Bend Me, Shape Me ...

I was reflecting the other day, lying on the massage table for some intense osteopathic treatment, that flexibility is a condition some of us find easier to attain and maintain  than others do.

Acute tendinitis of the Achilles has made me face the fact that if I don't get flexible, running might be a thing of the past.

This is a hard thing to contemplate. Having returned to running consistently only in the last four years, after teenage years of sprinting with an athletic club, I have become very attached to running increasing distances. It began with fun runs, at 10 km distance, then gradually worked up to half marathon and an ultra marathon.

Geordie, my osteopath, who really knows how to be cruel to be kind, finally got through to me that if I stretched more, massage would hurt less.

Revelation! I can avoid pain by learning flexibility.

There's plenty of reason to persevere. Fifteen years ago I tore my other Achilles tendon completely - and there's another blog post in that! Perhaps I should call this blog 'Lessons from the Body'.

While I tried to breathe through the pain of the treatment, it occurred to me that emotional psychological flexibility has similar features to physical flexibility. Aha! Material for a blog post.

I began to think about the rigidity of thinking we often show, both in our work and personal lives. There are managers I have worked with who get locked into particular ways of thinking. Inevitably this gets them into trouble, perhaps  being unable to respond to a particular situation or finding it hard to manage workplace relationships.

Rigidity leads to reaction, rather than response, when we are confronted with changing circumstances.  Sometimes reaction can mean freezing. For example, a  business leader may find it hard to change the business model when the old one no longer works – current protests over online business by storefront retailers are a case in point. And I often see managers who don’t know how to handle underperforming staff, or how to deal with warring team members.

At other times reaction can mean trying to impose rules, rather than understanding what is driving a situation and being prepared to be flexible. At best, this can mean a wasted, opportunity, for example, when a team member has a novel idea. At worst, it can mean the loss of a member or serious discord in the team.

On a larger scale, the current issue of global warning and climate change are a stark example of this failure to be flexible in our thinking and responses.

Faced with an overwhelming agreement between climate scientists that climate change is related to human activity, you would assume that humans would respond in an attempt to minimize or resolve the issue. Yet significant numbers of us have decided not to ‘believe’ in the science.

Could we imagine a business which did not ‘believe’ data, provided by experts in the field, about a vital aspect of their business?  Surely this would be a business in danger of sinking. In a well-known case, Beaconsfield Goldmine chose to ignore expert advice not to mine two neighbouring underground levels. The mine collapsed some days later. (The Australian, August  12, 2008).

Two psychological factors seem to drive this choice of ‘belief’ over evidence. The first is that humans are particularly bad at making long-term choices which negatively affect short-term rewards. The second is that, to a large extent, we are driven by fear.

The first we see evidence of daily. Witness the numbers of people, especially young people, who smoke despite increasingly dire health warnings. The second we can see in the mad up-and-down movement of the stock market, where a long-term view would argue for stability.

A combination of fear and a short-term view of the world can have serious, even catastrophic consequences for business and people generally.

So I’m going to face my fear of pain at the Osteopaths hands and stretch way beyond what I’m capable of now, so I can run that half-marathon again.

Who's Riding the Bike?

Achievements like Cadel Evans' win in the Tour de France inspire both nationalistic fervour and hyperbole.

It's hardly surprising that this is so. Cycling almost three and a half thousand kilometres in three weeks is an extraordinary achievement. To complete such a journey and to win the event takes superb physical ability. To start with, Evans' body's ability to make use of oxygen (VO2 max or aerobic capacity) is apparently the most efficient seen at the Australian Institute of Sport.


Simply having a body which is made for sport isn't enough, of course. Cadel's body has been trained over years both on the road and on the rollers to turn the wheels consistently for hundreds of kilometres a day, day after day.


Doing this year after year is an incredible feat.


Of course, it's not simply about a superbly conditioned body. My own very modest efforts on a bicycle are a reminder of what else is involved. As I struggled awake in the early hours of last Saturday morning, preparing to ride the 40 kilometres with the riding group, I decided sleep was my first priority, so I missed the morning ride.


An internal discussion started up.


'You should get up. You need to build aerobic fitness.'


A counter voice: 'You need sleep. You've been missing too much sleep.'


'You're just lazy! What are you planning to do? Sink into graceless old age?'


'It's winter. It's cold. Be sensible.'


And so on.


I wonder if Cadel's internal dialogue is anything like mine. Does he ever wake up ahead of a day of riding and decide he'd rather spend the time in bed? Surely he must. I would bet there's a part of him which says: 'You deserve a break. You can take the day off.'


Presumably he gives in to that voice far more rarely than I do.


Perhaps he has a critical part sending him negative messages. After all, he has had his share of disappointments in cycling, as well as triumphs. For most people, less-than-great performances lead to negative messages from our inner critic. Some of his defeats would be enough to stop most of us trying again.To achieve what he has, his journey must have included the ability to master the negative effects of this voice.


And what part of him - what voice - does he call on when his legs are burning from the effort? When the mountain stages make the legs long for respite? At these moments, who is making the decision to push on? Who is really riding the bike?


We would have to imagine that it is some part which simply refuses to give up. It must be this voice which plays its part and drives him through the many thousands of kilometres in training and in racing.


We are at our best when we are able to understand and manage the parts of us which allow us to achieve our goals.


Next morning training session I'll have a word with the part of me that would prefer to stay in bed. I'm sure I can bring the committed bike rider in me to the fore.