In 2002, one of the things learnt from Dr. Richard McHugh is that much of our behaviour and actions stem from the subconscious or unconscious mind. For a while, while leading the Talent Transformation Academy at Wipro, it became clear why facilitators use games and simulations in corporate classrooms. It is in those moments that the mask falls off, and we begin to notice what is usually hidden.
Later, during a PG in Education at APU, frameworks such as Social Exchange Theory, Carl Menger’s subjective value and marginal utility, and most importantly the minmax principle, offered lenses to decode these observations. Returning to NGO work and then corporate corridors, observing people’s behaviour and learning from it became a kind of pastime. It is fascinating, almost like marking tally marks, when a senior leader rudely interrupts others in a meeting, or when an SVP nods approvingly whenever the Chairman speaks. People are constantly trading in currencies of respect, attention, status, and approval. The interruption is a claim to status currency. The nod is an exchange of approval for favour with the Chairman. It is a market of social transactions.
Once, an experiment made this visible. In a brainstorming session, notes were exchanged between myself and my boss. I presented his inputs, and he mine. The team’s responses were striking—most of my ideas, when voiced by my boss, were voted in. Again, at the Zendo and outside, it is equally interesting to observe how people respond—or do not respond—on social media and various community groups.
Carl Menger’s principle of subjective value and marginal utility applies directly to meetings: an idea’s worth is not intrinsic, but assigned subjectively by the receiver. The same idea, voiced by me, had low marginal utility, but when packaged and presented by my boss, it carried high value—the source added a premium. People are value-appraisers in every interaction.
The minmax principle (minimizing maximum possible loss) is the engine of much corporate politeness and risk-aversion. Supporting the Chairman’s point or deferring to the highest-paid person’s opinion (HiPPO) is often less about genuine agreement and more about minimizing personal risk.
And one of the toughest koans in Zen is “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” created by Hakuin Ekaku, one of the famous Rinzai masters. Once a practitioner gains insight into that koan, one begins to live with the sound of one hand clapping. There is freedom from approvals, emojis, and appreciation—even from close family or friends. One speaks because speech must arise. One writes for the sake of writing. Nothing more.
The Zendo and other platforms make this explicit. The response or non-response is pure social exchange and subjective value. A like or comment is a micro-currency. Silence can be a deliberate withholding of currency—disagreement, indifference—or a calculation that engagement has no utility or carries risk (the minmax principle in a public forum). The online disinhibition effect—both positive and toxic—is another way the mask falls off.
Here, the koan of one hand clapping integrates seamlessly as liberation. All the tally marks, nods, interruptions, likes, and emojis are currencies in the social marketplace. But the koan points to freedom from that marketplace. To live with the sound of one hand clapping is to speak without seeking approval, to write without chasing appreciation, to act without calculating marginal utility. It is radical liberation from the minmax principle itself.
And most often, our learning and education come from a mindset of instrumentality—we learn in order to get something. Yet there is another way. My children, who had their schooling at a Krishnamurti school, taught me that learning is not transactional but transformational. Learning is meant for making or unmaking ourselves. The mindset of Instrumental vs. Integral Learning is a crucial one. Conventional learning often becomes another transaction—acquiring skills to trade in the marketplace. In contrast, learning for “making or unmaking ourselves” is inherently non-transactional. It aligns with the one hand clapping. It is learning for sovereignty, not for currency.
The Marketplace of Self
These observations highlight the core challenge of collaboration: human beings are not rational agents evaluating pure data, but social beings navigating a complex web of subconscious drives, perceived value, and status economies.
The corporate and social world is a subconscious economy where our masks are both currency and commodity. Every interruption, nod, like, or silence is a transaction in the currencies of status, approval, and security. The theories of Menger and Minmax aren’t just academic; they are the living, breathing algorithms of daily life.
That note-swap with my boss is the quintessential proof. It reveals that in this marketplace, the “who” often completely overwrites the “what.” The subjective value conferred by status can render identical content either priceless or worthless. This is the silent, powerful bias that undermines meritocracy.
And the Zen practitioner who lives with the sound of one hand clapping has already stepped beyond the need for transformation—because the freedom is already here.
Hakuin’s koan is not a riddle, but an antidote to the social marketplace. To live with the sound of one hand clapping is to opt out of the exchange. It is to act from an internal locus of value, where creation and expression are ends in themselves. It is freedom from the tally sheet.
The ultimate goal, perhaps, is not to make everyone a Zen monk, but to create pockets of space—in relationships, in corporate meetings, in classrooms, in online forums—where the sound of one hand clapping can be heard: where ideas are evaluated more independently of their source, where silence is not fearful, and where contribution is driven less by the calculation of personal utility and more by the intrinsic value of the act itself.
