Cultivating Strength and Humility Through Martial Arts

 

In martial arts, we are better equipped to face life’s challenges if we develop strength and humility. We become more confident and resilient, and our minds become calmer therefore sharper and more focused. We gain the ability to assess fast changes, conflicts and take action in a measured and responsible way. Mastering these skills, help us to become more successful in our professional and personal lives, and attain greater peace of mind.

When training in martial arts, you must learn to respect the teacher, the environment and your fellow students while responsible learning to use the techniques. This teaches you humility, as the focus is on perfecting the response using the technique and not on trying to use brutal force or to be the strongest. You also learn to invest in loosing so that your partner can learn, to listen to others and take constructive criticism with an open mind. Learning to be humble instills a sense of discipline and respect for yourself and others.

In addition to learning humility through martial arts training you, become more stable and therefore stronger physically and mentally. Through the practice, you will develop focus, stability, strength, agility, and endurance. You will learn how to use your body properly to be more efficient and effective in your movements, and you will develop a stronger sense of self-confidence. The physical fitness you get from martial arts training can also help you become more resilient, giving you the ability to push past physical and mental limits.

Overall, martial arts offer an excellent way to cultivate strength and humility. By training regularly and pushing your body and mind beyond what you think is possible, you will become more fit, and you will learn the valuable lesson of humility. Not only that, but you will also gain an appreciation for the beauty and simplicity of martial arts, and you will have a newfound respect for your body and mind. And not to mention some good friends.

Challenges of Leadership in the Digital Age: leading Millennials

 

The digital age has posed a distinctive set of challenges for leaders in today’s workplace. While technology has changed the way that organizations function, digital age has also shifted the expectations of employees, particularly those of the Millennial generation. Leaders must be prepared to adjust their tactic to leading and motivating this new generation of workers.

Millennials are the first generation to grow up with technology at their fingertips. Therefore, they have become comfortable to the luxury and speed of digital communication, and they expect their workplace to reflect the same suitability. They do not want to be bogged down by bureaucracy or manual processes. They want to work in an environment where decisions are made quickly and technology is integrated throughout the organization.

Leaders must also understand the changing values of Millennials. This generation is driven to pursuit and to make a positive impact in the world, so they want to work for organizations that reflect their values. They are motivated by money although values are first in their mind and if they are not respected, they just leave. They prioritize work/life balance and seek out opportunities to have great times and to develop their skills. They want to be recognized and rewarded for their efforts, and they want to be given the tools and resources to succeed.

Leaders must be able to recognize and respond to those needs of Millennials to ensure their participation and stay with the organization. This means making sure employees have access to enjoyable working environment with the latest technology and platforms to help them be productive and efficient. Leaders must also be able to provide meaningful, consistent and fulfilling feedback to help those employees develop their skills. Finally, leaders must be able to create a culture of recognition and reward to motivate Millennials employees.

Seems that leadership in the digital age is no easy task, but it still can be done. Leaders must be willing to adjust their approach to leading and motivating this new generation of workers in order to remain in organization and help them to grow. By understanding the needs and values of Millennials and providing the necessary leadership, environment, tools and resources, leaders can ensure their organizations continue being competitive in the digital world.

Coach-ability?

Being a teacher and author of the book on leadership my interest was picked up by the article 'Why Leaders Are Easier to Coach than Followers?' published in HBR.  I believe that learning or coaching is something that anybody would like to do. Acquiring new knowledge, learn or improve oneself is something that stipulates survival in the Nature.

The article says “Recent research from PsychTests, however, reveals that followers may not be as compliant as we assume. In a study that measured individuals’ openness to coaching, PsychTests discovered that people who identify as followers are actually less open to coaching than people who identify as either leaders or adapters”. There is a graph within the supporting the claim that in all measured aspects followers performed the worst.

In the research three groups were studied: adapters, leaders and followers. I recognized last two groups but had a problem with the first one – adapters. In the article I’ve learnt that adapters are employees who are versatile, can both lead and follow, and are open to feedback and learning. This is a surprise: what are adapters if they cover both other groups. I cannot see leaders that cannot adapt to environment and change due to required situation (I wrote about this in Sun Tzu wisdom and Leadership). What about followers? Do they not adapt to work, rules and leaders? Both, leaders and followers, are usually most of the time outside their comfort zone when performing their ‘day-to-day’ work, so adaptation is crucial to them.

Why, then, there is another (the third) group?

How can I change my personality for the better???

In the post Leadership and Charisma I stated that leadership is all about personality. What exactly did I mean?

Merriam-webster dictionary offers a definition of ‘personality’ as:

• the set of emotional qualities, ways of behaving, etc., that makes a person different from other people;
• the condition or fact of relating to a particular person;
• a set of distinctive traits and characteristics.

American Psychological Associations offers a ‘personality’ definition as it refers to individual differences in characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving. The study of personality focuses on two broad areas – first, understanding individual differences in particular personality characteristics, such as sociability or irritability and second, understanding how the various parts of a person come together as a whole.

Leadership and behaviors

This post I dedicate to certain behaviors of a leader that mostly all of us should be familiar with. The greatest challenge lays almost always in how to recognize and distinguish them. We may assert that “ill” manner of behavior creates poor business culture (e.g. Enron, Lehman Bros, etc.) which leads to poor business performance and output. But what kind of a manner is “ill behavior”?  Ever heard of badmouthing colleagues, taking credit for other people’s work, lying about skills and experience or hiding mistakes, cutting corners?

Leaders today talk a lot about loyalty, retention, business values, of empowering employees, changes in compensation structures to gain flexibility in work schedules, of team building etc. as behaviors needed for great performance of employee. This raises a question whether in any relationship the behavior is completely reciprocal? I don’t believe so, because one party always wields more power over the other. The example may be obvious already in US: workers these days are all multitasking and happy to have the job. They are certainly not going to complain if they work 10 to 12 hours per day without being paid for the extra time.

Some of us may have already experienced a so called ‘sleeping management’ that suddenly wakes up and demands to do ‘now’ for a work to be done ‘yesterday’.

Can such behavior bring or increase loyalty and engagement in the workplace? In a positive corporate culture extra work is a signal to hire extra personnel or part timer or maybe improve planning and performance approach.

Storytelling tool in leadership

What is the perfect tool to connect with, inspire or motivate another? If you are trying to sell something, present it, give a speech or you are just the audience, the difference between interesting and boring is storytelling.

Stories are changing the way we think, act, and feel and can capture our imaginations, illustrate our ideas, arouse our passions, and inspire us. If a story is well told it can create an intense, personal connection between the audience, the idea and the teller. Think just how you have been listening to them as a child.

What exactly is a good storytelling - the art of using communication: verbal, tone and also gesture to tell components and metaphors of a story to an audience? Throughout human history stories were the actual building blocks of knowledge and by teaching them we learned to anticipate the possible consequences. Stories formed the foundation for memorizing events, persons or other data and to learn about them. That is why we could say that stories connect us with past, present, and future...

Could this tool be used in a business environment to form the foundations of a different workplace culture where hard facts failed to? Could this tool communicate and connect employees, customers, partners, suppliers, colleagues, and more?

Lesson of Leadership by Biba

To post on the first day of a new year – a challenge in a way. But what else is a leadership if not that too?

Last year was a great year full of changes, challenges and a big loss too. After eleven years of being with us we lost our dog Biba. We've found her in a shelter and since the first moment she made an inseparable and very significant part of our family accompanying us wherever the path took us. She’s always been a very happy dog ready for any kind of action no matter the time, weather conditions or circumstances.

She taught our kids the responsibility for another living being. Yes, it was her doing to teach and to keep watch of our home and ‘our pack.’ She taught all of us how to be happy each and every day, she taught us what a real compassion means, she was watchful and mindful of all and she took her responsibilities with great care.

Leadership: More Intelligence or Emotions

Should a leader use mostly intelligence or should the emotions be primary in dealing with people, decision making…?

Some of the definitions of intelligence say:

• Merriam-Webster: the ability to learn or understand things or to deal with new or difficult situations; the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations.
• Dictionary.com: capacity for learning, reasoning, understanding, and similar forms of mental activity; aptitude in grasping truths, relationships, facts, meanings, etc.
• The free dictionary: The capacity to acquire and apply knowledge; capacity for learning, reasoning, and understanding; aptitude in grasping truths, relationships, facts, meanings, etc.

And emotions are defined as:

• Merriam-Webster: a conscious mental reaction (as anger or fear) subjectively experienced as strong feeling usually directed toward a specific object and typically accompanied by physiological and behavioral changes in the body.
• Dictionary.com: any strong agitation of the feelings actuated by experiencing love, hate, fear, etc., and usually accompanied by certain physiological changes, as increased heartbeat or respiration, and often overt manifestation, as crying or shaking.
• The free dictionary: A mental state that arises spontaneously rather than through conscious effort and is often accompanied by physiological changes; a feeling: the emotions of joy, sorrow, reverence, hate, and love.

Atypical views on Leadership - 1

An outstanding Leadership for cross cultural team(s)

Have you met a person that was thinking in a completely different way to yours? What kind of impression does it leave on you? Do you dismiss it immediately, or you find it worthy, erroneous  …? 

For me it is exciting, definitely because my life path is somehow atypical, too. In our core we people are similar no matter where we come from. Not long ago I had a TEDx talk about the human behavior that surpasses “the cultural background noise” – “the noise” that accompanies us throughout our life and normally influences our values, ethics and morals, mentally and subconsciously. Unfortunately, this kind of reasoning I find that is still missing in common stances and leadership practices. Let me try to show some examples which are going to be based on atypical views.

From the management’s perspective, managers perform tasks, manage people and do business. Accordingly, there are numerous methodologies and tools helping to manage business and people: Just In Time Production, Kobayashi’s 20 keys, Six Sigma, Business Process Reengineering … to name some. In business environment, do all these methodologies and tools really come out the way we need them to? Current economic and financial situation makes us doubt it. If these tools were as efficient and as great as claimed, then we should not see companies struggling and vanishing. Why it is then so?

Leadership attitude

In last two posts I have written about the difference between two, many times interchanged, organizational functions that are necessary to any organization: management (To manage people) and leadership (To lead people). As there is more to both of them, here I’d like to share with you some more of my views on leadership attitudes, the ones that I consider important.

Many of you will agree that leadership is more about who the leader is than what he/she is actually doing. Therefore, we may assume that the attitude is important when influencing, impacting and leading people.

Tai chi in the leadership world – 2

In the previous post (Tai chi in the leadership world – 1) I've written about basics and fundamentals of the wide and profound wisdom of Tai Chi. By the end I have indicated some ways to use it in leadership. In this post I would like to expose some essentials of Tai Chi that may be an advantage also in leadership.

To empirically learn so-called internal martial art aspects of Tai Chi one begins with Tui shou or pushing hands (see post: Pushing hands and Virtue). Pushing hands is a distinctive Tai Chi practice very similar to Chi shou (sticking hands) used in Wing Chun (see post: Wing Chun basics and Wing Chun and leadership). The latter is more combative while pushing hands is less aggressive and more oriented to using opponent’s energy. With pushing hands the endurance needed in a contest is developed. The method softens stances, movements, and stiffness of a whole body. You need to be perceptive of your partner. Pushing hands diminish your natural instinct of resisting force with force enabling to correctly respond to the external stimuli: your body simply yields to force and redirects it. It is a Yin and Yang or strong and soft principle that governs pushing hands. With age we tend to become inflexible and our reactions jerky, as often obvious when (if) we slip and plunge to the floor. Kids are still much more natural in the same situations just collapse softly or roll, like usually lucky drunk person.

Pushing hands method is extremely good for a person with a big ego too (see post: Ego and Leadership) as it covers our senses and therefore conceals our reactions. A person should be very relaxed, stable in the proper stance that allows moving back and front, left and right, up and down. All thoughts should be wiped and nothing expected. When opponent’s action comes, you react naturally.

Leadership and emotions

Is a leader supposed to show emotions?

To answer this let look at what emotions are. If you “google it” you get results such us:

• a natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one's circumstances, mood, or relationships with others;
• a conscious mental reaction (as anger or fear) subjectively experienced as strong feeling usually directed toward a specific object and typically accompanied by physiological and behavioral changes in the body;
• an affective state of consciousness in which joy, sorrow, fear, hate, or the like, is experienced, as distinguished from cognitive and volitional states of consciousness;
• a mental state that arises spontaneously rather than through conscious effort and is often accompanied by physiological changes; a feeling: the emotions of joy, sorrow, reverence, hate, and love.

So emotions are “we” and we consciously or unconsciously show them. Emotions are chemical reactions between specific combinations of the levels of the signal substances dopamine, noradrenaline and serotonin. Emotions can likely be mediated by pheromones… so there seems no way to hide them. Often, one of the reasons we don’t show emotion is because we are not even aware or we mingle what emotion we have. In most situations when we are angry, frustrated, or upset we suppress it or “by mistake” mix it for some other emotion. And we tend to hide them when we want to stay in control or look strong. Well, in reality, doing so diminishes our control and weakens our capacity to lead. And we end up not saying what we mean or not meaning what we say.

Leadership and public speaking

Is it necessary for a leader to be a good public speaker?

There shouldn't be any dilemma about the answer to the above question. Leader talks at team meetings or presents a company facing internal or external audience. And especially with the latter good public speaking skills can open doors, whereas poor ones will most probably close them. And leaders are not the only one.

Does there exist “a magic formula” for good public speaking? No, there is no magic to successful speech, in fact, everyone is unique and has different strengths that can be used. But nevertheless some guide lines can be offered if you would like to have a winning speech.

Learning Leadership from Martial Arts - II

 The principles I’m sharing today are not rules or steps that most of the times are offered and used separately instead of integrally in Western leadership teaching methodology. The Eastern principle has it usually all interlinked. Therefore, bellow you will see elementary pieces of a whole personality of a martial artist. They are refined and presented separately only for the purpose of a more straightforward understanding:

• Control: The martial arts teach self-control of the body and the mind (ego). Martial art practice starts with hard training, where a student (e.g.: karate, kick boxing, tai chi chuan, wing chun, savate, escrima, aikido, sambo etc.) normally has to endure the threshold of pain from received and given punches. Only when relaxed, one is in control of oneself and of pain, consequently of others too.
• Trust: There is a saying in martial arts: “Trust your friends to beat you so that your enemies cannot!” A martial artist has firstly to trust in himself not to injure others – only then others trust him not to be injured by him.
• Stability: A person cannot fight successfully and master the opponent without stability and balance in place. It means that we should properly adjust our stance: how we ‘shape’ our body to ‘adjust’ our bones that have to support the muscles in a relaxed way. With our stance, gaze and movements we communicate our mental, physical and emotional state to those that are able to read it. Should or not we show what our thoughts are?
• Adjustment: Not only a Chinese proverb says “The grass abates in the direction from which the wind blows!” A martial artist has to keep adjusting to the surrounding and to the opponent. Any hesitance on his part will result in time lost and thusly giving to the opponent an opportunity and the advantage to attack.

Feedback in Leadership

“Don’t come to me with problems – come with solutions ….” is a typical sentence that you can hear from a manager or a boss that is not in favor of receiving a feedback.

Why, indeed, a feedback is so important? Because it gives the transmission of evaluative or corrective information about an action, event, or process to the original or controlling source.

Feedback is an unavoidable key component in all systems. In the Nature the systems that adjust according to feedback are similar to Darwinian adaptation and to what are called dynamical systems. Feedback in Nature is a normal process of learning of any leaving creature. In Nature what is not useful or too much energy consuming cannot survive a certain period. Feedback example is the V-shape flying pattern of geese. It can be explained by a simple set of four to five adjustment rules and flying efficiency. They change the position when the first goose is tired and goes back to the tail, then the second one takes a lead etc. This V-shape consumes less energy of each goose and permits to fly faster than a single goose could. They've certainly learned it through try and error feedback.

In martial arts listening and then replying accordingly is the name of the feedback game. Jing refers to one of the most important representations in Tai Chi – “listening” or “paying attention” to the opponent’s energy and his mind’s intent. Therefore, “listening” is actually a feedback for the mind of what you can sense and feel with your extremities or your whole body about opponent. Mostly, this can be practiced when in contact with another person: you trying to read or feel what he or she is intending to do, and even how he or she will do it. In one to one or mass battle in order to win a combat this knowledge of feedback reply is crucial. If you are late, you get hit.

Tai Chi Quan Leadership

Tai Chi Quan (Tai Chi) is represented through steps by the coordinated actions of the body’s extremities, of the body as a whole including the eyes. The breathing is also coordinated. Thusly,  Tai Chi is a complete system of exercises characterized by the unity and by the cultivation of the internal and external application of power. A very old system, widely known for its healthy and relaxation methods but rarely considered a martial art.

The term Tai Chi Quan translates as “supreme ultimate fist, boundless fist, great extremes boxing or simply the ultimate.” Tai Chi theory is deep and profound. It takes many years of practice, learning, research and pondering to gradually grasp the esence to the art. It is said that Tai Chi Quan was created by San Feng Chang in the Song Hui Zong era (1.082 – 1.135) although techniques and forms with the same basic principles were already in existence almost 600 years earlier that were created from previous one taught in Han Dynasty (206 BE – AE 220). The content of the art has varied from one generation to the next. What we see today in the forms of Tai Chi has been evolving for more than eight hundred years. Various versions of Tai Chi are still practiced around the world: bare hand, sword, saber, spear, stick, ball or ruler. Some are slowly disappearing for there are very few masters around to teach.

Consultant - Coach

There is quite a selection of titles for people offering services to businesses such as: adviser, consultant, mentor, coach. In the last two decades in organizations business coaching has become increasingly popular to assist executives, managers, and employees in their personal and professional growth. How and what makes us decide that in particular case if we need a business consultant or a business coach?

As both, coaching and consulting process, are built on trust and confidentiality to differentiate them one can pose the following questions:

• Do they question and listen?
• Do they spend most of the time talking?
• Do they offer alternatives and let you make the choice?
• Do they tell you what to do?
• Do they think they know all of the answers?
• Do they appear to ask the right questions?
• Do you learn from them?
• Do you end up wiser or not?

The above questions help, but to determine which business service you actually need, more description is needed.

I Ching

The I Ching or Zhouyi – the Book of Changes is a collection of practical wisdom used as oracular statements and pertaining to every conceivable situation. It is one of the oldest Chinese classical texts.

I Ching is built of linear signs represented by 64 sets composed of two three-line arrangements, namely hexagrams (guà) that represent sixty four main kinds of life situations. The lines of hexagram are, of course, not just lines. Each hexagram has a name and is a physical symbol representing deeply metaphysical or subconscious manifestation. Every line of hexagram can be broken or unbroken. The unbroken or solid line represents yang, the ‘creative’ principle. The broken or open line with a gap in the centre represents yin, the ‘receptive’ principle. These principles are also represented in a common circular symbol or diagram known as Tai Chi Tú but more commonly known in the West as the yin-yang symbol, expressing the idea of wholeness of constantly undergoing change.

Traditionally the I Ching is consulted by throwing 50 yarrow stalks, but today a set of three coins is used more frequently. When a hexagram is cast using one of the traditional processes of divination with I Ching, each yin and yang line will be indicated as either moving (changing), or fixed (unchanging). A second hexagram is created by changing moving lines to their opposite and represents new possibilities and transition that might occur due to someone’s interaction of a free will.

Leadership responsiveness

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

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.

 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’.