Business Consultant Paul Mracek has been absorbed in martial arts for over 20 years after introducing his sons to the craft to help with their education. He draws striking parallels between western performance models of success and eastern philosophy to give insights and solutions to challenges faced by people and business. For hundreds of years Martial Arts has been teaching an ancient tradition that creates balance and empowers each individual to achieve success in their business or personal lives and it this message Mracek advocates to the world.
Mracek says: “Follow the formula and create power in your life by learning the secret principles that have been taught for centuries in Asia. Learn to achieve the clear purpose and discipline that will allow you to become a true Master of your business and your life.”
According to Mracek, one of the main reasons business don’t operate to their full potential is because they have missed the importance of the people piece in business. Business is 95% people and 5% systems and procedures. Even the best system in the world is not going to achieve maximum outcomes if people don’t use it. A major people issue for business is they don’t handle relationships well and from a communications perspective, most people can’t handle conflict. As a result, they avoid the difficult conversations to find out the source of problems and issues which perpetuates the very problem they want to overcome. Business needs to understand these relationships and how to have the conversations to get things out on the table so they can move forward. In the east, everything is about relationships first, task second but in the west it’s task first, relationship second which does little to build the trust required to reach agreement and move forward.
Mracek says: “Any business can significantly improve performance without investment in infrastructure purely by engaging with their people and getting them to buy in to the business goals, vision and culture so people aspirations are aligned with the business. The big challenge is getting people to take ownership and responsibility for their work, so management can work on the business. What tends to happen because the people piece is not managed as it should be, management wastes large parts of their time dealing with people issues, which affects productivity and business outcomes. It’s quite achievable to claim back a day a week in time to work on the business when the people piece is resolved.”
A recent Forbes magazine article agrees with Mracek. “Research shows four out of 10 workers are disengaged globally. In the U.S., the situation is worse. According to the latest State of the American Workplace Report, 70 percent of U.S. workers don’t like their job, creating an environment where many workers are emotionally disconnected from their workplace and less productive than engaged counterparts. HR leaders bang the employee engagement drum with good reason; employees engaged in their work are likely to be motivated, to remain committed to their employer and to stay focused on achieving business goals and driving the organization’s future. Disengaged employees can drag down others and impact everything from customer service to sales, quality, productivity, retention and other critical business areas. Companies that nail employee engagement understand that motivating high performance and aligning talent with business strategy requires getting to the heart of what matters to employees.”
There is certainly ample evidence within organisations of all sizes that focusing on the people piece of business results in greater performance and better bottom line results. Big brand companies like FedEx, Starbucks, Disney, UPS, Costco , Southwest Airlines and many others operate and make business decisions with a social conscience in mind. These companies, fuelled by passion and purpose, not cash, consistently outperform the major stock indexes providing strong credibility to the argument for a business social conscience where one major aspect is the way it treats and communicates with it’s people.
As Paul Mracek says: “The warrior mindset is about leadership, first of yourself and then of others. To know what is, you must first see what is not. This creates balance and then success. The basis for the inner Power that drives success is in when your Passion meets Purpose with Persistence. These three fundamentals apply to everyone and everything. No matter what you do in business you are always dealing with people and they can make or break you or your business. To achieve the outcomes and the success you want, you need to understand how to communicate and to build rapport quickly. You need to recognize what’s most important to the person you are dealing with in order to realise the maximum benefit of your interaction.”
For most of us, Martial Arts are something esoteric we see in movies or when we drive past the occasional suburban Dojo. We see strangely clad people in white uniforms relentlessly repeating movements that appear to serve little purpose other than to provide defence in a seemingly unlikely threatening situation. Few of us understand the Martial Arts principles of success taught over the centuries to obtain clarity, develop skill and achieve power and then to apply this knowledge to achieve results far beyond those of people around them.
To find out more about the Art of the Warrior Mindset and how it can be applied to personal and business success, visit: www.kotanaustralia.com.au.