Corporate America is Resilient, too!
Over the past months, the U.S. Army has been focusing on its new program, Comprehensive Soldier Fitness. Its mission is to increase resiliency in Soldiers, Family Members and Civilians. The program is centered on five dimensions of strength-physical, emotional, social, spiritual and family.
Recently, Lindy came across a very interesting article focused on the “resiliency” of business executives. The article, titled, “The Making of a Corporate Athlete,” acknowledges the idea that corporations need a true balance of “performance power” in order for them to develop meaningful relationships with their employees.
“The problem with most approaches, we believe, is that they deal with people only from the neck up, connecting high performance primarily with cognitive capacity. In recent years there has been a growing focus on the relationship between emotional intelligence and high performance.
A few theorists have addressed the spiritual dimension – how deeper values and a sense of purpose influence performance. Almost no one has paid any attention to the role played by physical capacities. A successful approach to sustained high performance, we have found, must pull together all of these elements and consider the person as a whole. Thus, our integrated theory of performance management addresses the body, the emotions, the mind, and the spirit. We call this hierarchy the “performance pyramid.” Each of these levels profoundly influences the others, and failure to address any one of them compromises performance.” -excerpt from “The Making of a Corporate Athlete.”
The authors, Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, believe the only way to achieve this performance power is to equally address all elements of a person. They display these elements through the “performance pyramid.” This pyramid includes spiritual, mental, emotional and physical capacities.
Similar to the Army’s CSF program, the performance pyramid is designed to increase capacity at all levels to bring talents and skills to full ignition and to sustain high performance over time.
“When people feel strong and resilient–physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually–they perform better, with more passion, for longer. They win, their families win, and the corporations that employ them win.”-excerpt from “The Making of a Corporate Athlete.”
To read the entire article, visit http://www.peak4.nl/the_making.pdf. Also, to learn more about the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness Program, check out www.army.mil/csf.
Posted by inArmy News, Comprehensive Soldier Fitness
The concept behind the CSF program in the Army has yet to reach the tipping point where it has become part and parcel of the institution, but everyday the momentum continues to grow, and for good reason.
Often it is the Army, or more aptly the military, that makes advances which then bleed over into the corporate or academic world, one example being the Internet. Now, however, the Army is realizing that traditional approaches to dealing with a stressed and stretched force are not working, now that we have been conducting contingency operations for over eight years while seeking to restore balance.
Non-traditional approaches aren’t necessarily bad, they’re just, well, not the traditional way of doing business. Staying stuck in the “we’ve always done it this way” mode is just plain dangerous and counter to the notion of taking care of Soldiers, Families, and Army Civilians. One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results.
The concept of building personal resilience has gained a foothold in the business and academic community because it has been proven to produce results over the past 30 years through research, experiments, and real-life improvements from school children to CEOs to athletes.
What other fields of endeavor have utilized non-traditional methods to enhance performance? What do Kobe Bryant, Tiger Woods, Jason Kidd, and Curt Schilling use to keep in peak condition? What do LeBron James and Kevin Garnett practice to supplement their basketball and strength training? And for mental/emotional resilience as a means of enhancing athletic performance, many (if not all) teams have sports psychologists who routinely work with athletes to get their mental game up to the level of their physical game.
The Army is deeply committed to fulfilling its obligations to the nation and to improving the quality of life and well-being of the force–Soldiers, Families, and Army Civilians. The time for sniping is over…we owe it to ourselves, our battle buddies, and our Families to be multi-dimensional and as fully engaged as possible. What we get back are stronger Soldiers, better friendships, and improved relationships. Not a bad return on investment from “Arrrmmmyyyy training, sir!”
What a great tool. I’ve already taken the assessment and assigned this to my troops.
Kobe Bryant, Tiger Woods, Jason Kidd, and Curt Schilling incorporate Pilates into their training regimen. LeBron James and Kevin Garnett practice yoga.