When Organizations Learn to Redirect Instead of Stop, Qigong Leadership
A practice for Maintaining Purposeful Movement
By Simon Holzapfel, of the L-EAF Lab (www.L-EAFLab.org) & Jeff Burstein
The Problem with Stopping
In lean manufacturing, there's a famous concept called the Andon cord. Pull it, and the entire production line grinds to a halt. Someone spotted a defect, a misalignment, a problem—and boom, everything stops. The whole team swarms. The issue gets fixed. Production resumes.
It's beautiful in its simplicity: empower everyone to stop everything when something's wrong.
But here's what we've been noticing in knowledge work, in educational systems, in the messy human work of organizational culture: the Andon cord logic doesn't quite fit.
Knowledge work isn't an assembly line. Human systems aren't machines you can pause, fix, and restart. When you stop momentum in a creative team, in a learning environment, in a culture-building process—you don't just pause production. You often kill something more vital: the energy, the flow, the purposeful movement that was carrying people forward.
So what if there's another way?
Enter the Redirect
What if instead of stopping the system when we notice misalignment, we learned to redirect the energy that's already in motion?
This is where Qigong comes in—not as mysticism, but as metaphor and method.
In Qigong (pronounced "chee-gong"), practitioners don't fight against energy. They don't try to stop it or control it through brute force. Instead, they learn to sense it, guide it, redirect it. The goal isn't to impose stillness but to cultivate flow in alignment with purpose.
We're proposing to steal this term for organizational design.
In our framework, organizational Qigong is the practice of maintaining purposeful movement by bringing momentum into alignment—not by stopping the system, but by verbally and structurally redirecting the energy that's already flowing.
How This Shows Up in Real Organizations
Think about the last time someone on your team was working really hard on something... that was slightly off-target. Not wrong exactly. Not bad. Just... 15 degrees off from where you needed them to be.
The Andon cord approach says: "Stop. This isn't right. Let's regroup and figure out what we're actually doing."
The Qigong approach says: "I see that momentum. Beautiful energy. Let me help you redirect it just a bit..."
Here's a real example from our work at L-EAF Lab:
A student team was furiously building a feature for their project—really good work, lots of initiative, clear problem-solving. But they'd misunderstood which user problem they were solving for. Classic startup mistake.
Old approach: Stop the sprint. Call a meeting. Go back to requirements. Start over.
Qigong approach: "Hey, I'm seeing amazing energy here on solving X. What if we took that same creative approach you're using and applied it to Y instead? The thinking you're doing here is exactly what we need—let's just aim it at this slightly different target."
The team didn't lose momentum. They didn't lose the creative flow state they'd achieved. They just... pivoted. The energy kept moving, but in better alignment with the actual goal.
The Verbal Judo of Qigong Leadership
Jeff Burstein has been practicing something for years that he couldn't quite name. He'd work with individuals who were barreling down a path—enthusiastic, committed, working hard—but heading in a direction that wouldn't serve them well.
Rather than stopping them ("Wait, that's all wrong, let's pause and rethink"), he'd engage in what he calls "verbal judo"—meeting their momentum, acknowledging it, and then gently redirecting it in real-time conversation.
"I love that you're thinking about X. That's exactly the kind of thinking we need. Have you considered how this connects to Y? Because if we angle this slightly toward Y, all this momentum you've built becomes even more powerful..."
This isn't manipulation. It's genuine appreciation for the energy someone's bringing, combined with skillful guidance toward better alignment.
It's Tai Chi in conversation form. It's Qigong leadership.
Why This Matters for Knowledge Work
Donella Meadows taught us that we can't control complex systems—we can only dance with them. The Andon cord was designed for controllable systems: machines, assembly lines, repeatable processes.
But knowledge work? Education? Culture building? These are complex adaptive systems. They're more like rivers than machines. And when you're working with flowing water, you don't build dams at every turn. You learn to channel the flow.
In our Equanomics framework, this matters because:
1. Flow states are precious. When a team or individual hits that zone of productive momentum, interrupting it has real costs—not just in time, but in the human experience of work itself.
2. Alignment is dynamic, not binary. Unlike a defective part (which is either right or wrong), most knowledge work exists in degrees of alignment. We're not aiming for perfection; we're aiming for "good enough" direction (shout-out to Herbert Simon's satisficing).
3. Agency requires movement. People don't feel empowered when they're constantly being stopped and redirected. They feel empowered when they're in motion and someone helps them refine that motion toward greater purpose.
The Self-Authoring Code
Here's where it gets interesting for organizational culture.
When teams internalize Qigong principles, something remarkable happens: they start redirecting themselves. They develop what we call "self-authoring code"—an internal alignment system that constantly asks:
"Is this momentum serving our purpose?"
"How do I redirect this energy toward better outcomes?"
"What's the smallest adjustment that keeps the flow alive while improving the aim?"
This is fundamentally different from traditional management approaches that rely on external control, periodic check-ins, or stop-and-restart cycles.
Value streams emerge naturally from high-alignment movement. When enough people are moving purposefully in related directions, their combined energy creates something that looks like magic: seemingly effortless collaboration, emergent coordination, work that feels like play.
Practical Application: The Three Questions
If you want to practice organizational Qigong, start by asking these three questions when you notice misalignment:
1. "What energy is already in motion here?"
Before you redirect, you have to sense the flow. What's the person/team actually working on? What are they enthusiastic about? Where's their momentum?
2. "What's the smallest redirect that maintains this energy while improving alignment?"
Don't stop the engine to adjust the steering. Find the minimal intervention that shifts direction without killing momentum.
3. "How can I make this redirect feel like an invitation rather than a correction?"
Language matters. "Let's pause and rethink this" feels different from "I love where you're going—what if we angled this toward X?"
When to Pull the Andon Cord Anyway
Look, we're not saying the Andon cord is obsolete. Sometimes you do need to stop everything.
When there's genuine danger or harm
When the misalignment is so severe that continuing would cause more damage than stopping
When the team needs to learn what "stop and swarm" looks like
But these should be exceptions, not the default response to every misalignment.
The rule of thumb: If the energy is fundamentally healthy but just misdirected, use Qigong. If the energy itself is toxic or dangerous, pull the cord.
What We're Building
At L-EAF Lab, we're experimenting with Qigong principles in educational design. How do you create learning environments where students maintain purposeful movement while continuously refining their alignment with learning outcomes?
This connects to everything we're working on:
WorkFLOW methodology: Visible systems that help teams redirect themselves
Agile learning environments: Iterative cycles that allow course correction without stopping
Cultural evolution: Organizations as living systems that learn to self-regulate
We're also exploring this with the Department of Defense through the SkillBridge program, asking: How do you redirect the immense energy and capability of veterans transitioning to civilian work without interrupting their momentum?
Invitation to Practice
This week, watch for one moment where your instinct is to stop someone and say "Wait, that's not right."
Before you pull that Andon cord, pause and ask: Is there energy here worth redirecting rather than stopping?
Try the verbal judo. Acknowledge the momentum. Offer a gentle redirect. See what happens.
You might be surprised how often people are grateful for the guidance and relieved they don't have to start over.
Want to go deeper on organizational Qigong? We're developing training materials and case studies. Reach out at L-EAF.org or follow our work at The Equanomist.
This concept emerged from collaborative conversation between Simon Holzapfel and Jeff Burstein on October 10, 2025. We're grateful to the ancient practitioners of Qigong for developing principles that turn out to be remarkably useful for 21st-century organizational design. Any misunderstandings of the traditional practice are entirely our own.
Opening Haiku:
Energy flows where
attention directs its course—
guide, do not command
Closing Haiku:
The river knows where
to go; our work is simply
not to block its way