I’ve been meaning to write about this rare breed of leader for some time and now seems to be the right time to share my thoughts about “The Corporate Buffalo”.
Here’s a little about the Buffalo:-
Even in ranch environments, buffalo have retained their natural instincts for survival. They can weather storms and help their newborn calves survive in blizzards that would kill entire herds of cattle. Buffalo stand face first into the winter winds as the wind blows their hair down. They don’t turn their hindquarters into the wind, nor do they move with it. Their heavy winter coats provide all the protection they need from the bitter cold.
In the past 10 years I have been lucky enough to work with / coach 1,000′s of leaders and in all that time I have only come across a couple of leaders that I believe have similar strengths to the buffalo.
These individuals are senior leaders in the organisations they work in and have a deep sense of values that drive their decision making and are the sort of leader you would want to follow and go the extra mile for, because you know they are authentic.
The corporate buffalo values their team and has the ability to face the sometimes harsh storms that show up when there is a conflict of interest, when the old style of leadership attempts to get more from the business with fear and the big stick approach. The tools the corporate buffalo use are their powers to inspire & motivate individuals to take action because they have an ability to connect their teams to something bigger than just a job/salary. Their key is that they engage people emotionally, they demonstrate that they care and their team see this by the leaders actions when under pressure.
When the cold wind blows, most people naturally turn away and go with the flow but not the corporate buffalo, they stand and face the wind head on. This takes immense courage and is a key aspect to what inspires others around them, as they see their leader standing for something more than just the bottom line.
They have balance in the 3 core aspects of their lives, Self – Family & Work which is very rare nowadays!
Self 1st
This rare breed of leader is present and highly aware of the importance of taking care of themselves 1st, this is counter intuitive and might seem selfish, yet it’s the most important aspect of Emotional Intelligence (EI). Being comfortable in your own skin as a human and being OK with yourself warts and all, allows a solid base for you to develop the other aspect of EI which is being OK with others. So to be Emotionally Intelligent requires having a high Self Regard & a high Regard for Others, in transactional analysis terms it’s the I’m OK, You’re OK stuff.
The corporate buffalo is someone who takes care of themselves and is aware of the importance of their health and wellbeing, these individuals look in the mirror and ask themselves the difficult questions about what role they are playing to create whatever is showing up in every aspect of their lives. They look at the results that are showing up personally and professionally and take 100% responsibility for it all, as they know that there is deep learning in taking this approach.
Family
Regarding their family lives, once again they have the presence of mind to be available when they are with their loved ones, too often, we forget that it’s the most important gift to be 100% available to our partners and children when we get home. The pace of corporate life has become so fast, that to stay ahead we fall into the trap of doing more hours at the cost of our own health and wellbeing and on top of that, our families suffer.
Once again, the corporate buffalo lives by their strong sense of values and makes certain that they attend the school plays or the important rugby match or netball game to cheer their children on. That stuff counts on so many levels and nourishes your soul knowing that you’ve made yourself available, with your phone switched off of course!
Work
At work they are so aware of the impact they have on everyone around them, not just their immediate team but everyone they interact with during their working day. They are acutely aware of subtle things like using their Blackberry whilst in a meeting and how that can switch others off if they are not fully present. They use their intuition and check for understanding if they sense people aren’t on board or engaged.
Their biggest strength is that they don’t buckle under pressure and change direction just to please their boss, they have the courage to say no when something doesn’t match their values or at least they will strongly challenge and come up with other options to find a better solution.
I look forward to your comments and hope you enjoy the video clip from the Rocky Balboa film which is a summary of how these people view life.
I’ve always been interested in the power of having a positive mindset and we have all seen some amazing examples of people overcoming, sometimes insurmountable odds. I’ve been aware of the down side to not being able to think positively and how this can cause us to spiral out of control.
Most people know about the placebo effect and my guess is that there is a fairly low awareness around the powerful effects from nocebo.
Here’s an article from the New Scientist which helps us see just how much of an impact can have on our WellBeing.
When western anthropologists first heard reports of witch doctors who could issue deadly curses, they quickly found rational explanations. The families of the cursed often felt there was no point wasting food on the “walking dead”, for example. That’s why many of the cursed would die: simple starvation.
However, other case histories have come to light that defy attempts to explain them. In the 1970s, for example, doctors diagnosed a man with end-stage liver cancer, and told him he had just a few months to live. Though the patient died in the predicted time, an autopsy showed the doctors had been mistaken. There was a tiny tumour, but it had not spread. It seemed the doctors’ prognosis had been a death curse.
Though the mechanism remains a mystery, but at least now this kind of phenomenon has a name. The “nocebo effect” is the lesser-known opposite number of the placebo effect, and describes any case where putting someone in a negative frame of mind has an adverse effect on their health or well-being. Tell people a medical procedure will be extremely painful, for example, and they will experience more pain than if you had kept the bad news to yourself. Similarly, experiences of side effects within the placebo groups of drug trials have shown that a doctor’s warning about the possible side effects of a medicine makes it much more likely that the patient will report experiencing those effects.
This is not just in the mind: it is also about physical effects. The stress created by the nocebo effect can have a long-lasting impact on the heart, for example – perhaps serious enough to cause fatal damage.
The race is on to understand the precise mechanisms behind nocebo. Medical researchers are hoping that such an understanding will help to make the world a less stressful place. “It is a good way to understand anxiety, and to find methods to prevent it,” says Fabrizio Benedetti of the University of Turin, Italy.
This article backs up all of the work that was shared in the powerful docu-film “What the Bleep do we Know” Showing us what happens when we have a thought and the chemical cascade that occurs and the long term effects it can have on our bodies.
If you’ve not had the chance to see this clip from the Fast Show it shows us just how quickly we can fall into this Nocebo thinking. It puts a little fun into this post.
I had the pleasure of having a really powerful conversation with a close friend last weekend, she also happens to be my chiropractor and has been part of my support team for 2 of my solo races across America.
We were discussing how easy it is for couples to trample all over each others values, of course most of the time it’s out of awareness.
When someone visits a therapist for treatment it’s usually because something is misaligned and it’s causing pain, it could be a sore knee or shoulder. The conversation became very interesting when she shared her observation of what % of the total body that pain related to, in essence the sore shoulder only represents less than 1% of the body but it takes up almost all of our thinking. It directs our attention on to all of the things that are difficult to do because of the pain.
That simple conversation made me realise just how easy it is for any couple to end up getting stuck when their values aren’t being met. Let me explain, my highest value is Love, all hell could break loose and as long as this value is being met I’d be able to conquer anything.
If that value isn’t met, it has the potential to cause me stress and I don’t feel great, which then drives my thinking, so much so that I become completely consumed by this, and it has the ability to derail me and I could easily spiral downward into a very dark place.
This pattern can show up in any relationship for any number of values not being met, things like only being secure if you have enough money in your bank account, the house being completely tidy, having time for yourself, the list is endless and shows up at work too! If you don’t get the feedback for work you’ve carried out or you’re not recognised for other aspects of your contribution.
The point that is important to highlight here, is that we all get caught out by allowing our feeling about something to then drive our thinking, as opposed to the other way around.
Here’s an example:- Say you’ve decided to get fit as one of your goals for 2011, just say that as part of this new goal you’ve decided to get to the gym 3 times a week before work. Now we all know that this will require changing what time you get out of bed etc. This is how feeling ends up driving your thinking, you’ve set your alarm to wake at 5.30am so you can get to the gym and when the alarm goes off, you still feel tired and don’t want to get up, you probably just missed the point. You see, you’ve just allowed your feeling to drive your thinking, you feel tired and then you start thinking that maybe the new training plan can start tomorrow or next week.
The pattern should always be thinking driving how you feel, I know this is very subtle but it makes a big difference to the results that show up and what action you take. It’s easy to be paralysed to anything else that you have got going for you when you are in pain of any sort, whether it’s a physical pain or an emotional one, the result is the same, we can get completely and utterly trapped and blocked in that thought.
It can stop you from seeing all the other amazing aspects that you have in your life right now. Most of that comes from thinking that there’s not enough resources available, not enough time, not enough money. A much more powerful space to hold is one of sufficiency, the thought that there is always just enough to go around.
I’ve talked mainly about how this can effect relationships when values are not being met, but this absolutely applies to personal negative feelings that can direct your thinking in the same pattern. You end up in the same place of being stuck and not able to see all of the good stuff that is abundant in your life right now.
Every thought has a chemical cascade, positive thoughts are obviously going to support a healthy body, whereas negative thoughts can over a period of time have a massive impact on your health and wellbeing.
I hope this helps shed some light on a very subtle and yet a very powerful sneaky trap we can find ourselves, I hope this creates a heightened awareness so that you use it to your advantage.
I’m hoping that you have pondered these questions a number of times throughout your life and for some of you, you may well have found your life’s calling, for those of you who are still searching or perhaps have just got fed up with this tricky question, I believe there is hope.
In terms of feeling great about yourself and being totally fulfilled, there seems to be such a greater return when you are giving to or supporting others to achieve their goals. This is especially true when you do it from a space of non-attachment to expecting anything in return.
In Eckhart Tolle’s book A New Earth he explains your purpose very simply.
At the moment you are reading this blog and in this moment, that is your purpose until you are not reading this and you go off doing something else, which then becomes your purpose, his point is to focus on how you are being from moment to moment throughout your life.
For most of us purpose means having an overall aim in life, something big and significant that gives meaning to what you do, something that makes a difference. Eckhart talks about how within the dimension of time we are deceived and any meaning we find on that level is true only relatively and temporarily.
Here are a couple of his examples, if caring for your child gives meaning to your life, what happens when they don’t need you anymore or don’t listen to you anymore? If helping others gives you meaning then you are relying on others to be worse off than yourself so that your life can continue to be meaningful and you feel good about yourself.
If you get meaning from excelling at this or that activity, what happens if you never win or your winning streak comes to an end?
Eckhart talks about the outer purpose being aligned with your primary or your inner purpose, he doesn’t suggest that helping others or caring for your children or excelling in whatever field are not worthwhile things to do but if you rely on your outer purpose, sooner or later it will lead to suffering.
If you ignore your inner purpose, no matter what you do, even if it looks spiritual, the ego will creep into how you do it, and so the means will corrupt the end.
Our minds get caught up in seeking the fullness of life in the future, you’ll be happy when the mortgage is paid off or happy when you’ve lost the weight or when you can run the marathon in under 4 hours or be at the top of the sales team, Eckhart says that the mind’s habit of seeking the fullness of life in the future where it cannot be found and ignoring the only point of access to it: the present moment is where we get tripped up.
When you look upon what you do or where you are as the main purpose of your life, you negate time. This he says this is enormously empowering.
So the key is to link your inner purpose (how you are being) with your outer purpose (when you are doing the doing).
It’s not what you do, but how you do what you do that determines whether you are fulfilling your destiny. And how you do what you do is determined by your state of consciousness.
Our lives are made up of moments or chunks of time and it’s in those small moments that your greatness is formed, all great achievements have been made up of a collection of these and have come through a conscious choice of how that person was being in that moment.
I hope that some of Eckhart’s wisdom has been useful and I look forward to your comments.
It’s not often that we think very deeply about where our beliefs come from, we have a view of the world and what is possible for us in life and most of us just get on with it, almost living out the life that we have been conditioned to live. Our beliefs have been shaped and sculpted by a whole host of things including:- parents, teachers, friends, peers, media, life experiences, trial and error, even our imagination plays a role in our beliefs.
It’s no coincidence the word “lie” sits in the middle of the word belief and most of the time our belief about what is possible is a lie and yet we hold on to these beliefs that have stuck to us throughout of lives.
Now I’m not suggesting that you get rid of all of your beliefs, just the ones that are holding you back from being able to do more, have more and be more in your life, by all means please do keep hold of the beliefs that have served you well and helped you achieve great results.
How often have you sat and thought about what impact a single thought has on you?
How many times have you wondered where a certain belief has come from and whether it is still true for you now?
When you boil it down, a thought is a series of chemical cascades which over time will have an impact on your results that show up in your life both internally and externally.
By internally, I mean your fitness, health (including diseases) your wellbeing ie. whether you are stressed and worry about stuff. More and more data is available about genetics and it seems to be responsible for about 2-4% of diseases (Biology of Beliefs by Bruce Lipton), the rest is made up of our thinking, exercise (or lack of) and our diet!
What shows up externally are things like how much you have in your bank account, the car you drive, the house you live in, the quality of your relationships with people at work and your loved ones along with all of the things you can physically measure outside of yourself.
Ultimately, it is your thinking that drives your beliefs. The big challenge for all of us is to be able to slow down enough to spend some time to pick through the beliefs that are still useful and then have a clear out of the ones that are useless, a de-cluttering to make room for you to bring some new thinking into your life.
To make it easy, beliefs come in 2 sizes, you either have Limiting beliefs or Empowering beliefs! Your beliefs will drive every decision you make in your life so it’s probably worth checking them out every now and then.
I dived into a shop to get a sandwich and as I was checking out the young lady asked whether I had a loyalty card which I said no to, she then asked whether I needed a bag and I also said no. I then lost eye contact with her when she said something which I didn’t hear, I caught myself not being fully aware and asked what she had said and with a big beaming smile she said that she had just asked if I would marry her!
She said that I had already said no twice and was just checking whether I was really awake and was messing with me. We had a laugh and it was a pleasant little interaction, one which reminded me of the fact that we are usually running at such a pace that we do have the potential to miss so much. Little bits of conversation are missed because we are in a rush to get to the next thing!
Businesses obviously recognise that people do business with people but I think that it gets lost in the hustle bustle of every day corporate life and the focus on KPI’s and the next quarterly results, so it’s no wonder that there is little focus on developing presence.
This is not a process thing, it’s all about the complexed nature of human beings and understanding what makes us tick and how we differ from one another. Being present is about shutting out everything else that’s going on in your head and the ability to focus your attention on the person or group of people you are with at that time. I’m not saying this is easy, it takes a lot of awareness or mindfulness.
A good example is how you feel when someone doesn’t give you their full attention! The impact is very powerful and it could be the difference that clinches the next deal or helps open up lines of communication.
Every interaction we have does leave a finger print, the difference between the sort of finger print someone might leave who is present compared to someone who is in a rush and completely unaware is massive.
For centuries now it has been about the relationships people are able to forge with one another but now more than ever it has become the key to success in any business.
As a keynote speaker, I get a lot of people say that there’s no way they could ever get up in front of a group of strangers and talk to them. This was the thought that woke me this morning at 4.30am, so whilst I attempted to get back to sleep my brain went into overdrive and I came up with this acronym which I hope might help with your next speech.
The RAPPORT Model
RAPPORT
The “R” is in fact Rapport as I believe that this is one of the most important things you need to gain in front of a group of complete strangers. If you were speaking to friends or business colleagues, you’ll be given a little breathing space but an audience that doesn’t know you will be judging you as soon as you walk up to start.
There are a number of ways to gain quick Rapport, one of the best ways is to tell a story about yourself that the audience can relate to, something as simple as talking about you arriving late for an appointment and feeling really bad about it, most people in the audience will be sat there thinking yeah, I’ve done that a couple of times! What you are looking for, is to create as many “ME TOO” moments within the first minute or so, or at least one really powerful story that they can connect with.
Once you’ve gained their Rapport, you’ll need to continue to keep their attention throughout your speech, so you’ll need to sprinkle more of those type of inclusive stories.
Telling a joke or a funny story, is another way of gaining Rapport, you just need to make sure that you know the punch line and that it won’t offend anyone!
ATTENTION
Now that you’ve gained their rapport, you will need to be able keep their ATTENTION, usually this would come in the form of your credibility, in your field for example you may be the expert or have come up with something new or innovative. If you were introduced, it might be that you have already gained their Attention because the intro explained who you are and what you are going to be talking about. I’ve certainly seen bad and good examples of introductions, sometimes the safest way is to have your own intro written out in advance of your speech.
For me personally, I use a video clip which I think is powerful, as it says what it does on the tin so to speak.
If you haven’t been introduced or have a video that you can use, it’s worth giving some thought to what your key messages are going to be and how you can use that to gain the audience’s attention. For example, you might be able to weave a national or international news story into your speech and create a clever link to what you’ll be talking about and why it’s so important to focus the next hour or so on your topic.
PURPOSE
The Purpose is more about your Purpose for doing the speech, is it part of your job and expected of you to talk at the company conference or is this one of those development opportunities? In a way, it doesn’t really matter because whatever the reason is for you doing the speech, you’ll want to do a great job.
In a way, your Purpose is really what you stand for, your view of the subject, your opinion and beliefs that you want to share. If you are reporting on the companies financial results at the conference, as much as the content can be boring at times, there’s absolutely no reason for you to be boring with it! Take some pride in what you have been tasked to present on and make it engaging and leave your own personal finger print.
PAYOUT
The Payout is what’s in it for your audience and if you’re really clever you could link it to your Attention grabber. It could be that you are an industry expert and that you have some new strategies to share or that you have a new challenge that needs to be solved and that you need their help to solve it, the payout for them is that they will have been involved and got something from the time they’ve just invested.
In fact, that’s a great way to think about what your payout will be for your audience, think that they are going to be investing their time and that you need to deliver a return on that investment somehow. Listening to your speech will mean that they will walk away with either an amazing experience or some great new bits of information they can use, ideally, both.
OPPORTUNITY
Whenever I get the chance to speak, whether it’s to a local school, a football club or at a company conference, I really do see it as an Opportunity to leave a positive finger print. I really do buy into the idea that we are all connected and that we create a ripple effect with every interaction we have with others.
If speaking isn’t a strength for you yet, then the next speech could be seen as an Opportunity to gauge how much you’ve improved since the last time. It could be that it’s an Opportunity to shine in front of a new team that you’ve just taken over or in front of a new CEO. Whatever the situation, you can always look for the Opportunity that sits within doing the speech and get excited.
REPRESENT
Of course, you are representing yourself first and fore most and on top of that it may well be your company that you are representing at a seminar. I guess my point here is that when I’m speaking, I remind myself who I’m representing and I attempt to put across a great impression on behalf of the groups I Represent, other keynote speakers or cyclists for example.
You Represent your family, local community, the region, your country, the teams you support! The list is long and it’s certainly worth some thought.
TIMING
The Timing is about a few things, firstly being mindful of finishing on time is extremely important, you want your audience being engaged and energised by your speech and not disappointed that they are stuck in traffic or have missed the only night flight home because you ran over on time!
If you do a lot of speeches, you will have found out that there are a number of occasions when your host asks you to cut your speech by 15 minutes or maybe even more because the whole agenda has run over time! This does happen a lot so it’s worth being prepared to drop some slides or some of your points out so you can accommodate your host, in the early days I got caught out by this a couple of times and it’s painful if you are attached to getting all your points across and then run way over.
Timing is also about knowing when to pick the pace of your speech up and also when to slow it down, ideally you want to take your audience on an emotional roller coaster allowing them to really experience what you are speaking about by giving great examples or get them involved and out of their seats. Being aware that if someone has been sat through a previous speaker before you started, they may be fidgety and would benefit from a little movement, getting them to just stand up and stretch or change seats is a good way to re-energise your audience.
Well, there you go, I hope that the RAPPORT model will help in some way to you Being a Great Keynote Speaker and I look forward to your comments.
It’s recently dawned on me that when I look at the Race Across America and in particular the solo race, there seem to be riders who have shown up to finish what they started.
These people who finish no matter what shows up are people who even if the race or their bodies get the better of them in their first attempt, are the type who will go back and get the job done the following year or have plans to go back and finish what they started, Kerry White is one of those legends along with Janet Christiansen who didn’t finish in her first attempt but went back the following year and finished as an official finisher.
These individuals will take on board the learning that has been gifted to them during this Ultra feast which is truly unlike anything else out there in terms of beasting yourself against everything that is thrown at you over 12 days (men) 13 days (women).
Life Lessons
It’s a great example of what happens to us all on a daily basis, there are loads of curve balls that get thrown during a normal day at work, school or college but the point I’m making here is it’s more about your ability to rebound and pick yourself up from those tricky situations.
I guess I’m talking about just how emotionally resilient are you. Harry Potter has an invisibility cloak that he uses to allow him to sneak around Hogwarts. We all have the option to have a similar cloak which could be used to guard us against all of the interference that can knock us off our feet! Almost like a bullet proof vest this cloak can protect us from negative people and they are out there!
Simple bits of feedback delivered in the wrong way can cause us a period of time out of our day when we’re not as productive. All sorts of stuff has the potential to get in our way of being really focused when we need to be.
We are so chaotic as human beings and we need to understand that there is only one thing we can control in our lives and that’s ourselves!
Most people tend to spend so much time and energy focusing on stuff that is completely out of our control that we have become an anxiety driven society; we’re on edge and can be easily distracted and knocked off from what we should be focusing on.
We can be having an amazing day and then all of a sudden, someone says something that’s maybe not even intended for us but we over hear it and think that they were talking about us and off we go on one! Up til that point we were as happy as Larry and now we’ve lost it. So much time is lost in these sort of curve balls and we lose so much focus on these type of events, of course there are bigger things that also can derail us and ultimately it’s about how we respond to these events that in turn shape us into who we are today.
The Way Forward
The only way to really become emotionally resilient is to expect the curve balls to show up, life has a way of throwing stuff at us to see whether we’ve got it yet or not! Either events or people will come along to test us to see if they still have the power to upset us or not.
I spoke to my daughter a few years ago about this when she was upset about breaking up from her first boyfriend, I mentioned that it was a bit like standing in the sea up to your knees, the waves will come at you constantly, most of them will be gentle and you will enjoy your time in the sea facing the elements. Every now and then however, there will be a wave that comes along and knocks you off your feet, you can almost expect it!
I’m not suggesting that you live a life of expecting to be bowled over at some point so don’t get too happy! On the contrary, I’m suggesting that by being ready for that unexpected wave because that’s what it usually is, you can be ready to dust yourself off and enjoy the rest of your time on the planet.
A boyfriend leaving you might have some big lessons around what you want and more importantly deserve in a new relationship, get that lesson and you’ll be a much happier person. The same can be said about leaving a job and a host of other stuff we think is really big at the time.
When those curve balls get thrown one of the best ways to look at it is to ask:- What can I learn from this? So that it doesn’t show up again!
I’m not saying this is easy and at the same time I am. Choice as usual plays a big role in how long we put ourselves through the mangler!
Choose wise let go and learn as quickly as possible.
This is just a quick call out there for those millions of people that are currently running so fast to stay on the treadmill of life that they often can’t find time to tap into the things that give them nourishment.
We all understand that we eat food to give us energy and the food we choose to eat can have a massive impact on our overall wellbeing, our body is very good at taking out the the nutrients that then nourishes and repairs our body. In the busyness of our working lives, it’s easy to pay little attention to the quality of food we consume and we end up in a pattern of eating a poor diet because it serves a need and allows us to squeeze more out of our working day.
If you get this simple explanation then you will also understand that our being gets bombarded on a daily basis by media, other people, our own thinking and a whole host of other stimuli, most of which is negative and has the potential to dent our soul.
Here are some questions to ponder:-
Do you know what nourishes you?
What makes you feel great on the inside?
Here are some examples of the sort of things I’m talking about:-
A smile from a loved one
The sun on your face
Doing exercise
A happy memory
A beautiful view
Reading a great book
Learning something new
Achieving a tough goal
Making someone else feel great
Seeing someone you care about achieve their goal
The wind in your hair
Walking the dogs
Seeing the cats playing together
An inspirational movie
Looking through old photo albums
Most of them are very simple things and easy to achieve BUT how often are we missing these opportunities to re-energise ourselves and top ourselves up? This can have a massive positive effect on our immune system and thus on our overall wellbeing. Within your busy day it’s easy to sow some of these to ensure your are fully fuelled. Most people would argue that they don’t have enough time, when the reality is that time is all we have! We all have the choice as to how we are going to spend our time.
If you keep a journal, it’s worth keeping a list of these things and the wonderful memories/experiences that you’ve had so that you can reflect on them from time to time. If keeping a journal is not really your thing, then simply store them in your memory bank upstairs.
Having successfully completed my 3rd consecutive solo Race Across America, I’ve now had time to reflect on all of the learning that has taken place and I thought it might be worth sharing some of my insights and how it neatly fits with our every day challenges.
Cycling 3,000 miles non-stop is fairly tough and there’s a lot of training that goes into being able to finish what is considered to be one of the toughest races on the planet but it would certainly be a massive stretch and very much beyond comprehension without the family support I’ve had.
When I compare this to anyone who works long hours and misses the simple family routinues of eating together at night or taking the children to an after school event, that too requires the understanding of one’s partner and support to allow that pattern to continue. I guess my point here is, to succeed in business there is a certain amount of effort that has to go into achieving your goals, whether it’s the companies goals that you are responsible for of your own personal goals you are chasing for your career.
It reminds me of an old quote from Thomas Edison:-
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
It’s all just Learning
I’m not suggesting that you have to flog yourself to get great results, what I am saying is that you’ll have to put some serious effort in to do well. When I look back at the 3 seperate races and why I was able to continue to go faster each year even though I wasn’t getting any younger! I would have to put it down to being able to look back and reflect on what I’ve learnt from each race and then apply that learning for the next attempt.
Being more specific, I would look at what worked well and ensure that it was taken forward into my next race strategy. Probably where I had my biggest learning experiences from was when things didn’t go as well as expected, most of the time this gets labelled as failure.
This is where so many businesses miss the opportunity to overtake their competitors, there is so much fear of failure that a lot of companies are not even taking measured risks in the fear of any reprisal if something goes wrong or FAILS!
Being able to label these so called failures as learning opportunities is a much healthier way of looking at unravelling the situation, the energy behind the word failure almost has a paralysing effect on people and certainly doesn’t make the people involved feel particularly great either. Focusing on what can we learn from this situation is a much more positive way of moving forward and not getting bogged down into blaming people, it forces you to look at what options are available to find a solution.
The usual knee jerk reaction when something does go wrong in business is to immediately ask why and who’s to blame for it not turning out right! The amazing truth is that when something does go wrong within an organisation 94% of the time it’s not down the staff it’s actually down to the processes that are in place that cause the promblem, or I should say the lack of processes! How many times have you experienced a leader ask what was wrong with the system as their first response?
Roles & Responsibility
This has certainly been a key learn for myself when preparing for such a big race, being able to clearly brief all of the crew in terms of their individual rolls and responsibilities, if this is slightly wrong or misleading it can cause major problems during the race and cause major tension for all concerned and can have a massive impact on performance and motivation.
It’s amazing how these things will always show up if there’s been a lack of clarity, the same applies in any organisation when people aren’t completely clear about the direction the business is going in. Small degrees of seperation over a week or a month of being misaligned can end up meaning being way off target, causing a load of stress for all concerned.
Staying Focused
As the rider, it would be very easy to get distracted as you built your training for the race, there’s a lot of other things that need to happen in the background to ensure that everything runs smoothly for the race. Flights, accomodation, getting crew kit, cycle kit the list is a very long one! Without really good planning and briefing the crew regularly, you wouldn’t make it to the start of Raam. In fact that is a big achievement in itself, getting to the start line, so many people that set their sights on competing in this race as a solo rider don’t make it, usually this is down to 2 things:- A lack of crew or a lack of sponsorship!
Being able to delegate the planning aspect enables me to stay focused on doing the training and juggling the family and business.
Again this is very similar to a company who is attempting to increase their margins year on year, there has to be a very thorough plan in place to allow everyone to stay focused on their tasks that they need to perform on a daily basis. Interestingly, it’s those simple every day things that have to happen that allows you to achieve your goals at an individual, team and organisational level.
I guess this is one of my main points about completing & competing in Raam, it’s the aspect of Just Keep Pedaling, I have to stay on the bike and keep pedaling to achieve my goal, that’s my main task, of course I need to eat and drink and occasionally sleep but on the whole it’s about staying on the bike and pedaling.
Whatever your individual main task is within a company, if you can stay focused and just keep pedaling as it were, my belief is that you’d be more successful. Now here’s the challenge for all of us and it can easily bump you off track! Being able to handle the INTERFERENCE, so much stuff has the potential to take your focus away from the main task that you need to be doing and being able to manage these interferences is the key to staying on track and achieving your goals.
3 Simple Strategies to consider from a book called Gung Ho by Ken Blanchard
The Way of the Squirrel
The way of the squirrel is all about everyone in the organisation doing worthwhile work. Certainly within my crews for Raam everyone knew what their roles were and they all knew that it was critical to the success of the whole team and my success as a rider. There would be no way that we would achieve our goal if one of these roles was not carried out to the best of their ability, simple things like mixing drinks doesn’t sound that big a deal but if you get it slightly wrong, it can have a dramatic effect on my performance.
People in a business need to be made aware of the role they play in the bigger scheme of things, they need to be made aware that what they do does make a difference so they can take pride in what they do and that is at all levels!!
The Way of the Beaver
The way of the beaver is all about team work, when beavers build a dam, they all just get stuck in, they bring small twiggs and large sticks and get the dam built, you don’t ever see them arguing over where the stick gets put. The same applies with the crew for Raam, everyone has their own roles but if something extra has to be done, it just gets done by whoever is the closest person available to do the job so we can move forward.
This is an interesting one in companies, a lot of the time I’ve heard things like:- It’s not my job! I’ve already got too much on, I’m not doing that! there are lots of similar lines that get used which is not really what team work is about. It stands to reason that the more efficent you can be as a team the more success you are going to have.
The Way of the Geese
Have you ever seen a flock of geese fly in formation, it’s usually in a V shape and you usually hear them honking as they fly, the honking is considered to be them celebrating success, they are giving feedback to the one at the front of the formation to say that you are doing a great job. Interestingly, they all take a turn at the front pushing the wind, a great example of team work.
Celebrating success in Raam is probably an area that has been missed in each race, one on the main reasons is that we are all so tired that there’s not a lot of energy left to properly celebrate what we have just achieved as a team. Everyone who has been involved in this amazing event have all mentioned that it was a life experience that will stay with them all of their lives but unfortunately, I/we have still not got this aspect right!
It never ceases to amaze me that a lot of companies fall into this trap of not really celebrating thier successes, I have experienced this on many occasions where senior leaders say that it’s something they don’t do enough of. It seems that once a goal has been achieved, it’s all hands to the deck for the next thing.
I haven’t come across too many companies that can get these 3 simple things right!
My Final Point
I have learnt more than anything from the Race Across America and my role as a coach, that most people on the planet are barely scratching the surface of their own potential. I personally set out and used Raam as an experiment to see just how far I could push myself, I was attracted to the idea that this is meant to be one of the toughest events on the planet, I didn’t know whether I would complete the solo race but I did have an incredible mindset and belief that I would do everything I could to achieve my goal.
I’m in a position as a person where I’m luckly to have no physical limits, I have all of my limbs and sight and am very grateful to be able to do what I do. I continue to be massively inspired by other people around the world who push themselves well beyond normal human limits who have been perhaps involved in an accident or had a disability from birth, it’s their spirit that propells me forward in life. Here’sa link to one such person, I hope you enjoy it.
