12 Dec When Fighting in the Workplace is Appropriate
I am likely to be the LAST person you would see spending four hours at an Active Shooter seminar on a Saturday afternoon. Up until now. Wait! What?? I mean really! My personal creed is Choose JOY! Yet, I found myself there, thanks to a good friend who invited me to join her for a Krav Maga seminar. Afterwards, I realized how much High5 Leadership and Krav Maga have in common.
Growing up with four older brothers I usually cried instead of fighting. I didn’t like fighting of any kind. It scared me. My parents rarely fought, but on the few occasions they did, I was sure our family would never be the same. My programming has always told me fighting is bad. I didn’t do it in my marriage. I didn’t do it at work. It wasn’t until later in my life that I realized there was a difference between fighting FOR something than fighting against it.
Most of us fight against what we don’t want or what we don’t like. Fighting against anything weakens us. However, when we fight for something, it strengthens us. Here is where I realized High5 Leadership and Krav Maga intersect.
Krav Maga, if you are unfamiliar, as I was, is self-defense training. High5 Leadership is also a form of self-defense training. But wait, isn’t defending fighting against something, you may ask? Not entirely. It’s also synonymous with protect, secure, and support. What I realized is that in Krav Maga I am learning the skills to protect myself and others. It’s not about me walking around paranoid waiting to defend myself. It’s about having the confidence to protect myself should the need arise. The old story of women being the weaker sex isn’t true when I take purposeful action instead of allowing some other person to have power over me. This same principal is applied at High5 when we learn to identify the stories that don’t benefit us and replace them with ones that do. The more I practice positive, when negative does show up, I have the muscle memory to stay positive.
FIGHTING IN THE WORKPLACE
I suggest you start promoting fighting in the workplace. No, you don’t need to go buy boxing gloves. Instead, empower your team members to stand up for themselves. If you are someone who wants everyone to always agree with you, then you will have a limited amount of success. When they defend (speak in favor of) what they see and what they believe, it will open up new opportunities for everyone. Set some ground rules, though, that when they “fight” for something they are always fighting FOR not against!
When you have a shared outcome for your team, whether at work or at home, and you allow people to bring their individual ideas, passion, creativity and heart to the project, it will exceed anything that you could imagine on your own. It takes a lot of courage to do that because it means you have to give up some control, or at least, the illusion of control. When we share that control, it means people will have a shared sense of ownership, and everyone will want to FIGHT for that shared outcome.
Check in today on whether you are fighting for what you want or against what you don’t want. It will be an immediate boost in your energy when you shift to focusing on what you want. Check in with your team and have them do the same. You go first and watch what happens!
For more information on building a strong high-performing team, contact us at info@high5leadership.com. The first strategy session is on us!