Business Continuity – “Zanshin” – True Resilience to Disruptions
What can the Martial Arts teach us about Business Continuity?
I was fortunate enough to learn Karate (Kara-Empty, Te – Hand) from a particularly gifted martial artist called Ray Knudsen who was a student of Mitsusuke Harada – himself a student of Shigeru Egami and Gichin Funakoshi (which is quite a pedigree if you know about the history of Karate).
Ray’s club at Wallsend was called “Zanshin” and we practiced our martial arts always with the concept of zanshin in mind.
Bruce Lee referred to the concept (I think) twice in Enter the Dragon when he referred to “The Art of fighting without fighting” and in the famous scene with his young student in the opening scenes where he explains: “It is like a finger, pointing away to the moon (thwack). Don’t look at the finger, or you’ll miss all of the heavenly glory.”
It is better to anticipate or sense danger and avoid it in good time than risk harm by getting yourself into a situation that you cannot control – “never understimate your opponent”.
As Geoff Thompson of “Watch My Back” fame says: “Learn from nature, the baby bird doesn’t play in sight of the hawk’s nest.”
A truly resilient organization operates at this level. Everyone in the firm is in a state of relaxed alertness. Aware of their surroundings and enemies and PREPARED to react.
This confident, alert yet relaxed state of mind is familiar to traditionally taught martial artists of all disciplines – and no doubt to professional sportsmen.
It is earned through disciplined learning and practice to embed basic skills until they are instinctive.
Students realise the value of this when they are put into unfamiliar “sudden shock” situations where they find themselves avoiding, parrying and blocking then counter-attacking with controlled techniques in a split second; all without conscious thought.
On a simpler level – you’ve probably done something similar avoiding a child or animal that ran unseen into the road when you were driving?
That’s resilience. Contingency planning is more like “Kihon” (“fundamentals” or ”basics”) – it is the foundation work that underpins business continuity and resilience – but it ain’t either.
Food for thought?
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