Laws of Engagement
Elite teams in any sphere of life whether sport, military or business are defined by the standards that determine entry to them. Elite standards create elite performance when they become second nature to the people that are trained by them. It is the standards themselves that form the benchmark to which people must aspire and work towards if they are to be fit for the task.
While it is the objective of this series of article to advance ideas that create elite performance in teams and organisations, it is not about performance or results at any cost, an approach that is short sighted and ultimately undermines sustainable growth. It is about 'Noble Progress' - the idea that humankind was created for noble purposes, and that real progress is only made when our endeavours ultimately benefit humankind and are not achieved at the expense of our wellbeing. Sometimes doing the right thing might cost us, but it is always worth it.
Impact Zone performance relies on a composite set of entrepreneurial, spiritual and moral laws described as the 'Laws of Engagement'; that combine to significantly raise the performance standard of people and equip them to work together for a cause that is much bigger than them, enabling them to achieve what was previously unthinkable. When it comes to the high stakes that exist in business and the complexities of human relationships on which success depends, it makes perfect sense to reflect on the 'make or break' laws that will determine the success or otherwise of our highest endeavours. This becomes more crucial than ever before as we face the challenge of creating a sustainable social and economic global future.
- Entrepreneurial Laws ensure the highest expression of competitive drive and creative behaviour within people, in both seeing and building sustainable economic opportunity.
- Spiritual Laws are universal laws of cause and effect that govern the outcomes of human behaviour. Every thought or expression of human behaviour has a consequence, good or bad, dictated by spiritual laws. Our ultimate success or failure is dictated by these unseen and unchanging spiritual laws that exist and that we have no control over.
- Moral Laws are laws designed to give us insight into the kind of behaviour that will result in positive consequences. By obeying moral laws we ensure that the spiritual laws work for us, not against us. Morality is something we can respond to that gives us a measure of control over the outcomes of our choices and behaviour.
The idea that unseen spiritual and moral laws influence our actions and therefore the resultant outcomes that we do see is not new. Neither is this an idea that is only understood by philosophers, mystics and religious people of different persuasions.
It is simply a fact of life, and as embedded in our experience (whether we recognise it or not) as permanently as the laws that dictate our physical world such as gravity, or buoyancy. By illustration a sharp word to a colleague or employee will usually result in that person feeling offended, while a kind gesture to someone will have the opposite effect. These are simply spiritual and moral laws in action.