Warrior training for executives

A new model for leadership development:

Dr. Asoka N. Jinadasa

The World Bank has just warned that Sri Lanka is at risk from Western economies falling back into recession with serious knock-on effects for the rest of the world. The strategic role of employees in an increasingly turbulent business world was summarised by Harold S. Geneen (former President and CEO of International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation, ITT) when he said, "We can no longer look to the boss for answers or motivation. Each person must take responsibility for pursuing knowledge, insight and possibility. Each person must develop motivation and courage to undertake calculated risks in devising and implementing strategy."

HRD needs new DNA

Developing the company-wide employee leadership qualities that Geneen advocates is outside the scope of most Human Resource Development (HRD) programs. The great challenge facing HRD today is to unleash and channel the immense creative and emotional energy found within every individual into an everyday business innovation ideology, that can overcome any future challenge. The need to develop people with new attitudes and aptitudes was highlighted by Tom Peters way back in 1987 in his groundbreaking book, 'Thriving on Chaos'.

HRD programs now have to go beyond their conventional focus on improving knowledge and skills and tools and processes. These core competencies alone would be inadequate in any future scenario characterized by greater levels of turbulence and higher levels of business and financial risk. The time has come for HRD to embrace a new paradigm and create mindsets with wider attitudinal & aptitudinal skills needed by employees to drive corporate growth, even under difficult conditions.

A new paradigm for HRD

The old paradigm of corporate wealth was based on financial assets derived from productivity and profit. The new paradigm is founded on a new concept based on Intellectual Capital possessed by the workforce. To empower people and unleash their vast untapped human potential, HRD needs to supplement conventional techniques with neuroscience, behavioural psychology and human energy science. As commercial and financial environments become more turbulent & challenging, there is an urgent need to supplement the Concrete Skills of employees with a new set of Abstract Skills, under a new paradigm for HRD.

This empirical new paradigm is formulated to ensure corporate survival & growth, even under chaotic conditions. It shows the need to extend the scope of HRD programs by including new abstract skills such as intuition. A recent study showed that top CEOs who performed best on intuition tests also tended to be the most successful, and were 226% more efficient at making money than the others.

This new paradigm nurtures company-wide innovation by introducing opportunity-seeking into the mindsets of employees, in addition to their normal daily focus on problem-solving. It will enable front-liners, who are closest to changes in ground-level realities, to use their concrete and abstract skills to sense and interpret significant trends, and send back intelligence up the corporate ladder. Staff at higher levels will also have enhanced intuitive & analytical skills to recognise important trends and respond proactively to opportunities or challenges that can impact their product & service profiles, operating procedures, organisational structures, and even their business models.

Developing abstract skills

Traditional corporate and HRD focus on concrete skills is clearly inadequate when dealing with rapidly changing situations that are increasingly complex and harder to predict. Abstract Skills are becoming increasingly important for navigating companies safely through financial, business and market mazes wrought with unprecedented dangers.

One of the biggest challenges facing HRD today is finding practical ways to develop the core competencies that fall under abstract skills. In the history of human thinking, most important developments took place when two different lines of thought met from different cultural or religious traditions. For example, Quantum Theory, which postulates that the universe at the subatomic level is an energy field is a blend of modern physics and eastern philosophy. Similarly, HRD now has to draw on new concepts that were ignored by traditional management thinking and HRD programs.

Human energy science

Human Energy Science provides a new conceptual foundation for improving the physical, mental, emotional, attitudinal & behavioural capabilities of people, and arming them with all the abstract skills identified in the new paradigm for HRD. Master Del Pe, in his pioneering work in the field of Human Energy Science inspired by Himalayan spiritual masters, has identified ten Power Centres (Chakras) in our body that directly govern our mindset, abilities and achievements.

The level of development of the ten Power Centres determines the level of success of every individual. For example, an otherwise capable person who is unable to transform ideas into plans and achieve results will have weak throat and base-of-spine energy centres; a manager with poor personal relationship skills will need to develop the heart energy centre. In all such cases, until the relevant energy centres are developed, cognitive training will not produce the desired results. Since all humans have very similar physical & mental attributes, developing the ten Power Centres will fully develop all competencies of every individual, without exception.

Master Del Pe has synthesised the esoteric practices of eastern mystics into eight easy exercises that activate all ten Power Centres in the human body. Designed for busy people, and requiring only about ten minutes per day, these seemingly simple but powerful exercises purify, revitalise and balance the entire human energy system. They could be easily embedded in cognitive HRD training programmes, and integrated into daily organizational practices for personal empowerment. They rejuvenate the body, oxygenate the cells, and improve vitality. They liberate and circulate more internal energy than a normal one-hour athletic or martial arts training session. Del Pe used these eight energising exercises to boost the performance of the 2004 US Olympic diving team.

Warrior training for executives

Warrior Training is a new breed of leadership development program that nurtures all the abstract skills contained in the new paradigm for HRD, and boosts all ten Power Centres. It produces 360-degree total personal empowerment using an innovative mix of techniques based on martial art training, neuro linguistic programming (NLP), human energy science and behavioural psychology. This new breed of executive training becomes vitally important for coping with increasing level of competition, and larger crises expected in the difficult years ahead. Warrior Training uses simple but powerful methods to produce lasting attitudinal, behavioural and mindset changes in participants, even after a one-day training program.

The experiential nature of Warrior Training programs develops the abstract skills contained in the new paradigm for HRD, and translates them into operational realities that involve everyone in the organization.

When combined with existing HRD programs that develop concrete skills, they can boost organizational cultures by enhancing the attitudes and behaviour of everyone and positively influencing the thousands of decisions that are made everyday.

Identifying and transforming negative beliefs and emotions of people is an essential component of Warrior Training programs. Suppressed negative emotions and unconsciously held negative beliefs act as invisible barriers that prevent people from realising their full potential and achieving their personal and career goals. For example, an adverse business or financial environment will often trigger deeply held negative beliefs & emotions. This will create a vicious circle by negatively affecting individual and corporate performance, at a time when positive beliefs and emotions are needed most.

Transforming negative beliefs and emotions

Negative feelings, such as fear, anger, envy, resentment, guilt, anxiety, stress, etc arise from a person's interpretation of past events or perceived outcomes of impending events. Negative emotions are founded primarily on fear - fear of change, failure, rejection, ridicule, etc. A simple technique used in the Warrior Training programs to change negative beliefs and feelings is to help people find the 'Gift' in everything unpleasant in their lives. This simple technique will make them see every unpleasant thing as an opportunity for self-improvement. Shifting their point of view will make their pain and suffering vanish, boost their self-image, and empower them to eliminate their negative feelings and beliefs.

Warrior Training programs use Master Del Pe's exercises to develop all ten Power Centres. The resulting increase in physical & mental energy accelerates the transformation of negative emotions and beliefs into positive ones. Complementary methods, such as NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) and EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) are also used to accelerate this process of transformation, and boost both individual and corporate performance by replacing employees' emotional barriers with empowering alternatives. Warrior Training will remove the invisible roadblocks that negative beliefs and emotions are causing in people's lives at home and work. The resulting positive beliefs and; emotions will generate the energy and motivation needed to achieve any goal at the individual, team and corporate levels, no matter how daunting.

Meeting the challenge facing HRD

The time has come for HRD to live up to its name and take responsibility for producing a new breed of corporate superstars - people who are physically, mentally and emotionally primed to lead their companies to success, under the most difficult conditions, using minimal resources. In the difficult years looming ahead as forewarned by the IMF and World Bank, HRD programs such as Warrior Training for Executives that produce 360-degree total personal empowerment will hold the key to sustainable corporate success.

Dr. Asoka Jinadasa created the Warrior Training programs for 360-degree total personal empowerment. Featured in 'Who's Who in the World', he is a Master of the Chinese martial art Tai Chi Chuan, NLP and Reiki, and is an award-winning strategist, marketer, advertiser and filmmaker.

He holds a Doctorate in Corporate Strategy, and is a Chartered Engineer with over 30 years top-level experience in Europe, USA and Sri Lanka.

He was former Chairman of the Entrust Group that includes two listed financial service companies. You can get more details of Warrior Training programs from him on [email protected]