5 Classical management lessons learnt from running.
Date:18th April 2015,10 PM
Place:Surat, Gujarat, India.
Event: Surat Night half Marathon, my first half marathon.
I had previous running experiences for 10K events during early mornings but this was double the distance, that too in hot and humid night. .I had over confidence “Yeah, I can do this”. Race started and just after completing few Kilometers, heat and humidity took its toll, over confidence replaced by fear of injury and self defeating thoughts, infact, I thought of quitting in between .Finally, I pushed forward and completed the half marathon, pain gave way to self induced glory though I finished in bottom 20 percentile with a timing of 3 hours 18 minutes. Sounds familiar though in different contexts and situations? The race, the external environment, the internal mind set and the slogging in between the start and finish lines , all act as metaphor for our struggles in real life or in corporate world. So here are few lessons which I have learnt from my experiences from running various formats of races:-
One size fits all strategy can’t give optimum results
Different formats of races require different kind of preparations . e.g .- Running a hill marathon is completely different from flat surface city marathon. Similarly running a 10 K will require more stamina and strength as compared to a 100 or 200 m dash , which focus more on short burst of energy.
“You need to tweak your preparations and strategies as per the realistic situations”
Similarly, in business and real world, you need to tweak your preparations and strategies as per the realistic situations (i.e simulation of actual situations). A sales pitch intended towards rural customers will be quite different from sales pitch for online and social media channels.
Beginning is difficult, the middle is sloggy but the end is beautiful-amateur
This is very true for longer races e.g. half marathons and full marathons. Signing up for a marathon itself takes a lot of mental courage then you start the race with full enthusiasm but in the middle of preparations, it will start to wean, negative thoughts may start building up, your body will ask you to stop, but something at the back of your mind will keep telling you that you need to go on, you can do it. That’s the slog part. Once you finish the race, you get a finisher’s medal and you feel good about accomplishing a goal.
“Its very important to share holistic view of project with your team , right from inception to implementation“
This is how most of the projects work out in business world as well as in real life, in the middle of projects or process, we start thinking about why we are doing it, doubt creeps in the mind and we feel disillusioned, yet we continue to keep moving with a hope and things will start falling in places, In the end we are able to finish the projects. Its very important to share holistic view of project with your team , right from inception to implementation, else team members may feel low or confused and project may even witness high churn rate during the execution phase.
Plan, Do, Check and Act (PDCA), Repeat
PDCA is the most important aspect of running, you need to carefully plan out your preparation for the race , right from booking for travel and stay to diet plans , running schedules , routes for practicing, etc. You also need to effectively implement the same so as to achieve desired benefits. In between you need to monitor if you are actually going as per the planned scheduled , if there is any deviation, you need to act accordingly to tweak yourself back on track.
If some important situations like an early morning meeting with client or a late night party demand your time suddenly then you need to be flexible enough to accommodate them by going back to PDCA so that your progress remain inline with your desired expectations.
“Continuous Improvement (CI) is the buzzword in corporate world and PDCA is the core for achieving CI in manufacturing as well as in service sectors”
Continuous Improvement (CI) is the buzzword in corporate world and PDCA is the core for achieving CI in manufacturing as well as in service sectors. A process needs to be monitored and tweaked in as and when required so that we can get optimum results.
Incremental steps for progress are much better than no progress
When I started running, my speed was pathetic , it was just a few milli seconds more than my brisk walking speed. Even today I am quite slow as compared to fellow runners but if I compare my performance over a year, then the timing records do corroborate the theory of incremental gains leading to impactful change over a period. The secret !! I just keep stretching my goal of decreasing my timings for same distance. Sometimes , I was able to achieve my target, sometimes I was able to even surpass it but there were times too when I was not even close to my target timings.
“It’s a cumulative sum of incremental improvement which results in significant impact over a period of time”
Some times we are not able to achieve our set goals and then we become slow by recognising success barriers. Worst case scenario is at the end, we may miss important deadlines leading to huge tangible or intangible losses. To avoid such situations, we need to continue working on projects even when there are minor set-backs. We need to take every possible measure to avoid turning situations in deadlock. It’s a cumulative sum of incremental improvement which results in significant impact over a period of time
There is no substitution for hard work when combined with smart work
Often we hear, work SMART and not hard but with my experience , I feel that this theory is quite skewed towards “perfect” situations. However, when we do realty check , we find the world is hardly perfect.
"When we do realty check , we find the world is hardly perfect."
Very often I used to get impressed with runners boasting about use of running shoes with sophisticated technology, expensive GPS based tracking gadget, taking count of each calorie intake but running only a few times in a fortnight or week. Then I found that there are runners who are more fit, in shape, and obviously fast as compared to most of us. Most of them had come from humble financial backgrounds and often used to win the races. The key to their success?? Rigorous training schedules, disciplined and simple life. They can further boost their performance if they get access to the Smart technologies.
Same is the case with corporate world, use of technology, delegating tasks to subordinates , being proactive at work etc may adhere to the management jargon of being smart but it can’t replace the hard earned experience for solving issues, conflict management , technical advice or troubleshooting. One needs to keep himself or herself tuned to hard work in the smartest possible way.
Feel free to share your thoughts on my blog : nikhil.pachauri@gmail.com
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