Bureaucrat’s Passions

I admit that my photo of the painting ‘Crabapple and Gardenia’ is not that engaging to write about. I blame it on my below-ordinary photography skills and the difficulty of taking a picture of the painting from outside the glass enclosure it is housed in. But my motivation for writing this blog is not so much associated with the painting per se, but the story behind the painting.

To begin with, the painting, available for viewing in the Sackler Gallery of Art in DC, was done in the thirteenth century. The painting still looks fresh in colors after eight centuries. But that’s not the full story I had in mind.

Everyone, who has studied a little bit of world history knows about the Mongol invasions beginning with Genghis Khan and later on by his descendants. It’s one of the top world-changing events. I many times use these episodes as a marker in remembering historical chronology when I have to contextualize other historical events. But, outside of the long chain of historical events like these, I rarely get a glimpse of the implications of such events on regular life at the time, in my explorations.

Turning back to the story of this painting, it was painted by Qian Xuan, a civil bureaucrat who had earlier worked in the Chinese Song dynasty (960–1279). He had passed the famous Chinese imperial examinations, meant for jobs in imperial civil service. However, the Song Empire was soon replaced by the invading Mongols, who established their Yuan dynasty (1279–1368) in China. Qian, feeling loyalty to the former Song Dynasty, abandoned the civil service and spent the rest of his life in seclusion, meticulously painting flowers. The painting description in the museum also suggests that the style of his painting also reflects his detachment from imperial affairs.

Interestingly, the Chinese inscriptions by the side of the painting are done by someone else. They extol the verisimilitude of Qian’s painting and praise Qian for not choosing to work for the Mongol Yuan dynasty.

I think that today’s career bureaucrats, who sometimes face a turnover of different political party administrations after an election or other tumultuous events in the government can relate to this story very well. Should they continue to work under the new party administration or quit? Even senior managers working in today’s corporate world face a similar dilemma when their company is being bought and taken over by another company. Should they continue on their job, knowing that the new company will have a different managerial agenda? Will they help the new CEO in the cost-cutting exercise that typically follows a takeover, primarily to pay off the excessive debt accumulated for the buyout? (This is no different than the conquerors paying off the soldiers’ wages who fought in the war, through looting from the losers.)

This story may therefore perhaps offer a solution to the problem for the bureaucrats and corporate managers. Instead of choosing to continue in your job and sacrificing your self-pride in the process for it, why not instead learn to paint in a style that shows detachment and disdain for bureaucratic and corporate affairs? Who knows, the painting style may be profound enough for the paintings to appear in museums, if sufficient passion and energy is put into it. There is a good chance that the corporate manager or the civil service bureaucrat will soon be forgotten or worse, disdained if he or she chooses to slog through in that job for the rest of the career.

I am writing this blog because I see books written by management gurus parting advice to hapless corporate managers and bureaucrats, using examples of Genghis Khan’s leadership. But I have yet to see a book on Qian. If anything, I want to convey to those managers and civil service bureaucrats that the dilemma they face is nothing new but has been experienced in that job for centuries. Moreover, they will never go down in history to achieve fame like Genghis Khan, no matter how many management books they read about him. That’s because they are never told of the fundamental difference between Genghis Khan and their lines of work.

Footnote — For those who are expecting a management thought book on Qian’s example from me after reading this blog, I don’t think you really understood the irony of my blog!