21 run salute

I’ve been holding out for a couple of weeks to be able to use that title… simple things like this make me smile, which is never a bad thing!

This said, whilst I have been managing to complete two machine runs each week, my cognitive bandwidth has been too stretched lately to come up with anything of real interest to write, so holding out was no real chore! Having said this, it is possible that my head has been so crammed-full of other stuff that I have too much of interest to share.

I’ll give you just one example.

Have you ever reflected the amount of control that Finance teams have within organisations, by comparison to say HR or Marketing? Measuring the quantitative stuff (time, money, material quantity etc) is so much easier than measuring all that other messy qualitative stuff (happiness, satisfaction, experience etc) and this means that the Finance agenda tends to dominate decision-making.

As a result we tend to ask ‘Which of these strategies or new products shows the greatest return on capital employed?’ rather than ‘which strategy is going to give employees a bigger smile… leading to more discretional effort, greater customer satisfaction etc?’ Like the inebriated man searching for his keys under the streetlamp (where the light is better than where he actually dropped them) we tend to default to the quantifiable measures.

(I feel the need for a disclaimer here… I’m not saying that we should ignore the quants, just that we need more balance)

The same sort of challenge exists in management. We know that the most effective teams have members with diverse perspectives, alongside psychological safety so that each person’s voice is heard and considered. However, the task of managing this type of team requires much greater skill… not to mention a higher salary. It’s so much easier and cheaper to resort to some version of ‘command and control’, even though, aside from making the team less effective it directly affects the life experience of the team members and indirectly affects their families and communities.

We stick with all this quantitative stuff because it’s easy, or because it’s always been done that way, or because everyone else does it this way… but in the process we ignore the huge opportunity costs.

I was told last week that Brighton City Council had decided to stop treating the weeds in the local pavements. I’m sure that, aside from saving them time & effort (well maybe not that much effort, if you’ve ever seen the guys driving the mini tractors or grass cutters around), they can now justify their decision on environmental terms.

I’m not immune to the environmental argument, however a more balanced decision might factor in the needs of small children wanting to learn to roller-skate, or elderly parents and grandparents trying to stay active outside without tripping over. It might also consider the messages that we’re sending to young people about attention to detail and the frustrations of house-owners (aka voters) trying to get the best price for their house or simply feel safe in their home when the neighbourhood looks increasingly shabby.

Finance drives the agenda, but at great cost to everyone else.

From this one example of something on my mind (which isn’t even anywhere towards the top of my cognitive priority list), you may be able to see why I’ve not had the headspace to write lately.

I will endeavour to post on topic next time… and in the meantime I will try my best to keep up the running 🙂

Stay well and positive!

Legs eleven

I’ve been working hard to create a habit around running two times a week and this photo shows another five and a half weeks of success. Each run may be only one mile, but (combined with a small amount of yoga 4-5 times each week) there is no doubt that I feel holistically better as a result.

The other thing that has been on my mind for a while is posture. Those of you who know me will confirm that I’ve been ’round’ in the shoulder department since I was young… despite the number of people who have encouraged me to ‘stand up straight’ over the years. I typically ask for critical feedback at the end of workshops and one group was forthright enough to use those exact words!

When I started teaching presentation skills a few years ago I had to figure out how to explain to other people how to stand up straight (even though I found it difficult)… bizarrely I discovered that this requires only brief focus on your big toes and heels.

Later, when I was trying to sculpt the collar bones on an alabaster figurine (that’s another story, but the photo below shows the drawing on the original block and the finished piece), I discovered a further layer of insight… those people with great posture seem to have collar bones that are almost horizontal.

Put these two insights together and you have a simple recipe for improving posture.

The American organisational theorist, Russel Ackoff, suggested that there are three things that we can do ‘to problems’: we can solve, resolve or dissolve them. Solving is akin to curing a disease; resolving is managing the symptoms (like taking hay fever tablets); and dissolving is changing other factors such that the disease does not manifest (like staying inside to avoid pollen).

My sense is that the insights above are dissolving the postural problem… it doesn’t go away (at least in someone at my age) but by developing new habits elsewhere in the body, there’s a chance that the round shoulders will not manifest. Then the challenge is simply about keeping that basket of habits going until they become second nature.

I’ve been trying for a few months now and can report that its non-linear… nothing seems to happen for ages but the body starts to recognise the movement that is required, the muscles start to develop as they get used a little more often and that means that the desired posture can be held for slightly longer each time before it lapses.

Like my weekly runs, it’s about finding triggers that cause you to act with the least cognitive input, such as running Tuesday and Friday mornings before breakfast, standing up straight whenever I clean my teeth, sitting up straight when I first sit down and smiling each time I remember to do these things as a way to connect them to positive feelings.

Whilst I am eternally grateful for the positive attributes that I have been afforded, I often feel that I have learned way more through working hard to solve, resolve or dissolve one of my (numerous) flaws. One step at a time 🙂

To do run, run

It’s Saturday again and I find myself sitting to write about another pair of short runs on the machine, one on Tuesday and the other earlier today.

I felt comfortable running at 7mph for two minutes at the end of the session today, and whilst that’s not really anything to write home about (I’m sure that I remember being able to sprint at 14mph for a couple of minutes in years gone by), I feel that I’m progressing simply by turning up and putting one foot in front of the other, one run and then another.

Do two run, run

I’ve been pondering the time aspect of habit maintenance… two minutes brushing teeth twice a day is easy, as is a five-minute shower… perish the thought that either don’t happen.

Amusingly, as these words tumbled out I realised that I didn’t actually brush this morning, because I jumped into housework mode first thing. I immediately felt the need to rectify the situation… my teeth are now sparkling clean, as I continue to write 🙂

My one-mile machine runs and blog posting, on the other hand, take more than 10 minutes and 20+ minutes respectively and despite the tremendous benefits of both, I’ve been finding them really hard to maintain recently.

It wasn’t always so. Several years ago I would spend a couple of hours running maybe 10 or 12 miles at the weekend, then spend most of the rest of the day recovering and writing… and then repeat the exercise with shorter runs during the week. I don’t feel the need to return to that at the moment, but it would be nice to be able to get back into the habit of doing at least a couple of short runs each week. Preferably outside.

Thanks to my hairdresser’s chiding I did actually manage to do two machine runs this week, but, as is clear from the title, only one piece of mediocre writing. Ho hum! Maybe it will be a little easier again next week.

What you might notice from the two photos below is that at least the time is slowly coming down. 🙂

Quick post

After my run earlier in the week I felt cognitively and physically revitalised, so I thought I would at least try to keep up the momentum. I was more mindful of the time today so ramped up the speed to a greater extent and could easily have got under 10 minutes. However, the main aim at the moment is to gently build back up so I can run a longer loop outside… there’s no point if I injure myself by being competitive!

Cut and run

Please forgive me reader, for I have clearly lapsed since the last time I wrote here at the start of February 🙁

Life and work got in the way of running, though that’s not much of an excuse given that I walk right past a running machine on my daily commute from the kitchen to my office!

Thanks to Suzie, a fellow runner who cut my hair yesterday, for encouraging me to simply put my trainers on again… today!

And it seemed a shame to pass on the opportunity to use the title that occurred to me last night 🙂

My one mile on the machine may slower than ever, but it’s another step in the right direction… and I’ve felt great today as a result 🙂

Slower and sloweruns

Actually, whilst the run last Friday was slower (and the writing about it clearly yet slower still as I’m only doing it now), this morning’s run was marginally faster… though there’s not enough difference to call either run anything other than 2 miles in 20 minutes.

However, there were two dimensions where there were differences between the runs. Firstly the weather warmed up a little, from frozen-solid puddles last week to the removal of my hat & gloves this morning through being too warm. Secondly, the after-effects of the short runs this year, including last week, had been minimal, but I’ve really crashed today & feel quite tired. Though, of course, it may also have something to do with having to compile my quarter-end VAT return!

I think that my aim in February will be to add a one-mile run on the machine each week… watch this space 🙂

And repeat

I had a busy day lined up for Friday, but much of the work that I do requires creative problem solving (hence my paper and videos on the subject) so I used a run as a way to think about a new task.

Before the run I spent half an hour immersing myself in the task. This allowed my subconscious to work on the problem in the background whilst I was running. Then later, when I returned to the problem, I was more productive though I ultimately didn’t make as much headway as I would have liked during the day.

The run itself was pretty much a repeat of last week’s 2-miler, with a very similar time of 20 minutes, similarly chilly yet calm conditions and a similar approach to the dirty laundry 🙂