State Management & Managing Your States

No, this is not an essay on how to run a country.

By ‘states’, I am referring to ‘bodily states’. How your body feels and senses at any one time, can be described as your ‘state’. You may be familiar with the song ‘New York State of Mind’, and the term ‘mind over matter’. In cases of legality, one may have to prove ‘the state of mind’.

I learnt about ‘managing my states’ in 1995. I attended a workshop on ‘An Introduction to NLP’, and my mind became aware of what my five senses afforded me at that time. I learnt to play with the voices in my head, feelings, memories, imagination, and other sensations. Certainly, these were all private, internal, processes that I had no working manual to refer to. So, I wrote an operating-manual for it, which has since undergone multiple revisions and versions.

Two-and-half decades later, I am still raising my bar in my sporting aspirations. I began with competitive bodybuilding, and then shifted to racing in marathons and triathlons. Every year, I attempt to complete successfully at least one marathon (42.2km) and Ironman triathlon (3.8km swim, 180km cycling, 42.2km run). For each event, I have to be as well-prepared and mentally-conditioned to face the race-day, whatever the weather and terrain conditions would be.

For each of my fellow participant, their goals can be vary from completion to competition. My hopeful results are based on living and demonstrating the credo of the Olympic Games, namely, ‘Faster, Stronger and Higher’.

My 18-years of tacit experience and wisdom in racing in endurance, multi-sports, events has taught me to manage my physiological (bodily) states on several levels. These include:

1)   Manage my level and tolerance of pain (braving extreme cold and heat, cramps, injuries, painful stings, gut disorders)

2)   Manage my sensory level of discomfort (conditions of water, waves, currents, taste of the water I swim in, sweatiness, dirt, windiness, heat, cold, flies, and much more)

3)   Doing ‘damage control’, especially when my results start to slip away, as my fatigue level increases (deciding to stop and rest, feeding my body, and walking when I have to)

4)   Dealing with disappointments, especially when the results were expected/unexpected

5)   Dealing with distractions, confusion, uncertainty and changes to my plan (consider this: The race distance was modified for safety reasons; or cancelled due to extreme weather)

Managing my states is one of my motivations to racing. Sometimes, it hurts even more when you want something badly enough. In competitive racing, we call this ‘digging deep’. That is, we harness on our resources (limited) and our RESOURCELFULNESS (a useful value to tap on in times of crises). I am sue many entrepreneurs can relate strongly to the string of challenges that may be laid out in their quest for their business dreams. The successful ones keep rising incessantly when they fall. Even skillful cyclists still fall off their bicycles.

When I earned my qualification spots in the Boston Marathon, or the Ironman world championships, they were ‘painful joyfulness’. In managing my states to get there, I had to learn to stay focused, patient and calm (on the inside).

With the current global pandemic, millions of people are affected physically and psychologically by the stress(ors) of a personal viral threat: its impending infection, spread, fear, concern, anxiety, and other equally virulent impact from it (economic, financial, self-esteem, well-being). How can we strengthen our mental and physiological resolve (physical and emotional) to deal with it? How do we manage our responses and reactions to these stressors? What can we do to alter our attitude and behaviors, in managing ourselves and those we are entrusted with?

Only when we actively manage how we think and feel (internal factors) in the face of external factors, can we then sensibly and sensitively manage our people. We won’t be effective in leading others if we are ‘headless chickens’. Meanwhile, stay focused while re-building our teams, and encourage and embolden them for future discomforts and distractions.

Leadership Begins Outside of Corporate Life

Let’s face it: corporate leadership is being questioned for its values and effectiveness. The masses demand that leadership deliver, with their expectations of deliverables, leadership values and strength of character. Disappoint them, and the consumers and Followers can boycott a company’s products and services. Choices are ubiquitous. Companies can choose to lead with their head, heart or hands or self-implode from arrogance and conceit. Number One can slide down the spiral of self-indulgence and self-aggrandisement.

Have a holistic view of leadership: from within, and from without. Looking inwards, we glean from our hindsight, insight, and foresight. From the outside, we can learn lessons and wisdom of those who became regarded as models of inspiration and best-in-class practice. Let who you are in your personal life manifest itself in your professional life. We cannot have opposing sets of values. ‘Being yourself’ is not a pipe-dream in a corporate setting.

Professionalism is about reducing inappropriate behaviors. Start with ourselves! Lead with our actions. Talk is cheap. Theft is rampant. Control is on the rise by fearful people. Opportunists will patiently wait at every corner. Self-esteem and self-worth are taking a beating because leaders continue to talk down to their staff. Please remove archaic and demeaning titles like ‘subordinates’, ‘employees’ and ‘superiors’ from your Performance Appraisal forms and system. Treat staff like a colleague and person, not a prisoner number. Add value by creating pleasant working experiences and have productive conversations.

Communicate constantly and clearly. If your business language is not strong enough, do it face-to-face or over the telephone. Written skills are not a core competency of many, especially those who ignorantly hide behind templates, and are naïve about their lack of clarity. Reduce doubt, worry and anxiety because staff will intuitively suspect you of your dubious behaviors and intentions as a leader. Update your status and stature as a manager and do the right thing.

Earn your title as a leader. Live it. Express it. Let the Dragon within us arise!

Are You Confident About Corporate Leadership?

It appears that corporate leadership has suffered poor public relations in recent years. Large corporations are blind-sighting us with enormous amounts of data and information we may not know what to do with. The demonstrations by like-minded, good-intentioned, people outside Wall Street paints the current perceptual picture. The defiant posture of multinationals tend to be: If you cannot convince them, confuse them. Seems to have worked over the last few years with banking and financial institutions selling products that many cannot pay off during hardship. There is suggestion that ‘Servant Leadership’ exists yet how often does staff experience this? If staff prefer to avoid facing the ‘Chief’ how is this leadership felt and experienced?

I foresee corporate leadership books to take a plunge in sales, as it defies our expectations and defiles our belief about the C-level team. We are better off reading biographies of entrepreneurs and works of fiction. Few bestselling books on the non-fiction list command our selective attention. New media propagates what the tribes decide and determine to be fashionable or popular. Populist choices are not necessarily the best for us, or objective enough for us to part with our dollars and sense.

Key questions to ask of our leadership are: What are their personal values? Which are the most valuable roles a CEO can play in bolstering leadership capabilities and growing a company? What are the strategies to managing business changes and stages, based on what works, what does not work, and developing the ability to spot potential for change and growth going forward? Which are the solutions to challenges such as motivating and managing human capital? How do they find financing on the fluctuating and facetious market? What about raw materials pricing, and what is to be expected in the coming months? What is the overall success of entrepreneurs emerging from the recession? How do you spur innovation and entrepreneurship?

I have decided to stick to fictional works, reading short stories and novels. I also enjoy books on history for it reminds us of lessons of the foibles and feebleness of the human conditions, as well as the seven deadly sins. Authors have a way of engaging our hearts and minds in print. The keyboard may be mightier than a weapon. In the early-1980’s, The One-Minute Manager books were a hit for their brevity and storybook style of teaching.

Even self-help books can be useful and, at the least, an entertaining read. I foresee books on wellness and well-being to dominate our shelves. Feeling better is more relevant than feeling depressed and hopeless. We can tend to our sense of sanguineness by taking care of our mind, body and spirit. Exercise your body, and exercise your other options. We do have choices. Sift through what we may not have discovered or considered.

Leadership Lessons: Be well. Do some good for others. Stay focused.