Joseph Bismark - Gems of Wisdom Blog

Practice and Apply What you Read

Dear Friends,

Let me share with you some timeless Gems of Wisdom left for us by one of the great leaders of the past, Sir Winston Churchill.

They are always full of meaning and thought-provoking and are always inspiring to read and reflect upon.

They are our guide to living in this perilous world.

Please take a moment each day to ponder and make our ‘Gems’ a part of you. True Wisdom can only be realised when applied and practised daily.

“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.”

“Eating words has never given me indigestion.”

“Nothing is more costly, nothing is more sterile, than vengeance.”

“Without courage, all other virtues lose their meaning.”

“Politics are almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.”

Wishing you well.

Your friend,

Joseph Bismark

Group Managing Director, QI Ltd

Are You Managing Perception?

Dear Friends,

I believe perception management is very much misunderstood in our company and is used negatively so much that it has lost its meaning.

I would like to shed some light on perception management in today’s Gems of Wisdom, as I have understood it by attending one of the TRUTH APPLICATION PROGRAMME SESSIONS (TAPs) conducted by Dato’ Vijay Eswaran, who has taught me to manage perception from the very outset of our partnership.

Firstly let me give you a definition of leadership as follows:

“Leadership development is the expansion of a person's capacity to be effective in leadership roles and processes. Leadership roles and processes are those that enable groups of people to work together in productive and meaningful ways.”

We are all leaders to one degree or another. What sets great leaders apart is their ability to ‘manage perception’. What people observe or assess as your ability to be a leader and your effectiveness becomes their perception, which in turn becomes reality.

Perceptions that are not managed become rumours, then gossips and backbiting, which leads to destruction. Unmanaged perceptions become a reality that was not intended. Perception management requires asking questions and getting feedback from others.

Most leaders typically do not receive feedback very often and, in many cases, when given it is usually not in the most constructive manner. However, effective feedback provides information that lets you know how you are doing. It involves giving and receiving, reinforces the changes you are making, and encourages you to continue. It is balanced and positive as well as constructive and corrective. It assumes that everyone is not out to get you. It recognises that each person is doing his or her best and that although each one of us is unique, we all have a great deal in common.

Most of us know that we need feedback but are unsure how to get it or use it.

In one of the TAPs leadership trainings that I have attended, a format was presented using a process which I will call Assessment, Challenge and Support (ACS).

In the assessment phase you seek feedback from others. You look for people who are able to observe your behaviour and have an interest in your effectiveness; people who are able to speak to you directly, honestly and specifically.

Once you have received feedback, it is important to take time to reflect on your experiences and evaluate the content of what was shared.

During the challenge stage, we are reminded that challenging experiences stretch us and foster the development of new abilities. They force us to move out of our comfort zone and help us acquire skills and abilities that may have seemed beyond our current reality.

Mechanisms that provide a supportive environment include encouragement, advice, growth and acceptance. These help to create an atmosphere in which learning and growing are valued. They open people up to new learning possibilities and enable them to handle the challenges of development. It is critical to maintain positive viewpoints and the motivation to develop.

These three areas combined – Assessment, Challenge and Support – add up to growth and development.

The goal of the TAPS process is to allow people to focus their attention and efforts on learning. The benefit of receiving feedback is an increased understanding of our own strengths and weaknesses and we are able to confer this benefit on others by giving feedback.

I can personally attest to the benefits of perception management. This is what we do best during our TAPs that I still conduct for our IRs and leaders in the field.

Your friend,

Joseph Bismark

Group Managing Director, QI Ltd

On Raising the Bar…

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Given the number of benefits that we derive even from moderate exercise, it seems extraordinary that the majority of people in the world do almost none.

The explanation for this is simple. Building strength and endurance requires pushing past our comfort zones and experiencing discomfort. It takes time before the obvious benefits kick in and most of us quit before that even occurs.

Both strength and cardiovascular training have a powerful impact on health, on energy levels, and on performance.

The typical recommended exercise is 20-30 minutes of continuous exercise, three to five days a week, at 60 to 85 percent maximum heart rate.

So dear friends, push the bar and start the day with exercise and you will feel the difference in your performance. Do it for yourself. Organise and schedule this with a group and it will become much easier.

Please take a moment to ponder… Exercise and push the bar!

“Health is Real Wealth!”

Your friend,

Joseph Bismark

Group Managing Director, QI Ltd

Bear in Mind…

Dear Friends,

One of our most fundamental needs as a human being is to spend and recover energy. This is called oscillation.

The opposite of oscillation is linearity.

This is when we spend too much energy without recovery, or too much recovery without sufficient energy expenditure.

Other than eating and breathing, sleeping is the most important source of recovery for the human body. It is also the most powerful of the circadian rhythms that include body temperature, hormone levels, and heart rates. Even small amounts of sleep debt and insufficient recovery have a significant impact on strength, cardiovascular capacity and mood, as well as on overall energy levels.

During my years as a health instructor, I read many health studies and reports that state mental performance, reaction time, concentration, memory, and logical and analytical reasoning all decline steadily as sleep debt increases.

In one especially dramatic study, psychologist Dan Kripke and his colleagues studied the sleep pattern of one million people over six years.

Mortality rates from nearly all causes of death were lowest among people who slept between seven and eight hours a night. For those sleeping less than four hours, mortality rates were one and a half times higher. In short, too little recovery and too much recovery appear to significantly increase the risk of mortality.

The longer, more continuously, and later at night you work, the less efficient and more mistake-prone you become.

In my opinion, it is not about working overtime that makes you effective, it is the management of your energy.

Please take a moment each day to ponder and think…

Ask yourself these simple questions: “Who am I?” and “What am I doing?” and “Where will I go when everything ends?”

Sincerely,

Joseph Bismark

Group Managing Director, QI Ltd

Renewal and Recovery is as Important as Hard Work

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I would like to tell you a story about someone I know.

Without being aware of it, my friend Mr Ron Hard was living a highly linear life.

He worked long hours, rarely shutting down even when he got home. He was relentlessly spending mental energy answering calls and text messages, without getting much needed recovery time.

This gradual build up of fatigue prompted anxiety, irritability and sometimes self-doubt.

He had very few positive sources of emotional renewal, even from his primary relationships.

In the language of sports, Mr Hard was overtraining mentally and emotionally and undertraining physically and spiritually. As he expended precious little energy in activity and exercise, he had lost endurance, strength and resilience. Because he had grown disconnected from deeply held values or a sense of purpose, the spiritual dimension represented a flatline in his life – a potential source of energy that has not been cultivated.

Mr Hard is not so different from most of us.

These choices he was making are so socially sanctioned and even promoted by the very company (and world) he lives in. We live in a world that celebrates work and activity and ignores renewal and recovery.

We fail to recognise that both are equally necessary for sustained high performance.

Please take a moment to ponder… Is this the kind of culture we want to create in our company QuestNet?

Sincerely,

Joseph Bismark

Group Managing Director, QI Ltd