adminShelter Chieza Change Management
One of the most noteworthy boxers of all time — the former world heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali, Cassius Clay — could be anybody’s hero.
Muhammad Ali had fast hands , fast feet and fast brains. Some of his words that he used in the boxing ring are prolific, the most famous being “Float like a butterfly, Sting like a bee, your hands can’t hit what your eyes can’t see.” This quote was made in 1964 prior to his first world title fight against champion Sonny Liston when Ali gave his tactics for the fight in poetic form. The story goes that Ali won the fight when Liston failed to come out of the seventh round. Ali’s famous quote had come true, he went on to make many more great quotes about boxing, religion and life.
He was truly hilarious you would wonder what gave him so much clout — he would say “Joe Frazier is so ugly that when he cries, the tears turn around and go down the back of his head.” Asked on what he believed boxing was he would say, “Boxing is a lot of white men watching two black men beat each other up.”
Don’t mistake this and attach it to a sports rendition, it has great business lessons to learn from. In business today, it’s not enough to be high-level and strategic; you have to be able to execute. It’s almost similar to a bumblebee that can move in so many different directions, and can get uneven in the details, but also can go up high enough to see how everything fits together.
There is something about Ali that impressed me — he was a man truthful to himself. He had a sense of vulnerability which he admitted. I always advise managers to have some inner touch within them that gives rooms to making mistakes. You have to be open to the possibility of making errors and slip-ups, but you also have to know what you want. Its not a way of giving up control or disempowering. Managers ought to have a consultative approach, if there’s a faster path, you may want to take it, and often you find the faster path by asking somebody else.
I have also learnt from Ali to focus — his main mission in the ring was to outclass his opponent. Some of the best managers I have known are able to identify and focus on core things. When you go into a company, there are a million things you could fix. But you can’t fix everything, so you make a decision about your priorities, and then you act on them.
Ali was humorous and very loud mouthed. His attitude was to beat his opponent before he even got in the ring. He would say in pre-match interviews being watched by his opponents that, “I am so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and was in bed before the room was dark.” This was also a way of self motivating himself and getting himself personal recognition.
Managers need the Ali like survival instincts. He showed extreme confidence getting into a fight. Many boxers stagger around the ring after a few rounds. Ali was light on his feet hence his famous “Float like a butterfly”. Butterflies, and other light-weight insects with very delicate legs, are able to rest on water due to the water’s surface tension. It is believed that using wings that are covered with millions of tiny scales, butterflies can attain a top flight speed of up to 12 mph. While most of their flights are relatively brief, monarch butterflies complete a long journey of 3000 miles during their annual migrations between Canada and Mexico. It is also claimed while other boxers had their faces bashed up, he stayed pretty , just like a butterfly.
It is believed that bees will not sting unless they perceive a threat to their immediate safety, the safety of their queen bee or of their hive. If a bee is away from its hive searching for pollen, it is only likely to sting if attacked by a bird or another insect, or if it is taunted by a mammal.
Honey bees, unlike bumble bees, can sting only one time because their stinger becomes detached after insertion. The honey bee stinger is barbed while the bumble bee stinger is smooth and allows for repeated stings.
Ali’s quote could almost be familiarised to Vanilla Ice’s lyric “slice like a ninja, cut like a razor blade”. Its time for you to put up an “I will beat him so bad he will need a shoehorn to put his hat on” attitude.
Till next week, may God richly bless you.
Shelter Chieza is an Advisor in management issues. She can be contacted at [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
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