The Accountant-Jan-Feb 2017

MANAGEMENT
team has to break after forty five minutes
for fifteen minutes and we call this break
“half time.” Here in the halftime, the coach
and the team members agree to be more
creative, more impactful, more meaningful,
and more adventurous and find more
learning from the opponent’s moves and
contribution than the first half. This is the
time to take stock, to look back on what was
accomplished, what worked and what didn’t
work. Plays that didn’t work can either be
adjusted or dropped for the second half;
new plays can be drawn up and inserted.
Many times a good second half can depend
on what is done during half time. In other
words it depends on how deep the team
members individually reflect. Abe Lincoln
said, “If I have eight hours to chop down
a tree, I would spend six hours sharpening
my axe”. From this analogy of a football
match, I realize that why most failures
are experienced in leadership is due to the
failure to rest, reflect and take stock on how
we are doing. If you cannot continually rest
and reflect, you cannot know when you
drifted from your purpose.
Each leader should know that we were
made on purpose for a purpose. Most
leaders say they want riches. What they
need I think is fulfillment of a purpose.
Happiness comes when we abandon
ourselves for a purpose. Don’t be a leader
who does not know where you are leading
your company to. Reflect all the time.
Remember that growth for the sake of
growth is the ideology of the cancer cells.
Accumulating riches which is ill gotten is
an aimless growth which is as dangerous
as cancer cells which grow only to kill.
Remember that without purpose the only
thing you can do is to get old. Gilbert
Arland said “When an archer misses the
mark, he turns and looks for the fault
within himself. Failure to hit the bull’s eye
is never the fault of the target.” To improve,
improve yourself.
I would say here that one of the critical
success factors which is key for one at
leadership, be it in business or politics and
is usually overlooked is relaxation and deep
reflection. As a leader you need to know
how to reflect and relax so that you can
replenish your energies for the struggles
facing you tomorrow. Lincoln went to
the theatre about a hundred times while
he was in Washington and although he
suffered from a certain melancholy, he had
a tremendous sense of humor and would
entertain people long into the night with
his stories .Franklin Roosevelt was the same
way, he had this certain hour every evening
during world war two when he just couldn’t
talk about the war. He needed to remain
free from thinking the bad things for a few
hours or he would play with his stamps.
This ability to recharge your batteries in the
midst of great stress and crisis is crucial for
successful leadership.
When you relax and reflect deeply you
start to experience extraordinary amount of
emotional intelligence. You are now able
to acknowledge your errors and learn from
your mistakes to a remarkable degree. You
realize that you are able to put past hurts
behind yourself and you never allow wounds
to fester. In fact you become aware of
hindsight bias. What you should have done
always seems clearer in retrospect than it
was at the time. As the Danish philosopher
Soren Kierkegaard put it “life can only be
understood backwards, but it must be lived
forward”. You cannot understand things
backwards until you start to reflect while
you are in a
relaxed mode.
Failing to
create time
for deep
reflection and
relaxation is
like saying
you are so
busy driving
that you don’t
have time to
stop at the
petrol station
and refuel
your car.
Descartes
made many
of his most
important
intellectual
discoveries
while relaxing
in bed and
Newton
formulated
the laws of
gravity while
meditating
under an
apple tree.
Archimedes
stumbled
upon the
laws of
hydrostatics
while soaking
in a hot bath and Mozart composed one
of his most famous pieces over a game
of billiards. Elias Howe a Massuchettes
instrument maker was deep in sleep when
he had a bizarre dream. In it he was being
chased by a man carrying a long spear with
a small hole at the end of it .This served as
the inspiration for his invention that later
became known to the world as the sewing
machine. Even Jesus Christ fasted for forty
days and forty nights and after that he gave
one of the most outstanding sermons-the
sermon on the mountain.
As leaders you need to relax and reflect
deeply if you have to be effective. Even the
challenge we face as a nation of corruption,
it requires deep reflection if it has to be
overcome. All is not lost. A game is won
or lost in the second half. Take the time
you are reading this article as your halftime,
make appropriate adjustments and you will
win the game.
JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2017 15