Ninja Warrior and Business Transformation
My son started competing in Ninja Warrior just under a year ago. If you are unfamiliar with the sport, Ninja is not a bunch of kids wielding samurai swords dressed in all black and suddenly appearing out of the dark. This is hardcore obstacle course racing that tests your balance, strength, grip, and mental fortitude. No two courses are ever the same, so you have to learn different skills to overcome any obstacle the course designer throws at you.
He’s been training since he was five years old. Like many beginners, he started with the basics: building core strength and working on his balance. He eventually moved up to swinging from these stone balls suspended from a metal rig and climbing up what I can only describe as a peg ladder using two rings to pull himself from one peg to the next. He’s capable of executing things right now that make me wonder how long I would need to ice my body if I did what I just saw.
All of his hard work paid off this year as he made the podium in his local competition, which qualified him for Regionals. At Regionals, he finished high enough that he qualified for Worlds. Proud papa moment for sure but nerve wracking at the same time. If there were cameras on my wife and I while my son competed, it would capture several expression changes from anxiety, to fear, to disbelief to glee. It’s quite the emotional roller coaster for the 90 to 120 seconds he’s on the floor.
World Championships
When we landed in North Carolina for Worlds, my son got right to work. We watched last year’s World competition for his age group on YouTube to see if we could get an idea of what the course might look like. He spent a couple of hours the day before he would compete working on a few techniques at the practice gym. We went to the arena and scouted the course as some of the kids in his age group were already making their Stage 1 runs. He formulated a plan on how he wanted to attack each obstacle.
There was one particular obstacle that has been his bugaboo this whole year and it was the third obstacle on the course. We knew that if he wanted any chance to make Stage 2, he would have to complete the course in the 90 seconds allotted, and this one obstacle was probably the make-or-break one on the course; he had been able to overcome all the others in previous competitions.
Competition day arrives and my son is ready… he’s rehearsed his plan over and over again in the hotel room. He keeps talking about what he is going to do to get passed this one obstacle. We get to the arena, and you can feel the energy as we walk in. You occasionally hear off in the distance a horn sounding and see a cloud of smoke shooting into the air signaling that someone has completed their course under the required time.
My son checks in and eventually gets on the starting block, they count him down, 3…2…1… GO… and he’s off.
Obstacle one, no problem. He swings through obstacle two with no issues. Here comes the one we are all dreading… my wife and I are arm in arm, and I can feel our bodies tense up. My son swings from a trapeze bar and grips a teeter board overhead. He’s able to stabilize himself and land in the safety area meaning he has completed that obstacle successfully… he’s done it!
He has plenty of time left and he moves onto obstacle four. No problem. He grabs a rope which will swing him around a semi-circle. He again clears the obstacle. Five complete, three to go. A quick check of the countdown clock and we know it is going to be close.
He grabs a ring and needs to swing up to a bar that is attached to wheels, called a coaster. All he has to do is grab the bar and swing his legs and he will be able to land on the safety pad. He has done this maneuver time and time again without issue, should be a piece of cake.
He grabs the ring with one arm and swings up to the bar… miss… he resets… gives himself a short running start to gain more momentum, he grabs the bar but is only able to secure a couple of fingers. He wants a solid grip, so he lets go to try again. Time is ticking down and the crowd is getting louder, encouraging him to keep pushing.
He regrips the ring, two hands this time, he swings up for the bar but misses again. He resets his feet on the launch pad and tries again, time is not on his side now, so he knows he has to get it on this one. He swings up to the bar, this time he is able to grab it. He releases the coaster from its cradle but before he can land, we hear the buzzer which means time has run out.
He leaves the course, head down and dejected. When my wife and I are able to meet him in the holding area he’s upset and disappointed. His hope of making the next round has pretty much evaporated. It was at that point that I went into full Dad mode. I grabbed him, and hugged him, and told him how proud I was of him for even making it to this point in his first year of competition.
Ninja and Business Transformation?
So, what does Ninja have to do with Business Transformation? More than you think.
Be ready to adjust
If you have ever been engaged in transformation projects, then you probably have come across situations where something has become your bugaboo. You’ve faced this issue/concern/thing on multiple occasions, but you just can’t seem to overcome it. You adjust and try again, with a different plan in hopes that it will be the strategic approach that will slay this dragon.
Sometimes it works and you move on. Sometimes you are foiled once again, leaving you to theorize on yet another approach to try and overcome the obstacle.
Lesson: Have a plan in place but adjust when necessary. We saw a t-shirt on the arena floor at Worlds that was perfect. It said, “The Great Ones Adjust.” That’s true for Ninja, Business Transformation, and Life.
Laser focus at every step
When you finally find that winning approach to get you over the big obstacle, you move forward onto the things that you know really, really well. But if you don’t focus on every step, something that should have been a no brainer can trip you up. You got passed the difficult thing that had been blocking you, but you stubbed your toe on something that is traditionally second nature.
Maybe you were rushing. Maybe you assumed too much. Maybe you should have verified that thing with your customer/client.
Lesson: Take nothing for granted. Stay in the moment and focus on every step along the way. You will feel more confident in your ability to succeed and it will result in less rework/waste.
Enjoy the ride, celebrate the journey
Business Transformation projects are hard. They are fraught with challenges and conditions that can change. Yet through all the adversity, we strive to be successful. We want to see our clients be successful. We love hitting the proverbial buzzer and seeing the smoke fly. Our planning, our due diligence, and our attention to detail should result in a favorable outcome.
All the while, we should be having fun executing these steps.
Business transformation is something we love, and we put in the work to get better at executing these projects. My son’s coaches tell him that he has to “Put in the work” if he wants to see success. I’ve echoed this when he is at home, but I’ve told him that he needs to enjoy the ride as well.
Lesson: Recognize that even when we fail, we learn a lesson that we can apply later. We just need to recall what we learned when we see that challenge again.
To all of those Business Transformation “Ninjas” out there, chin up… eye on the prize… make your plan and focus…. the challenge will be different tomorrow… 3…2…1… GO!