Chris Bischoff, reputation manager and environmental specialist on my team has recently taken up a new hobby of mountain climbing. Here's a wonderful article that he has penned down about some of the key lessons he has learnt on this new climbing journey:
We are often bombarded with advice from top businesspeople, multimillionaire entrepreneurs and motivational speakers, but how often do we really listen to our own inner voice?
Life
often throws lessons our way, which are not necessarily solved between the
pages of a book. Sometimes our own life experiences teach us our lessons.
Whether
you are an employee or a business owner, on a regular basis you are required to
manage people, teams, tight deadlines, uncertainty, and challenges. Everyone
has a capacity to deal with adversity, but how often do you learn from the
challenges that are thrown your way?
Chris
Bischoff, reputation manager at Reputation Matters, has taken the opportunity
to look at the basic lessons that he has learned from rock climbing since he
started this new hobby eight months ago.
Focus
on what is directly in front of you. “Standing in front of a sheer
cliff face, it is very easy to get overwhelmed, nervous and tempted to quit
even before you have started. Most of the times, just the act of starting is
what you need to do. Once you are on your way, the most important approach to
keep on making progress, is to only focus on what is in front of you,” says
Bischoff. “Use what you have at your disposal, physically and mentally to focus
on the task at hand.”
“In
our professional lives, the same lesson applies. While it is good to have a
greater plan or strategy, it is the day-to-day operational tasks that keep a
business going and your clients happy. Focus on achieving the best quality
outcome for those small daily tasks; ultimately the accumulation of small daily
wins will help you progress towards achieving your greater goal.”
Small
step, big step. “When climbing a challenging route with a
limited amount of hand holds, places to grip on to, taking small steps upwards
can open up more opportunities. This is one of the best pieces of advice I have
received since I have started my climbing journey. On a number of occasions as
I was learning new techniques to ascend a particularly difficult rockface, I
would feel stuck as there was no obvious place to grip to make my next move.
But by moving my feet up slightly, even as little as 10cm, potential new hand
holds and cracks in the rock would enter my line of sight. This would then just
be enough to get through a difficult section.”
The
lesson: projects very rarely go exactly according to plan, there is always a
probability that you may reach a bottleneck with any project that you are
working on. Think about what you can do, that is immediate and easy to
implement, that will help you progress forward. “At Reputation Matters, we rely
on small team huddles and brainstorms to get us through tight deadlines, big
projects and bottlenecks. It’s a very brief and simple level of team
communication, but very effective to coming up with solutions and new ideas to
tackle challenging work,” shares Bischoff.
You do
not have a fear of heights, you have a fear of falling. This
is a lesson of trust. “I remember facing my first outdoor climb and looking at
the wall and thinking that it was just too high for my level of experience.”
Professional climber, Alex Honnold put this into a great perspective by
pointing out that people standing within the top floor of a skyscraper
generally do not have a fear within themselves, meanwhile, put them on a ledge
and they will be overcome with fear. Even though they are higher up in the
skyscraper, the reality of falling does not exist to them, they trust the
concrete that they are standing on. For people standing on the edge of a cliff,
that fear is very real, it is a fear of a catastrophic fall.
“When
I was just about to reach the top of the wall that I had said to myself was out
of my level, I fell! Only to be caught by the rope and anchor at the top. After
many falls at a similar height, and being safe, the fear became more
manageable. It was the trust in my equipment that was making me progress up
more challenging and higher walls.”
While
my harness and the top anchor may be my most important safety parts of
climbing, at work, the biggest assets are our team members and our tried and
tested methodologies. We know that we individually have a big role to play with
our projects and we trust each other to show up the next day with our parts
done. “I know a climbing anchor and a fellow colleague may be a far-stretched
comparison, but we all get a sense at some stage that we are just completely
overwhelmed and having a knowledgeable and supportive colleague is an important
‘anchor’ that we need in our professional lives.”
It’s
all about trust and consistently doing things in the right way, and continuous
improvement.
A
company’s reputation is also built on trust, consistently doing things in the
right way, and continuous improvement. As with learning a new skill like
climbing, it takes time to build.
Next
time you are outdoors, embarking on your favourite weekend activity, think
about the subtle lessons that are in front of you. Books, webinars and podcasts
can be rich sources of information, but life experiences can be just as
valuable.
For
more information contact on reputation management contact us on research@reputationmatters.co.za
or visit www.reputationmatters.co.za
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