The Virtue Leader: Sustainability and Martial Arts in Leadership

In today's world, sustainability is more than just a buzzword. It's an essential part of responsible leadership. And as it turns out, martial arts have a lot to offer when it comes to cultivating sustainable practices.

At its core, sustainability is all about finding ways to create long-term value while preserving natural resources and avoiding negative impacts. In the context of leadership, this means building organizations and teams that can thrive over the long term, while minimizing harm to the environment and society at large.

So how can martial arts help with this? Here are a few key lessons that martial arts can teach us about sustainability:

Respect for Nature

In martial arts, practitioners learn to respect and appreciate the natural world. They learn to move in harmony with their environment, and to use their energy and resources wisely. This mindset can be applied to leadership as well. By recognizing the interconnectedness of our actions and their impact on the environment, leaders can make more sustainable choices, such as reducing waste and carbon emissions, conserving natural resources, and supporting environmentally-friendly practices.

Discipline and Self-Control

Martial arts require a great deal of discipline and self-control. Practitioners must learn to channel their energy and focus their attention in order to achieve their goals. This same discipline can be applied to leadership, helping leaders stay focused on their long-term vision and goals, while avoiding short-term temptations so many times used in management and distractions that may harm the organization or the environment.

Resilience and Adaptability

Martial arts also teach practitioners to be resilient and adaptable in the face of challenges. They learn to stay calm and focused under pressure, and to quickly recover from setbacks. This same resilience can be applied to leadership, helping leaders navigate complex and unpredictable situations with confidence and creativity, while staying true to their values and vision.

Community and Collaboration

Finally, martial arts are deeply rooted in community and collaboration. Practitioners work together to improve their skills, support each other's growth, and celebrate their achievements. This same spirit of community can be applied to leadership, fostering collaboration and teamwork within the organization, and building strong relationships with stakeholders and partners in the wider community.

So how can you incorporate these lessons into your own leadership practice? Here are a few practical tips:

• Make sustainability a core part of your vision and values, and communicate this clearly to your team and stakeholders.
• Take steps to reduce waste, conserve resources, and promote environmentally-friendly practices within your organization.
• Stay focused on your long-term goals, while avoiding short-term temptations that may harm your organization or the environment.
• Build resilience and adaptability into your leadership practice, by staying calm and focused in the face of challenges, and seeking creative solutions to complex problems.
• Foster a spirit of collaboration and community within your organization, by supporting teamwork, growth, and celebration.

By applying these lessons from martial arts to your own leadership practice, you can cultivate a more sustainable and responsible approach to leaving and leadership, while building a stronger and more resilient organization for the future. So why not start today, and see where the journey takes you?

Leadership Paradigm Shift

The challenges we face in the 21st century are often complex, where multiple causes lead non-linearly to multiple effects.

Complex problems are best solved by participatory processes that surface the wisdom of multiple perspectives.

New leadership models foster co-creation and co-ownership.

Biggest Relaxation Mistakes and how to avoid them

Long ago sports evolved from martial arts (like: Greek Olympic games) and were transformed into competitive play with rules and winning points. Sports carry in itself some cultural impact on competitors. Martial arts of today, especially Chinese, are mostly later inventions. They have typically risen at the end of 19th century. It was the time when China and other Far East countries understood cultural impact of sports and had nothing else to offer regarding sports. So they began to export martial arts and other techniques.

The core of all – not only Chinese martial arts – is so called ‘natural movement’. It is a way of movement that has originated in Nature and is connected to energy consumption (see: Least of effort in leadership).

Long ago, when physical strength was necessary to fight, ‘natural movement’ was commonplace. All styles of martial arts, breathing techniques (see:  Best Ways to Relax Successfully), meditation, yoga etc. are supposedly methods to regain natural movements. Those are very straight forward and very simple once we know how to do it, but quite a bit hard to (mostly) re-learn (recall) from our childhood years. And when we do, we realize how powerful natural movements are. In the Nature all species depend on them to survive. That is why masterful martial artists when old move so simply, so powerful and are able to subdue much younger competitors.

There are different techniques to learn natural movements! Some of them are very popular today:

• “Meditation allows your body to settle into a state of profound rest and relaxation and your mind to achieve a state of inner peace, without needing to use concentration or effort.”
• “Yoga is a healing system of theory and practice. The purpose of yoga is to create strength, awareness and harmony in both the mind and body.”

But are the above techniques fairly represented and taught?

Best Practices describe why Punctuality matters

In martial arts “punctuality” is the key. Why?

Why I think so, I’ll explain later, let’s see how punctuality is defined in Wikipedia: the characteristic of being able to complete a required task or fulfill an obligation before or at a previously designated time. "Punctual" is often used synonymously with "on time". It is a common misconception that punctual can also, when talking about grammar, mean "to be accurate".

In business world punctuality means organizing your time effectively; to be more productive as you start or get on time; in some countries to be respectful to your hosts and well, yes – also disrespectful in others; in short, punctuality affects the individual just as much as it affects the workplace to operate more smoothly as a whole. Punctuality reduces stress as well as stress leads to poor workplace performance.

Does then being punctual strengthens and reveals your integrity?

It is said that when George Washington’s secretary arrived late to a meeting and blamed his watch for his tardiness, Washington quietly replied ‘Then you must get another watch, or I another secretary.’

When you make others wait, you rob minutes from those that came early or on time.

I recall leading a project group in a government environment: we had meetings in a place where most of attendants had their offices. The reason was not to spend time of most participants on commuting. I usually arrived few minutes earlier. Once, after several attempts of asking people to be on time, I have written on the big wall table names and numbers. Everybody seemed a bit wary while watching me. When the last person finally arrived I summed up the numbers and multiplied with average hour salary for our group. We lost almost an average monthly salary while waiting.

The importance of being punctual is not universal and varies from country to country, even within country and from culture to culture. In some places like south Europe, Latin America or Pacific Islands, life moves at a different pace than in northern hemisphere and meeting times are meant to be more incoherent.

Does then being punctual build up and reveal the extent of control a leader has?

Do we still / again need Leaders?

Current economic and political situation in the world with all perturbations is a big puzzle for me whether we are having or not the leaders.

Manuel Lima in his TED talk A visual history of human knowledge explains that “for a long period of time, we believed in a natural ranking order in the world around us, also known as the great chain of being, or "Scala naturae" in Latin, a top-down structure that normally starts with God at the very top, followed by angels, noblemen, common people, animals, and so on. This idea was actually based on Aristotle's ontology, which classified all things known to man in a set of opposing categories.”

Consequentially we accepted some kind of leadership whether of a real person or imaginative / invented super being. Normal people were part of a branching scheme of the tree depending on their power or wealth or importance. This concept is in fact such a powerful metaphor for organizing big communities, organizations, countries or super national entities or conveying information to map a variety of systems of knowledge that still persists in our understanding of organizational order.

At the end of the Cold war things somehow started to fall apart. World became globally connected via air transport and mostly due to evolution of Internet. To be precise I think the Internet is actually changing the tree paradigm we lived thousands of years, quite a lot and pretty fast.

Information is not any more spread via top down approach which gave top people the power of it. Organizational schemes are flattening. Even such organizations as armies follow the new principle when teaching combats units how to behave in the battle. It is dealing with decentralized, independent cells, where there's no top leader leading the whole combat process. Rather, any soldier should or could take command if necessity of circumstances requires so.

What we experiences today is the shift from trees structures into networks. Networks really embody notions of decentralization. Bring in interconnectedness. And the most important people, knowledge, information, organizations, countries and more become interdependent. A fact so well embodied in Nature that we keep forgetting all the times. For a moment think of your body. How many cells you have, organs, extremities. Do you feel each finger all the times? No, all these work in unity. But your body is not alone in the Universe …. Therefore, interconnectivity or better entanglement is a natural order.

Even more, this new way of networked thinking is critical to solve many of nowadays’ complex problems we face. From decoding the human genome or brain up to understanding the vast Universe we live in.

Back to the topic in question – is there a space for a leader in such network notions?

What do People Want from Leaders?

We mostly talk about leaders and what constitutes to be a leader. What about followers – do they have any role?

Hearing Lao Tzu one can figure out what was found important long ago: "I have three precious things which I hold fast and prize. The first is gentleness; the second is frugality; the third is humility, which keeps me from putting myself before others. Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men."

How about today?

The Gallup informs us that the ‘vision thing’ pales in comparison to instilling trust, compassion, stability, and hope when debating what followers expect from their leaders.

Is it any different from the past?

I do not think so, just the wording is kind of more puzzled when reading ancient texts. What I understand is that followers expect a lot from their leaders. When they don’t get what they expect the first thing they begin to lose is trust and respect for their leader.

What I would expect from the followers is their hope for leaders to have greater emotional intelligence – what Daniel Goleman has already introduced in the previous century. With it a leader connects more intuitively with his followers. But this connection is never one way. Followers anticipate to be heard, understood and given enough attention to feel that their contributions and opinions matter. They envisage a leader to become opportunity enabler and an exceptional coach for them to help improve their performance.

Ideas to Spark Positive Motivation

We recently got a puppy Xia. She entered our hearts immediately although Biba left us not long time ago (see: Lesson of Leadership by Biba).

We rescued Biba from the shelter when she was about one year old. Xia came to us eight weeks old from a breeder. This time we did not hesitate to start educating Xia right away. In the first weeks we tried “old” school techniques according to our previous experiences but they were not working well. So we decided to get an instructor to teach much more us than her. The instructor was very confident in telling us that his principle is a positive motivation that is easy for dogs and hard for owners. And it proved so all over again!

We were awarding Xia (with briquettes) whenever she was doing something that we actually wanted her to do in the way the instructor taught us. Xia was not receiving her food at home but was fed out throughout a day and practically for every single briquette had to do something. In two weeks’ time she was completely clean. As dogs are more inclined to “understand” gesticulation and not words we had to learn right gestures. When she understood them we gradually added words to them. All this time whenever she behaved “properly” she was rewarded with food from our hand. Wrong doings were overlooked but not punished. Until something was done rights, she did not get food. Xia almost immediately learned what brings her food.

The instructor told us that normally the repetition of 10.000 times makes the command stored to dog’s musculature “memory”. How equal to us! (See: How To unify Body, Mind and Spirit). Practically the same goes in practicing martial arts: “If you want to really learn something you have to repeat it 10.000 times!”

Leadership Development

In my post Are Leaders Born or Made? I expressed my belief that the best leaders have some preconditions but they learn later on how to lead. By getting a leading position it should never be the end stage of learning and changing phase: to be (stay) in shape and understand the working environment constant learning and developing is what is needed and necessary.
When we already occupy a position of a leader what more should we learn, what competences should we develop and how do we do that?

Most leaders (I should rather use the term managers) begin and end their learning process by visiting MBA programs and maybe some additional courses. Unfortunately, traditional management practices (taught in a typical MBA program) are usually not very helpful in the field of innovation process (read more: Leading a team). Innovations foster any kind of development that is much needed in the very competitive business environment of nowadays therefore innovation is the key to success for any leader.

Any organization’s future success depends on identifying and evolution of the next generation’s leaders. Organizations that fail to do that sooner or later experience a loss of its high-potential talent that is usually at the time already in short supply. In a study by Laci Loew and Karen O’Leonard, Leadership Development Factbook 2012: Benchmarks and Trends in U.S. Leadership Development (July 2012) was acknowledged that US companies alone spend almost $14 billion on leadership development annually.

Why do then so many companies ignore proper leadership development? Is it because companies too often demand a wish list of ambiguous qualities like creativity and innovation that fail to align with organizational needs? Or is it due to assumption that ‘one size fits all’ and that the same group of skills or style of leadership is appropriate regardless of the strategy, organizational culture, or leader mandate?

Leadership way: Wing Chun or Karate

In my posts Wing Chun basics 4 Leadership and Wing Chun in Leadership I have already explained about Wing Chun principles. They are very well connected with Chinese thoughts and philosophies. They are based on the Yin and Yang principle, meaning soft and hard or motion and stillness, attack and defense—they all come from each other. This may be the most important theory in China.

What about Karate?

It is well known fact that Karate originates from Okinava, Japan. It was developed under the influence of Chinese martial arts, particularly Fujian White Crane which is thought to be the origin of Wing Chun too. It was brought to Okinava in 14th century. Gichin Funakoshi, the founder of Shotokan Karate, is generally credited with having introduced and popularized Karate on the main islands of Japan in 20th century. At the time when the martial art named Karatejutsu (the art of ‘Tang/China dynasty hand’) was renamed, by homophone, into ‘way of the empty hand’ and ‘do’ (road, path, route, way) – Karatedo. As Funakoshi had trained two other popular branches of Okinawan Karate at the time, Shorin-ryu and Shorei-ryu,  influenced by Kendo he assimilated some ideas with regard to distancing and timing into his Shotokan style.

Servant leadership

The servant leadership philosophy and/or a set of leadership practices have been expressed and described in many ways. There is a notion that a servant leadership is an age-old concept, a term loosely used to suggest that a leader’s primary role is to “serve” employees. On the other instances the notion is around the concept of an imaginary inverted pyramid organization in which top executives ‘report’ downward to lower levels.

The author of the term is Robert Greenleaf.  He described it in his paper ‘The Servant as Leader’ (1970): “The servant leader is a servant first … It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve and serve first. Then a conscious choice brings the aspiration to lead …”

Most authors in favor of servant leadership today explain the term as one of the best approaches to leading. They describe it as a method that consists of some activities and qualities a leader should possess or do: he/she values everyone’s contributions; listens; cultivates a culture of trust; understands and empathizes with others; helps people with a life and not only work issues; encourages; thinks and behaves as ‘you’ and not ‘me’; relies on persuasion (seeks to convince others), rather than authority; builds community; focuses primarily on the growth and well-being of people / employees and the communities to which they belong.

Ancient knowledge about leadership

Last post about “Different views on leadership” discussed the differences between Western and Eastern leadership views. In searching for those dissimilarities I came across text from Spring and Autumn - Warring States, chapter Yao Yue describing discussion between Confucius and his apprentice Zi Zhang. Discussion is obviously focused on a leadership principles and attitudes:

Zi Zhang asked Confucius: "In what way should a person in authority act in order that he may conduct government properly?"

The Master replied: "Let him honor the five excellent, and banish away the four bad, things; then may he conduct government properly."

Zi then said: "What is meant by the five excellent things?"

The Master: "When the person in authority is beneficent without great expenditure; when he lays tasks on the people without their repining; when he pursues what he desires without being covetous; when he maintains a dignified ease without being proud; when he is majestic without being fierce."

Zi: "What is meant by being beneficent without great expenditure?"

The Master replied: "When the person in authority makes more beneficial to the people the things from which they naturally derive benefit; -- is not this being beneficent without great expenditure? When he chooses the labors which are proper, and makes them labor on them, who will repine? When his desires are set on benevolent government, and he secures it, who will accuse him of covetousness? Whether he has to do with many people or few, or with things great or small, he does not dare to indicate any disrespect - is not this to maintain a dignified ease without any pride? He adjusts his clothes and cap, and throws a dignity into his looks, so that, thus dignified, he is looked at with awe - is not this to be majestic without being fierce?"

Zi then asked: "What is meant by the four bad things?"

To lead people

Have you heard of many great managers of the past? Probably much less than about great leaders. That is why “to manage” and “to lead” are two distinguishing roles. They are both needed in society and organizations.

The verb “to lead” has a great history down to the philosophical writings from Plato's Republic to Plutarch's Lives in which he explored the question “What qualities distinguish an individual as a leader?” In one of my previous posts “China’s history and culture impacting Leadership – 1” (and following ) I've written about the Far East’ perception on leadership. And what internet has to say about the verb “to lead”?

The Free dictionary 

• To show the way to by going in advance
• To go first as a guide.

MerriamWebster 

• To direct on a course or in a direction
• To guide someone or something along a way.

Dictionary.com 

• To go before or with to show the way; conduct or escort: to lead a group on a cross-country hike
• To take the initiative; begin.

Martial arts solution to conflict

In previous post Leadership and conflict I've explained what conflict is, the types of conflict and how to resolve them as a leader. In this post I would add my additional thoughts on the subject from a different angle of view.

Martial arts are mostly thought of as being violent. At the beginning of each enrolment year there come those that want to fight. They see martial arts as a solution to their way of solving conflicts on streets, in bars or other locations. They feel that they will be “equipped” with better tooling and can turn the outcome of the conflict in their favor.

The main question is: “Is that so?”

There are two ways to answer this question that may mislead the answer to just one direction: the direction in which one is able only to fight back.

Dao De Jing

Dao De Jing is a transcript of around five thousand Chinese characters in eighty-one chapters or sections. The chapter divisions were during history in later editions reorganized and supplemented with commentary. The title of the Dao De Jing text comes from the opening words of its two sections: DAO represented in chapters 1 to 37 and DE from chapter 38 to 81.

To explain the title we can separate containing terms. The term Dao was explained in my blog “Dào (Dao, Tao) – the Way” and De in “De – Virtue –Dé”. The third word Jing is translated as ‘canon,’ ‘great,’ or ‘classic’ text.

Thus, Dao De Jing can be translated as ‘The Classic/Canon of the Way/Path and the Power/Virtue.’ Even if this well-known text title did not become generally used until the Tang dynasty (618–905), it is fundamental to philosophical Daoism and it strongly influenced other old Chinese schools, such as Legalism and Neo-Confucianism. This ancient book is also central to Chinese religion, not only for religious Daoism, but also Chinese Buddhism which, when first introduced into China, was largely interpreted through the use of Daoist words and concepts.

Problem solving and Leadership

Broadly perceived “western” trap says: “Problem solving is the essence of why leaders exist to do.”
Why is that false?

Like falling dominoes also the problems tend to accumulate fast? Most managers take short-cuts just to temporarily alleviate the most important tension points - just to be able to move onto the next problem. So, being unable to solve the core of each problem, the managers continuously get caught in the trap of a never-ending cycle thusly making it even more difficult to find any real resolutions. And these actions are draining all their energy and time resources.

Wing chun in Leadership

Wing Chun (in Mandarin Yong chun) means “eternal spring”. It is a marvelously efficient system of aggressive self-defense that allows immediate adaptation to the size, strength, and fighting style of an attacker.

Yip Man, who introduced wing chun to the west, was from the south of China where Cantonese language is spoken. Additionally, the Chinese pronunciation is very different from the Western pronunciation and that is why people misunderstand it. Consequently, we do not have  only Wing Chun, but also Ving Tsun, Ving Chun, and Wing Tsun, as well as some styles that at the end of Wing Chun as a third word add Kuen (Mandarin Quan), meaning “series of fist boxing”.

Wing chun is also based on the Yin and Yang principle, meaning soft and hard or motion and stillness, attack and defense—they all come from each other. Yin and Yang may be the most important theory in China. The concept of Yin and Yang is simple and at the same time vast in nature. The earliest origin of Yin and Yang must have come from the observation of day turning into night and night turning into day. Yin and Yang are interdependent on each other. Yin cannot survive without Yang and vice versa—there cannot be activity without rest and rest without activity. Which is the fundamental tenet in Chinese thought that has been emphasized mostly by the Daoist schools is wu wei. The literal meaning of wu wei is ‘without action’ and is often included in the paradox wei wu wei, ‘action without action’ or ‘effortless doing.’ It means natural action—as planets revolve around the sun, they ‘do’ this revolving, but without ‘doing’ it, or as a tree grows, it ‘does,’ but without ‘doing.’ Wu wei refers to behavior that arises from a sense of oneself as connected to others and to one’s environment. It is not motivated by a sense of separateness. It is action that is spontaneous and effortless. If wu wei is seen purely as inactivity, then indeed it is anachronistic in todays’ times. But wu wei is not just a lack of purposeful action, it involves knowing when to act and when not to act. Therefore, it is a state of alert quietude and watchfulness, it is action only when and where required to restore the balance of universal harmony. In Wing Chun, one utilizes all these principles when fighting.

Education, tools and leadership

There are numerous programs, schools and methodologies helping to understand and learn how to manage business and people:  different master of business administration (MBA) schools with their own programs and almost abundant methodologies and tools they teach their students.  Unfortunately no one ever learns whatsoever about e.g.: ecology at an MBA or in their programs. Unethical business and environmental practices of some MBA students are uncovered consistently.

Responsibility across the broadest spectrum of society is vitally important to the future of the global economy. Having said that the key question in today's business environment still remains: do all those programs, methodologies and tools really come out the way we need them to?

The biggest issue to introduce all of the different programs every couple of years or so is mostly based on the matter that companies are entirely dismissing experience if you do not have a degree. This is short sighted and even negligent but attractive  to those that want higher salary, better career opportunities or better consolidated business network. The second matter is that different methodologies and tools get sold to C-level as a silver bullet that is going to fix all of their issues, problems and will bring out the solutions.

But to probe even deeper - it is not the methodologies or the tools that bring solutions or break problems. They are good and they work when they are just frameworks to organize efforts. The important and mostly overlooked aspect of application of methodologies and tools is: they need to be based on the business needs, culture of organization and should be properly trimmed to benefit from using them.

Qi–energy–leadership

In search for describing the Chinese term Qi (氣) I found: Ki in Japanese, Prana or Shakti in India, Gi in Korea, Ka in ancient Egypt, the ancient Greeks called it Pneum, for native Americans it was the Great Spirit, in Africa it’s known as Ashe and in Hawaii as Ha or Mana and the list is not yet complete.

In all those old philosophies, Qi expresses the life force which animates the forms of the world. It is the vital energy or circulating life force that is thought to be inherent in all things. A living being is filled with it. A dead person has no more Qi - the warmth, the life energy is gone. The Egyptian described the same concept very similarly. A living person has the Ka and in a dead one Ka left the body. They also believed that the Ka was sustained through food and drink. This is then the reason why food and drink offerings were presented to the dead. In traditional Chinese medicine, Qi is believed to regulate a person’s spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical balance. A healthy individual has more Qi than one who is ill. However, health is more than an abundance of Qi. Health implies that the Qi in our bodies is clear rather than polluted and turbid; it is flowing smoothly like a stream and does not appear to be blocked or stagnant.

In martial arts (or acupuncture) the capacity to perceive the flow of Qi or to actually see or feel it, is something that can be cultivated through Qi Gong training. During the practice one cultivates the capacity to perceive Qi on different levels. It seems like a potential to be yet expressed. One could say it is like fullness and/or emptiness (compared to yin and yang concept) when we perceive ourselves and the world around as fluid and spacious. In those concepts it is not just experiencing our body to be comprised of patterns and flows of Qì, but we also get to understand that ‘emotions’ and ‘thoughts’ are forms of energy. When a person understands this concept, it is possible to control and deviate the opponent’s energy with our own. Posing the question “Have you ever tried to pick up a child or a dog who did not want to be lifted?” Joe Hyams offers the result: “They both seem to be heavier—this is because the mind is truly a source of power, and when a mind and body are coordinated, Qi manifests itself.”

But Qi is more than the above. It is also the life energy one senses in Nature, the vibratory nature of any phenomena, the flow and tremor that is happening continuously at molecular, atomic and subatomic levels. The Earth itself is also moving, transforming, breathing, and alive with it.

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.

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.
You 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.