphor of the Moon. As we must not focus on the finger that is pointing our way to the moon, we must also not get lost in the framework or style that is supposed to lead us to customer value. We need to see the philosophy behind the style to understand how to grasp that value.
Styles separate
In one of his interviews, Bruce explains that he does not believe in styles, since styles separate. Instead, he believes in honest self-expression and the continuing growth through that.
I have seen the separative effect of “styles” often with the ever-lasting debate of Kanban vs. Scrum, SAFe vs. LeSS, Lean vs. Agile and so on. These kinds of discussions are mostly fruitless if you think about frameworks as the gospel truth, and I’m guilty of falling in to the doctrine trap myself every now and then. Focusing on the form will get you only so far, but understanding the broader principles underneath is the key to mastering your craft.
In “The Warrior Within” this is described as “taking a quantum view” - seeing a punch as just a punch, and how each style merely influences the punch in it’s own way. There’s always a common denominator behind the styles.
Talking in agile terms, the common denominators could be the Agile Principles4. These principles promote some wonderful things like continuous delivery and technical excellency, and work very well as general guidance. Whenever I talk about about agile in the context of any framework, I try to bring out and emphasize as much of these principles that the frameworks are based on, because by understanding them you can apply agility in your context the best possible way. In converse, during your agile journey you can also break all the rules of a framework if you understand the principles and still work by them.
There’s a unique ranking system in Jeet Kune Do, Bruce Lee’s art of kung fu. The lowest and the highest rank are both represented by a blank white circle. This symbolizes that as a beginner you know nothing, no style. As you begin your journey, you start learning a style, and that style influences your thinking. However, only after you transcend styles and learn the “way of no way” or “no-thingness” can you reach the highest stage.
So how can you reach this “way of no way” in something you do?
Continuous growth
However wonderful the Agile Principles are, in my personal philosophy, there are two things I value even more: continuous learning and respect for people (including myself). Even though I don’t always manage to live by these values, I usually notice when I have strayed from my path, because neglecting these two values makes me very uncomfortable for a time.
To reach the way of no way, you need to keep growing. Bruce Lee had a formula that resonates very much with me.
- Research your own experience
- Absorb what is useful
- Reject what is useless
- Add what is specifically your own
This philosophy can be applied to any craft and yet not be a one-size-fits-all. With it, The Truth will be different for each person, since it depends on your own growth and own experiences. Similarly, there isn’t a silver bullet agile framework that will magically fix the problems within your organization. Like Bruce, you need to look within and constantly examine how to become more agile.
By this, I don’t mean that you should pick a few things like daily meetings and Kanban boards, call yourself agile and be done with it. No, that will not work. You need to reach down to your experience and understand what will really improve your current situation. You need to examine the totality of your work and “reject what is useless” also from your existing ways of working. You need to craft by yourself an environment that allows you to thrive.
Only by continuously following this cycle you can keep growing.
I’m an IT-consultant and agile fellow whose only experience in martial arts is a few weeks of fitness boxing. And a ton of kung fu movies.
Is there something you have learned from movies that you apply to your own work? Leave a comment below or to my LinkedIn page.