Working with the Grain

A cabinet maker works with the grain, not against it. The material responds differently depending on how you approach it. The wood tells you something if you’re paying attention.

Management works the same way.

This means developing heightened awareness: how information actually flows versus how the org chart says it should. Where energy clusters. The person who stops speaking after a particular decision. The shift between front-stage and back-stage. Subtle signals: a hesitation, a quick breath, the way someone’s hands move when they’re deciding whether to say what they actually think.

You feel it physically. Your chest tightens when something shifts.

Here’s where it gets complicated: unlike wood, people respond to interaction. Your presence alters what you’re trying to read. You’re not just reading material. You’re in relationship with it, and the material is reading you back.

The practice doesn’t protect you from using it badly.

I spent six months convinced I was being patient with someone who needed time. It looked like craft. What it actually was: avoidance. I didn’t want to have the hard conversation, so I called my hesitation “honoring their process.” They left confused about what I thought. The work suffered.

Calling it craft made the avoidance feel noble.

There is a difference between working with the grain and just being slow, and calling it craft. Between being patient and avoiding decisions, and calling it patience. “I see things others don’t” stops being an acknowledgment of cost and becomes a reason to stop being questioned.

The danger is mistaking slowness for wisdom.

What changes over time isn’t the sensitivity. That actually deepens. What changes is you stop trying to fix things that aren’t yours to fix. You watch yourself wanting to persuade someone and instead say nothing. You notice the relief in your shoulders.

That’s the lightness of releasing what you cannot carry.

The practice continues. That’s the whole thing.

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This week's essay is longer than usual. The full version is on the website if you have seven minutes.