Walk meetings

A while ago I happened to have a meeting while pleasantly walking through the park. Since then I try, whenever possible, to avoid to meet in the office, for coffee or tea in a pub and choose a walk in the nature.
 At the beginning I wondered what the reaction of the people will be. Would they feel comfortable enough and relaxed? My intentions were to improve the energy and mindset of the conversation by changing the environment. The studies show that the physical aspect of walking is beneficial to positive brain functioning. And recent brain and learning theories confirm that activities help in learning. This is also how Aristotle taught his apprentices.
Mother NatureYou may say that for a time now GOLF has been doing the same. I know that corporate as well as military forces do different types of meetings all the time: at games, bars, gyms, parties. But my kind of a meeting is costless and beneficial at the same time. We all agree that a meeting should be done with an objective: to discuss business, to develop an idea, to connect with person. As an environment inspires connection among participants, the Nature is a perfect choice. It seems like a perfect setting for a possible win-win situation. And on top of it, there is a kind of a disarming element in Mother Nature that works for all of us.

De – Virtue - Dé

Ethernal-VirtueIn my blog: Virtue – Morality – Ethics and leadership I wrote that virtue motivates and morals and ethics constrain. To support that statement here I’d like to describe virtue through Chinese  ancient text ‘Dào DéJīng’.

Dao De JingDé is conventionally translated as ‘virtue’ or ‘power,’ and refers to how the Way or Dào functions, or literally “walks” throughout the visible world. ‘Moral authority’ is probably the closest modern English equivalent to Dé. It was an opening stanza in the oldest version of Dào Dé Jīng, now it is introduced in stanza 38 that describes virtue:


High virtue by obliging not - acquires moral force.
Low virtue obliges always and thus lacks moral force.
High virtue neither strives nor acts for its own ends.
Low virtue does not strive but acts for its own ends.
High kindness does strive but not for its own ends.
High service also strives and does so for its ends.
High ritual not only strives but compliance failing stops at nothing to compel conformance.
Thus the loss of the Way meant the advent of virtue.
The loss of virtue, the advent of kindness.
The loss of kindness, the advent of service.
The loss of service, the advent of ritual rule.
Ritual rule turned loyal trust to deceit, leading to disorder.
All that has been learned adorns the Wayand engenders delusion.
Hence those strong and true keep commitment 
shun deceit, stay with the kernel that’s real and shun flowery adornment, choosing the first, refusing the last. (Moss)

Leadership responsiveness

Every and all things trigger a response: action ~ reaction.

Fight or Flight

Pretend that, while walking on an icy road, you slip. What is your reaction, your response? Mostly, we are so caught by surprise that we become stiff. That is followed by a fall. Frequently we land on our hands and, if we are lucky, only hurt ourselves and not broke wrists. If we had a knowledge how to “properly” fall, we would have “let go” and yield ourselves to a fall. Most likely, no harm to our body would be done, we would only get wet. Which we get anyway.

“The grasses abate in the direction the wind blows.” says a Chinese proverb.

Leadership by Virtue background

A common conclusion of all studies on our cultures is that we are definitely different. This is not really a great contribution but rather just a common knowledge. And this conclusion is what mostly challenged me. To successfully lead people you need to find what binds the people together and not what separates them.

Within globalization processes people that are now to work together do not come only from the same cultural background but were raised also in different cultures. And leaders are to take into consideration this new dimension, while, due to current perpetuating crisis, at the same time dealing with finding a way, a fresh and new leadership approach. And the stress should be put on the change of leadership practices and not only on a repainting of current ones. To introduce a new approach to leadership, the book “Leadership by Virtue” takes a different venue - a way that brings Far-East concepts into Western approaches and entangles both.
Colours in Culture
 The “Leadership by Virtue” approach is not about the instruction on how and what to do. It is rather a complex interlinked method to change oneself first. Accordingly, it is not ‘externally oriented’, as the case is in most of the Western culture’s way of management or leadership methodologies. Here the book takes  more Far-East tactic and is dedicated to ‘internal self’.

I Decided to Give My Book Away for Free

Leadership by Virtue bookWith a myriad of cultures in multinational corporations, research into leadership has been endless, yet not very conclusive. An old friend of mine posed me the question on leadership: “Could you please enlighten me in understanding how to lead a multi-cultural team?” So far we were pleasantly talking over a drink on a nice and warm summer morning. At the time I had no idea to offer. It initiated a long period of my research at the end of which I published the book “Leadership by Virtue”.

It was no easy matter. Four decades ago, IBM tried to unify corporate culture in her subsidiaries all over the world. Geert Hofstede carried out a world-wide survey on employee values with a very informative and demonstrative result. Based on his approach, Turner pointed out the problem of international projects and claimed that “when working on international projects we need to understand the approaches of different cultures to be able to work with people and predict behaviors, and not to give and take offence”. More researchers followed the same topic. A common conclusion of all those studies is: “we are definitely different”. And this conclusion is what bothered me the most. It is a common knowledge. To successfully lead people you need to find what binds the people together and not what separates them.

My research goal was to support the idea that, at their core people are similar no matter where they come from. The new leadership approach should follow these principles. This is why I aimed to find at which level we are “the same!”