Are You A 20 Mile Marcher?

Have you noticed the new and widely accepted belief that if we as individuals and organisations are going to survive we must recognise and respond to the accelerating and dramatic change that is all around us? There are endless numbers of courses on Change Management, Creativity, Flexibility and Innovation. It is as if the answer to the demands of the apparently breathless pace of the twenty-first century is to spread our sails and catch the wind that will take us ever forward. But is this really the case? Are there better ways of creating sustainable, planned, improvement? Is unfolding and prolonged success likely to emerge from a raging and relentless response to the environment in which we find ourselves? Being a feather for every wind that blows ensures a very exciting white-knuckle ride as long as you don’t mind where you end up or the damage you experience along the way.

We believe that it is time to challenge some of these widespread assumptions, not to deny that change is a reality of life, but to recognise that to be constantly tracking and reacting to all that is happening around us is to be making a misplaced and unwise choice. MindSpan is built upon the belief that recognising what is inside us and relying upon what we really want to achieve is the best way for us to create the success we want to see and the lives we want to enjoy. The MindSpan programme is, after all, built upon the belief that it is your thinking and not the world around you that creates your outcomes and that setting and believing in realistic, testing, but achievable goals is the way in which to focus on and move assuredly towards your personally desired future.

Neither are we alone in this. In his new book Jim Collins, probably one of the two best known management thinkers in the world, provides some wonderful and carefully researched insights into the very best performing companies in recent decades. It is his belief that these can be described as 20 Mile March organisations. While others have come and gone, these companies have been consistently successful by delivering high performance in difficult times and by deciding to hold back when things have been good. In other words, no matter what is going on around these people are committed to covering 20 miles each and every day. There are no sudden spurts of energy or lazy days off and there is nothing to hide behind or blame. They are, in his words, 20 Mile Marchers and they have been this way since day one.

Like Jim Collins, what we champion and offer in and through the MindSpan programme is quite simple but immensely powerful. MindSpan is a proven way of developing and exerting self-knowledge and self-control in what we all recognise as an often trying and confusing world. And the more that our environment accelerates and spins around us the more likely it is that we will need the guidance of MindSpan and the surety of the 20 Mile March.

John Jackson – MindSpan Co-Author