Are you toast?

It's another morning.  Whether you bless it, or curse it, today has arrived! Some people fight the day plus each person, opportunity, and nuance that comes their way. That's no way to live your life.

Let me take you on a journey from toast, to aikido principles, to better leadership.

Toast

We can have toast in the morning two ways:  With negative energy or positive energy.  Let's say, "Neville" has negative energy and "Pam" has positive energy.

Neville and Pam both enjoy toast in the morning as part of their breakfast.  They want to butter their toast immediately when it emerges from their toaster.  This melts the butter so they can savor the warm, buttery toast to start their day.

However, today, they forgot to put out the butter the night before, or at least 30 minutes before they need to eat.  Instead of soft butter to spread on their toast, the butter is hard. 

Neville grumbles and chops chunks of butter, one at a time and tries to butter his toast.  The hard butter flips over rather than spreads.  The hard butter tears the bread.  The end result looks more like a battlefield than a tasty treat. 

Neville fights the negative situation.  He leaves his breakfast frustrated, not looking forward to his day.

Pam takes a different approach. 

She redirects the negative situation by slicing pieces of butter as thin as she can and lays them on the toast to melt the butter with the heat of the hot bread.  After the butter melts a bit, then she spreads it out Goldilocks style: Not too much so it is dripping butter and unhealthy, not so little that some parts of the bread are left naked without butter, but just right, covering the toast fully and evenly.

Pam redirects the negative to create a positive.  The result is a treat to enjoy, and optimism to step forward into her day.

Aikido

Rob Schenk of Intivix is a black belt in aikido.  You can hear us talk about this on our No Bad Bosses podcast.  You might want to consider Rob's application of aikido in leadership to redirect negative energy and increase positive results.

Similar to Pam's approach in my simple toast example, the principles of aikido are demonstrated by great leaders who do not directly block or resist an attack or negative energy.  

Instead, through training, these leaders develop habits to blend into the situation rather than try to be a wall against a flood, then they instinctively assess the threat and calculate the effect of different responses they can take to control it.  Lastly, they redirect the energy away from themselves and their organization.

Jesus redirected the negative energy of demons controlling two men in Matthew 8, redirecting the demons into a herd of nearby pigs.  He had the power to directly confront them, but in that situation he taught others to redirect the negative energy.

Life is a constant experience of mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical attacks.  Aikido principles of centered response, utilization of energy, and nonresistant redirection can be applied by leaders to each of these situations.

Instinctively you may want to strike back or take another approach to block the force of an attack.  This may or may not be effective, but it always depletes your positive energy.

One problem with this approach is the Law of Natural Reciprocity.  This is our natural tendency to match someone else's behavior.

Positive Reciprocity:  Someone does something good to you, and you feel obligated to return the favor.

Negative Reciprocity:  Someone is mean to you, and you want to "get even" because you feel hurt.

Choosing negative reciprocity often wears you out, to a certain extent.

Better Leadership

In contrast, the principles of aikido teach leaders how to respond rather than react to an attack.  A leader does not strike back or otherwise attempt to block the force of the attack.  

Instead, you shift slightly off the line of attack and move towards the incoming energy to unite with the attacker's power.  You connect to control the direction and momentum of the attack, and then redirect the negative energy to a place where it cannot harm you.

In some ways the aikido approach is similar to using active listening to defuse an angry person.  Here is a quick walk-through of active listening ("LEARN") that I wrote based on something from the U.S. National Guard:

Listen to the message received carefully and attentively.  Keep an open mind to what is being said and don't be quick to offer advice or solutions.

Emotions speak louder than words.  It is important to discern the other person's emotions as well as the information they are conveying without initially judging the sender or the message sent.

Ask open questions (what, why, how) to discover issues and closed questions (who, would, where) to clarify details.

Repeat back key parts to summarize what you heard, and confirm you understand the information correctly.  Relate correction or issues to "Bad Cop" standard(s).  Reinforce how you will help them ("Good Cop").

Next steps are confirmed, if any.

See if you can apply this to a tense situation you have had recently, or experience today.  This might be an opportunity to develop a new, powerful leadership skill based on ancient wisdom and proven practices.