The art of Zanshin

Zachary Aldwin Milkshake in the Boardroom
Zanshin is a martial arts term that refers to a state or awareness; it is the state of awareness of one’s environment and one’s enemy.
I was watching a sports team practice this last week and I was a little envious of their fitness (one of the ongoing fights in my life is against the aging process that tends to make it a little harder to do things like get out of bed in the morning).
They were physically strong, a decent size side and reasonably skilled but they will probably get eaten alive if they went on tour.

The problem with this group of players is that they were unfocused; warm ups were a joke, there was little attention on the field to the coach, they missed far more passes than they should have. Their minds and bodies were just not in the game.

The reason for their probable impending walloping is that they lacked what I would like to call ‘Zanshin’.
Zanshin is a martial arts term that refers to a state or awareness; it is the state of awareness of one’s environment and one’s enemy.

If you ever watched the movie Bourne Identity, the main character Matt Damon is always aware of his surroundings and he does so without putting much effort into it.

That is probably a good visual of Zanshin. I apologise in advance to any purists as we examine the idea of Zanshin and how it may relate to your business.
English is an incredible language, but sometimes it could do with a few more words. Zanshin is one of those terms; there is no direct English translation.

Attitude forms part of it, focus is another aspect, awareness is a little too broad. Let me explain how zanshin works practically in some martial arts and that may help.
In a competition a technique is only considered truly effective if after completing it you are in a position to throw a second technique at the same or another opponent-regardless of whether or not you actually need to.

You cannot throw a punch, even if it lands with maximum force and knocks your opponent down, and be so off balance afterwards that a feather would knock you over. You have to be ready to respond to another threat.

Zanshin affects your environment. Ever walk into someone else’s business and get the impression that the team is not going to be able to help you, that they are a little too sloppy, a little too uncaring, that there is no focus on your needs.

That is the lack of zanshin in that business. Walk into another business and they are offering you coffee before you even realise you need it.
There’s a place where I go for lunch 3 to 4 times a week. The name of my waiter is Blessing.

He embodies the word. He will call me 2 hours before lunch to make sure that I’m coming and ask if I’m in a hurry or if I’m bringing a few friends.
If something is left on my plate, he asks me why I didn’t finish it and then tries to make it better next time.

He offers me free trials of any new dishes he’s experimenting with! He cares so much about his product and his service and how I’m feeling that I cannot help but tip him well every time. This isn’t a 5-star dining room, it’s a park-bench pit stop, but to me it’s the best service with the best attitude in the country.

Back to the sports team for a bit. One of the underlying issues is that they think they are good when they really are not.
There is a massive difference between someone who thinks they are good and someone who knows they are good.

They may both make the same assessment on an impending endeavour- a potentially cocky ‘I will win this one’ but deep down the person who knows he is good values the things that keep him at the top.

The team that knows they are good values training, the coach’s input and warm ups that prevent injury.
The team that just thinks they are good has no realisation of this and will skip the things that could really turn them into champions.

A person with zanshin knows that, even if they have totally annihilated their opponent, there is always something else coming that they need to be prepared for.
In business it may be the next sale, the next relationship, the next threat. Raise your alertness, raise your attitude, and be ready to respond all the time.

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