The concept of Tao (pronounced as Dao, translated as Way) is first defined in the Chinese classic Tao Te Ching written by Lao Tsu some 25 centuries ago.  John Heider in his interpretation of the text, Tao of Leadership gives a very clear explanation to this concept: "Tao means how: how things happen, how things work."  Thus this is a single principle or formula that explains and defines all the things in the world.  The idea of having one single principle of operation applicable to everything is very refreshing for a manager so stressed by the complexities of the contemporary business world.

Tao Te Ching is very obscure which may as well be excused, assuming the subject and the extreme brevity of its 81 verses.  Another reason why Lao Tsu did not put it crystal clear in an inter-office memo format may be given by a fashionable chaos theory.  One of the implications of this theory is that many phenomena in the world are scalable.  For example, the trail of fluctuations of a stock market index during a trading day will look very similar to that one over a year, as well as over a decade.  It is traditionally assumed that Tao Te Ching was written as a guide to governing a country.  However it is extremely applicable to managing a business or a group of people.  It is less known in the West that this book forms the basis of numerous schools of oriental martial arts that aim to achieve sound health and longevity through the consistent management of body's internal energy.

Thus you may take any subject you like (assuming that you achieved a proper level of proficiency in it), open Tao Te Ching and read it applying to your subject.  With some luck and after some time (which may be anything between weeks and decades: see above) you will come up with a body of wisdom on your subject that will give you anything between satisfaction from what you do, to being canonized.  Somewhere in the middle you may earn a fortune by writing a best-seller titled The Tao of [insert subject].  It will work with any subject because Tao applies to anything anyway.

Being just a bit more serious, there are too many facets to the Tao, just as many as they are to the Universe.  Interpretations of Tao Te Ching by authors both ancient and contemporary open up however painstakingly, the wisdom of the World the Way It Is.

There are also other books in the Taoist tradition that we would want to draw your attention to.  One classic example is The Art of War by Sun Tsu.  The author is known to be a famous military leader in ancient China, and a Taoist.  His book a most respected guide to winning in a conflict.  This should be helpful in applying Taoist principles to your real business, especially in the beginning.  The reason is that some of the concepts of Tao Te Ching, for example, non-doing (wu-wei) are not easily accepted by our Western minds.  (How the hell am I supposed to exercise non-doing when the boss is pressing on me to do something?)  However after some time, you will understand that Sun Tsu's Art of War is exactly what Lao Tsu meant by non-doing in Tao Te Ching!

If we may say this, doing business in the Taoist tradition is primarily concerned in forming win-win relationships with everybody involved in the process of creating value.  The wise leader will facilitate this process rather than manage it or try to shape it the way he wants it to be.  Thus the leader seems to do nothing, and everything necessary happens by itself.  Isn't it a way of achieving maximum performance?
 

The Tao of Sales by E. Thomas Behr, a review by Eastbook.

The Tao of Personal Leadership by Diane Dreher. (UK version here).

The Tao of Inner Peace by Diane Dreher.

Tao Te Ching.  Translated with an introduction by Man-Ho Kwok, Martin Palmer, and Jay Ramsay.  (UK version here).

Tao Te Ching.  Translated with an introduction and commentary by Stephen Mitchell.  (UK version here).

Tao Te Ching.  Translated by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English.

The Tao of Power by R.L. Wing. 

The Illustrated Art of War by Sun Tsu.  Translated with an intro by Thomas Cleary.  (UK version here).
 

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