Recently I ran the Cape Town Marathon. Barefoot. Even as a regular runner this was, for me, a little unusual. Not only was it outside my comfort bracket but it was also outside the "comfort bracket" of several people close to me. My behaviour was "off the page". This, I was told, was fringe stuff and a little disquieting. Why on earth would you embark on such a
Mindful run?
But it did prompt a little thinking and encouraged me to scrutinise other areas of my life including my approach to work, engagement with others, and what I wanted to leave behind, my footprint.
Mindful run?
But it did prompt a little thinking and encouraged me to scrutinise other areas of my life including my approach to work, engagement with others, and what I wanted to leave behind, my footprint.
I think most people have heard the term Mindfulness and it may have reached the status of a business theme de jour. It is taught to most aspiring business leaders and in this setting, mindfulness is about paying attention and observance, and perhaps even seeking inner strength. The belief is that with increased mindfulness we can be more creative, productive and find greater inner satisfaction and motivation.
Reading this you may think that mindfulness has a lot in common with many eastern theologies and you are probably right. But while mindfulness may be a western adaptation of eastern mystical dogma and ritual, it's business goal is very different. In short, the business cognoscenti have embraced mindfulness because it is believed that it will lead to greater productivity and profit. And that, is my issue.
At the start of the marathon, walking around barefoot I was struck by a sense of exposure, almost indecency. Vulnerable was an understatement. But the training and the preparation were some comfort and I hoped (... vainly) that others were indeed overdressed, rather than me being under-dressed. It made me wonder what we need to perform well - what is essential and what is baggage? The preparation does, to some extent remove the need for additional layers of protective clothing, but there was another element at play too. In preparing to run barefoot the primary goal is to build strength, resilience. Additional layers of impact absorbing, cushioning underfoot-techno-rubber do nothing for one's strength and resilience. Ironically they actually promote weakness which meant that after 25 years of traditionally-shod running, I had started my preparation with a deficit of tenacity. I had become weak! Only through the removal of the superfluous underfoot layers did I have a chance to build authentic natural strength and resilience.
Maybe our desire for "things" and our embrace of "consumerism" is far more pervasive than I believed. We consume more and more of what we do not need. We don't question what we use. This is the mantra of our society - at work and play. Now I was exposed, naked from the knees down, and hopefully better for it. My footprint was smaller, my stride was lighter, and ironically I was stronger. With less. And I wondered to what extent we seek to build resilience in our productive enterprise? To what extent do we realistically forego short term comfort and seek instead long term robust strength?
It is about our goals. Since the end of World War 2 the rate of business growth accelerated on the back of a global consumerism trend. This was good, the experts said. Everybody would be freed from the drudgery of the daily grind. We'd all have pop-up toasters, double garages, microwaves, colour tv's and a lot more free time. And so the religion of "stuff" took hold. And we all got ipods and drowned the whispers of any inner honesty. But the Keynesians said it is good and they printed more fiat money "proving" the nirvana of endless economic growth was here to save us from dull domesticity. Is this the mindset that drives us to the local gyms to build the perfect physique at 5am in the morning before the 10 hour shift in the climate controlled office with the posture sapping "ergo" chairs and the Bisphenol-A leeching bottled water*? Is this is the mindset that inspires our excitement when we empty our purses for the latest techno running kit designed for the "rigour" of the treadmill with 24/7 streaming CNBC?
Now I was setting out to run barefoot as were many other "left of centre" enthusiasts across the world. We knew that to be effective we had to increase the cadence. Our feet had to strike the ground 185 times a minute or more. Higher cadence reduces the impact and effort of each stride, making running lighter and safer. We had to avoid the herculean, thud-thud, slow hammering that big shoes dictate. Each barefoot step is a victory. Each light step is a celebration. These were "small wins" and I knew I had to seek them elsewhere in my life. Small wins, cumulatively create big leaps forward. It is often our hubris and conceit that leads to ill-conceived Don Quixote style windmill attacks. Tackle the small issues first. True progress is often minuscule, underfoot, unnoticed yet significant. This is true in business, and impacts our understanding of innovation, another hackneyed term. Innovation is often a series of small, sometimes imperceptible "wins". It's no use looking to "change the world"! History proves that this is unlikely. It's far more useful to look for small gains in efficiency and performance and in time, these will cumulatively create the steps forward that we desire.
And it's about risk too - but not much! Sure, running barefoot is about the risk of cuts and damage and even catastrophic failure. But risk is relational. It depends where you stand. And it also changes in time. Risk can be mitigated, even ameliorated. How different is barefoot running to shod running? Perhaps, more importantly our perceptions of risk are merely a deep desire to protect the status quo. We conjure risk to validate the intransigence of our behaviour. Approaching it differently, with a new mindset, could risk, as we currently define it, become irrelevant? We need to learn to embrace new challenges, seek internal knowledge, learn from within and translate that understanding to action. We need to revisit this in business and it should not be confined by historical risk tenets.
And it's about being "present" too. Running barefoot is more than being mindful, it is about presence - an engagement with the world as we find it now. A state in which "now" and the end point, the goal, are the same. It is not process driven, it is immediate, sensitive, authentic, reflexive and robust. Being present subordinates risk while elevating honesty and frugality. Do it now, honestly, for that is the reward. Each step, each small win, each honest commitment is the prize. This I knew implicitly when running barefoot and my marathon ended as one of my best long runs ever.
And it's about metrics too. Sure, it was a "good" marathon, a barefoot marathon. But what metrics did I use to make this judgement? Running is normally about time. We measure how well we do by the lapsed time. In most instances it's all we know and thus we seek to optimise time. But my barefoot run was different. I didn't time my run. Time was the wrong metric. I knew I had to closely guard other metrics such as foot-feel, road surface, heat, and so on. In fact I knew a watch would be a distraction. Perhaps because of this I enjoyed it. I was absorbed, running mindfully, present, and still my time was not too shabby. Is business different? Do we use the right metrics to measure what we do in business? Is profit the metric and should all our efforts be directed at optimising for this goal? Surely we need to change? After 70 years of soulless homage to fiat currency and the pursuit of profit, is it not clear that this vacuous pursuit needs a new script? Should we not pay more attention to the "triple bottom" line, the three P's? Is it not imperative that we start the conversation about building an economy that respects the planet and it's people? Can we leave a smaller footprint?
After a lifetime of plastic junk accumulation, massive amounts of senseless driving and flying, constant prodigious production of waste and depletion of resources, who asks the question: "Can we do it differently?" Mindful Business needs to be about more than the end point. It needs to be about Presence - now is the goal. Rather than arriving mindlessly at a "profit" we need to mindfully build a wider base of business returns. While embracing the 3 P's we need to optimise for different metrics.
- Alter our risk framework
- Communicate and operate in the "present"
- Seek and celebrate "small wins"
- Build authentic honest engagement
- Note the footprint we leave
Famed alpinist and founder of the Patagonia Company, Yvon Chouinard, once said: "He who dies with the least toys wins. Because the more you know the less you need."
The story of my CT run is here: http://t-rockets.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-non-definitive-guide-to-running.html
