Tag Archives: Aikido

Double Quadruple Bogeys

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I was delighted to stumble upon this article in the New York Times about Kevin Na’s recent 16-stroke hole during a PGA event in Texas.

Before I go on, I will note two things. One, I am not a golfer and frankly could care less about the game (though it seems a fun way to kill a day with friends). Two, while I usually use this blog to write about professional matters, this particular post is aimed more at my Aikido students, though I maintain the lessons of Aikido are directly relevant to business. I will attempt to connect the dots between the two.

The reason I admire this story so is that its protagonist is a man who has committed years of his life to mastery. He has attained a degree of skill that gives him every right to a level of pride. He finds himself in a setting where he is observed by his peers and by the public. In addition, he is playing in a game which is known for its manners, formalities, restraint and poise. This scenario is not unlike a martial arts dojo (or a corporate office).

And yet, as happens in martial arts studios (and offices), things go horribly wrong for Mr. Na.

From the video below you will see, this is not a white hat hero story. Mr. Na is not the stoic master devoid of emotion. In fact, he is clearly feeling all of the emotions associated with failure. This is precisely point one. Everyone feels these emotions – from the grand master of a martial lineage to the CEO of a Fortune 100 company. Not only does everyone feel these emotions, but feeling them is not restricted to our learning years only. Even after years of accomplishment we will still bump up against fear, embarrassment, frustration, rage and disappointment. We are all vulnerable to these emotions all the time.

Fall Down Seven Times Get Up Eight
What separates Mr. Na and in my mind makes him worthy of admiration is how he deals with these emotions and the bad predicament he finds himself in. His behavior demonstrates the martial artist’s (and master business person’s) ideal. Sure, you can see his frustration come through. At moments it gets the best of him. He carries on though. He keeps trying, pushing through the emotions and no doubt the great temptation to quit and head back to the tee. At the end of his ordeal he even smiles, shaking his head. He has been defeated. A 16 is a horrible score on a par 4 hole. Through this ordeal though, he also shows an interesting lack of ego in discussing his gaff,

“It was really just one bad shot,” he told reporters. “Well, two, actually. But that’s what started the whole thing. It kind of gets out of hand. That’s what happens in this crazy game.”

He talks about golf, the ‘crazy game’, as if it were something beyond his control. Something bigger than himself which despite his years of training, he cannot command absolute mastery of. Wouldn’t it be nice if more business people were honest about what they could and couldn’t do? Imagine the money we collectively could’ve saved had Wall St. admitted it wasn’t 100% sure exactly what they were cooking up with those collateralized assets and other funky investment products.

I’ve always liked the Zen phrase ‘Fall down seven times, get up eight’. In seven simple words it captures the essence of perseverance. It describes an almost mechanical response to failure. Knock me down, I get back up. Again and again.

It is also something of a tall order. Most people, hammered by a little adversity and offered an easier way out of the predicament, will throw in the towel and take the short cut.

“On most days, recreational golfers would be encouraged to pick up after a double par, or eight strokes on a par 4.
“Oh, yeah, after seven or eight strokes I’d give up,” Magazeno said at Black Bear.”

Mr. Na did even better (or worse), he battled through briars and bent clubs to rack up 16 strokes on a par 4 hole. He hit the ball such that it actually bounced back and hit him, costing yet another stroke. All this after going back to the tee once and firing the ball right back into the woods a second time. Keep in mind, he did this in a professional tournament. He was among his peers. He was in full public view – TV cameras and all.

How refreshing then was his honesty about his failure? He not only played on, but he carded himself the full 16 strokes.

“Most amateur golfers would have picked up their ball. Some might have played on. Few would have known to count their penalty strokes. Fewer still would have written “16” on their scorecard: A what? Double quadruple bogey?”

Put your pants on one leg at a time.
Growing up, my parents would often remark about this or that celebrity or star, “Well you know, he puts his pants on one leg at a time just like everyone else”. We should all take a certain level of comfort knowing that even the businessmen, actors, athletes, martial arts teachers and geniuses we admire most make mistakes and feel anger, embarrassment and disappointment. It means we’re not alone with our feelings. We’re not the first to be frustrated. Many smart, bright, accomplished people stood where we now stand.

Then too, there is the flipside: Knowing this to be true, we should all be cautious before we bestow too much praise on any individual regardless of the titles earned, salaries paid out, books authored, etc. Our society is quick to worship this or that rising star. We make huge assumptions about a current success and it’s guarantees of future outcomes. This is worsened by a culture which pressures us to save face, embellish on accomplishments and overstate successes. Think about it – does anyone take the language on a resume at face value anymore? Does anyone expect the list of references given to be anyone but friends of the candidate? When calling those references and asking for ‘one area of improvement’to try and get to the truth of a candidate, does anyone expect the reference to have anything truly, substantively negative to say?

Most of us don’t harbor any illusions here. Why then do we all continue to sustain that style of creative writing and process of recruiting?

Imagine the time and money to be saved if two parties were honest on day one about where they were at and what they knew and didn’t know. Instead, so many business relationships allow for months of negotiations and meetings to pass before it comes to the forefront that an endeavor simply isn’t possible because things weren’t as rosy as advertised during the initial courtship.

Martial artists are fond of spouting phrases about lack of ego and learning from everything. Businessmen are fond of saying, ‘we learn from mistakes’and ‘good ideas come from anywhere’. In practice though, we humans aren’t as good at living these words that fall so easily from our lips. Instead, we try to save face, deflect blame, take credit, avoid embarrassment and always be right. This even though we all know – and have in common – experiences that confirm for us that double quadruple bogeys happen, like it or not.

Personally, I aspire to be capable of what Mr. Na managed to pull off on his unfortunate day. I’d like to think that the next time I step up to stroke 16 I will do so honestly, with a smile and a little head shaking.

I’d like to think I’d make my 16th stroke and then move on.

Creating A Space for Failure

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“One fails forward toward success.”  ~Charles F. Kettering

“Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat. ~F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.”  ~Henry Ford

“You can’t have any successes unless you can accept failure.”  ~George Cukor

“You always pass failure on your way to success.”  ~Mickey Rooney

…For all the glorification of failure, in quotes like the above, management tomes, and on teams of every type, it seems we humans are wired to try and avoid it whenever possible. Not only that, we stigmatize people we perceive as having failed unless their failure is shown as historical context for a current success. Entrepreneurs spearheading breakout companies today are seen in bright light and their prior bankruptcies and failings cast as stepping stones. Those entrepreneurs filing bankruptcy today don’t enjoy this brilliant glow, even if some of them may well be the next breakout stars in a decade’s time.

If we’re serious about failing we have to have a place to practice failure. I’ve had some success with that in my Aikido dojo.

Creating a space for failure.
In Aikido we practice in a place called a dojo. Literally this means a ‘place of the Way.’The dojo is often described as a microcosm of the world because in it we run into many of the obstacles we encounter in ‘real life’. These range from personality differences to ego issues, from fear of embarrassment to over confidence, and from lonely struggle to the dynamics and frustrations of teamwork. As a microcosm of the world, the dojo is a useful place to practice failure. A company can be too. But in order to practice failure these spaces must be properly designed to facilitate a healthy attitude toward it.

By ‘designed’I do not mean in terms of decor or furniture but rather in atmosphere and ethos. Knowing what we do about our innate desire to avoid failure, I believe leaders in dojo (as in corporations) do best when they continually communicate that failing is acceptable and will not be punished or frowned upon.

This has much to do with loss aversion. The theory of loss aversion asserts that we all feel loss (and therefore failure) more strongly than gain (and success). My guess is, if you look inside yourself, you will remember more acutely the moments you were embarrassed than those when you were celebrated. I know I do. From a scientific perspective, this seems to be the human condition.

Our loss aversion contributes to a certain inertia we experience. While everyone appreciates being reminded once and a while that failure is the key to success – if this is only communicated sporadically, the clarity of our past losses and failures, and the emotions that came with them, tug us back to avoiding failure. They simply eclipse the occasional inspirational words.

The trouble with avoiding failure of course is that it tends to undermine performance. When employees live in fear of failure they keep ideas to themselves. They don’t speak up, they collaborate at arm’s length (lest someone else on the team bring them down) and they focus on political issues within the office to preserve status, power and allies. This gets in the way of doing the necessary work.

My college mentor always said to be wary of someone who ‘works harder to keep their job than do it’. Wise words.

In the dojo, a student fearing failure lets their perceptions of what is right get in the way. Aikido is often counter intuitive. To learn it means looking silly sometimes and acting in a way that is soft, fluid and flowing. This is in contrast to our Western notion of what martial arts means. Men who don’t want to look foolish have trouble wriggling their hips, exaggerating their breath or moving in a manner that at times might be confused with dancing.

How ‘old school’teaching undermines the learning process.
Compounding these internal desires is a traditional – and sometimes counterproductive – expectation of what a martial arts teacher is supposed to be. The ‘traditional martial arts teacher’conjures an image of a silent, mostly-scowling, master pacing the mat and on occasion barking reprimands. Such an individual inspires fear among other things. The executive equivalent is not hard to imagine; that stereotypical ‘no-nonsense, cut-to-the-chase, what’s-the-bottom-line, your-career-is-riding-on-this’, senior executive.

The trouble is, a feared leader plays into the loss aversion and failure avoidance of her students or employees. This can easily turn their focus from learning the art or doing the work to simply not getting yelled at. Sure, it creates a certain blind obedience to the leader… but that ‘blind’part should be a reason for concern.

I have found that I prefer a different approach. (By personality, I am also incapable of being a brooding stoic for any sustained period of time). In my own dojo I frequently communicate that failure is acceptable. I have found the best time to do this is right before belt exams. After all, what could elicit fear of failure more than taking a rank exam in a martial arts class?

One way I do this is with my ‘standard exam speech’. I give it every time belt exams come around so that the new students learn it and so the older students realize it is a permanent feature of the dojo – not a passing fancy of the instructor.

Failing vs. Failure.
My ‘standard exam speech’expresses the difference between failing and being a failure. It points out that anyone can buy and wear a blackbelt but its obvious in practice who has internalized the art. The goal is knowledge not status or reward. If you take your test and fail, all it means is that the knowledge was not there yet. This is no different than a child learning to ride a bike. They may fall in the process but this doesn’t mean they won’t eventually learn.

I tell my students that I will never recommend that they test. After all, if I recommend them and they fail what does it say about my recommendation? I require only that they put in the necessary required time before they consider testing. After that, they are simply ‘eligible’in my eyes and so must review and assess themselves to determine whether they feel the knowledge is in place. Ultimately they must decide to test or to wait. This encourages them to observe the dojo’s senior members, etc. for some sense of what the standards of the dojo are. It makes them more sensitive and outward looking as opposed to simply focusing on themselves the whole time.

In my speech, I remind them that if they are not ready but choose to test anyway, the worst that happens is that they fail the test. Should this happen, it will be discreetly handled and not embarrassing. It will also be informative and help them understand better how to align their own sense of readiness with the standards of the dojo. No harm, no foul, just greater clarity. Similarly, if they test and pass, I recommend that they take a short moment to be proud of what they’ve accomplished but then to push this satisfaction aside and focus again on the next bit to be learned. It is all about the learning and doing well, not the trinkets and titles that come along with it.

Most importantly, this communication is ongoing. It happens in the speech outlined above, but also in daily interaction with students. This is not to say it is always friendly. Sometimes a harsh word is required. But the students learn, because it is stated clearly without room for misinterpretation, that a harsh word is not directed at who they are, but rather at what they are doing that moment.

There is a big difference. The difference between failing and being a failure. It is as essential to the office as it is the dojo.

Once a student or employee understands it, they are free to achieve their potential. More than money, title, or power – self direction and self fulfillment are key ingredients to human satisfaction (read Daniel Pink’s Drive for more insight and some science behind this).

Creating a space for failure defies the laws of loss aversion and failure avoidance freeing us from the gravity of embarrassment that often keeps us weighed down.

Seizing Chaos – A Martial Perspective on Multi-tasking

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The Myth of MultitaskingIn addition to working in businesses I’ve spent nearly two decades in the martial arts. Today I run a school with students of my own. Part of that entails doing public demonstrations. In these demonstrations I try to connect martial concepts to real-world needs. The reason is simple; while many people may get into the martial arts to learn ‘self defense’ most will not get into physical confrontations. Therefore martial arts must be made relevant in other ways.

To me, the world of business is one area that can greatly benefit from martial concepts. At the dojo a week ago, we focused training on randori (literally ‘seizing chaos’). Randori is a multiple person attack where three or four or five people come at you simultaneously (vs. one at a time as they conveniently do in the movies).

In the past, doing public demonstrations, I like to end the presentation with a brief randori demonstration. Along with it, I offer a metaphorical translation of the idea. It goes something like this:

Having lined up four or five people, I individually point to them one at a time. “This guy is my email. This one is my boss, nagging at me. This guy is a telephone. Over here, this one is my monthly paperwork at the office. And lastly this guy is a presentation I have to make by the end of the day. Now let’s watch what happens when I try to take them all on at the same time…”

A demonstration ensues and flailing wildly I try to grapple with two or three of my attackers at a time. They pile up quickly and overpower me easily.

Usually breathing hard at this point, I look at the crowd. “This (gasp) is how (gasp) many of us (gasp) feel at (gasp) work (gasp).”

Once I catch my breath I go on, “We have this insane concept called multi-tasking. It’s a myth. An illusion. There’s scientific evidence galore that it doesn’t work. It’s being outlawed in cars because it’s outright dangerous. Yet we don’t need any of the science or laws to know inside that when we multitask we’re erratic and unfocused doing three things poorly rather than one thing well. This is the reality of the human brain and no matter how many devices we wire ourselves up to, we have finite capacity to get things done. When we try to do more or focus on more, quality drops.”

“As an alternative, I recommend dealing with a work day the way we teach dealing with multiple attackers in an Aikido dojo.”

I then line the five guys back up. We begin again. This time I address one at a time ignoring the others. The object of randori is to keep moving and to focus on one person at a time. You also have to be careful not to waste too much energy on any one person. If you meet resistance, it’s sometimes best to move on and come back to that person again later (they’ll be there, just like work and everything else).

NOTE: This is not me or anyone I know. I just thought it was an interesting (if poor quality) video on the execution of randori in Aikido.

Done properly, an individual can fend off multiple people for far longer if they focus on them one at a time. This translates quite literally into the workspace. Focus on one task at a time and do it to completion. Most importantly, do not divide your attention. Check all our email, then put it away, then answer your voice mail and move on after that. Do the presentation. Go talk to the boss. Do your paperwork. With discipline and focus you can get much more done and you work much more efficiently. Focus is obviously integral to putting your best foot forward, yet when we multitask we divide that focus.

The randori approach to getting through a work day takes practice. There are many pressures and distractions to our day – from social networks, to web surfing, to people barging into our offices while we’re trying to get things done. In my experience the wise business person asks people who barge in to come back later. They set aside time for email and Internet surfing and avoid responding every time a message comes in. The majority of these messages don’t truly require immediate attention anyhow and if we’re not careful our devices control us not unlike the bell for Pavlov’s dog.

I offer the randori approach as something to experiment with at the office. Try it for a half a day, or a week. See if it doesn’t change your work patterns and result in better quality to everything you do. At first it will be a concerted effort on your part, but with time it may become the way you do things and you may even find you have a little more energy left after a long day.


The Business of Samu: A Martial Arts Perspective on Executive Leadership

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bamboobroomIn addition to working in the business world, I have spent over half my life in the martial arts. I now have students of my own who I instruct. Often times I am asked if I ‘ever had to use it [martial arts] in real life.’

In a world where most of us won’t get into physical fights for the remainder of our lives, martial arts presents some other useful tools and concepts that we can take with us out of the dojo and into the ‘real world’of business and relationships.

I’d like to share one of those concepts with you as I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. The term is samu. Samu simply translated means something akin to ‘small chores’. It is popular among Zen monasteries and used both in the communal upkeep of the place and as a working form of meditation. Samu is also integral to the traditional martial arts dojo.

I believe samu belongs in business too. In fact, it belongs in the heart of every business person – especially the senior most executives. Here are some lessons to be learned from samu:

If something needs to be done, just do it. Don’t wait for someone else. Don’t find reasons to delay. If you know something needs to be done, you should do it. That may be scheduling a meeting, putting together a presentation, or making photocopies for a meeting. If businesses worked this way things would get done sooner. We’ve probably all sat in a status meeting where a task comes up and everyone looks at everyone else and says “I thought you were doing that?”

No one is too big for small tasks. In the dojo, if toilet needs cleaning, clean it, regardless of whether you are a black belt or a white belt. I sweep the floor of my dojo alongside the newest students, often showing them the proper way to sweep (you can tell a lot about a person’s Aikido by the quality of their sweeping). A student who doesn’t head immediately for the broom closet after class is seen in a poor light. They are likely not to be a good student because they value themselves above what they are learning. This is not too different from an executive who values his time more than other people’s. No one really likes that guy and that impacts his ability to lead.

In a traditional tea ceremony hut in Japan the door is so low you have to crawl through it. This is intentional. By design, even the greatest warrior or lord must humble himself and get on his knees to enter. When executives and leaders are willing to spend some time in the trenches now and then, they connect with their employees and customers. They will hopefully also come to appreciate all the hard work that is done to keep that leader looking good for customers, the board of directors, and the media.

Small tasks reveal big insights. Doing the small chores provides experiential insight than can be very important. Ask an experienced mother about baby products. She will have a mental list of those obviously created, ‘by some single guy who’s never tried to feed a baby while answering the phone’.  Doing the small chores is in essence walking a mile in your assembly worker’s shoes. Or your  salesman’s. Or your customer’s. The insights are invaluable in engineering efficiency and innovation into your business.

The greatest risk of clawing your way to the corner office of the executive floor is that once you get behind the mahogany desk you become comfortable, perhaps complacent, and choose to only spend time in the corner office of the executive floor – far away from employees and customers.

Samu builds pride and community. When the CEO is willing to spend time in the trenches it sends a signal. When employees feel empowered to make suggestions and know the leadership relates to them not from an ivory tower but from a shared experience with the ‘dirty details’of the business, it sends a signal. It is the opposite signal the Big Three auto makers sent when they flew to the government hearings rather than driving.

Being ‘out of touch’has cost companies market share, executives jobs and Presidential candidates elections. If you want people to follow in the direction you’re going, they need to believe that you have stood where they stand.

Back in the dojo… Many prospective students walk in my door with romantic notions of the samurai and martial arts. I sometimes begin by explaining to them that  the word ‘samu’is part of ‘samurai’. In fact, samurai means ‘one who serves’. The senior executive should embody this sense of service… to shareholders of course, but also to employees, strategic partners, customers and the community.

I believe samu has much to offer business people. When an executive begins to feel swept up in the momentum of their own accomplishments it is a cue that perhaps it is time to pick up a broom and sweep up the factory floor.

It is at our own peril that we allow ourselves to become to big to do small things.