Chinese Shaolin are masters of holistic self-determination. Balance, poise, serenity are important lessons that good management can benefit from.
How to maximize an individual’s potential? With mindfulness. In Shaolin teachings, it is an important step in strengthening the body and calming the mind. In an interview, the renowned Shaolin monk Shi Xing Mi describes why traditional Chinese wisdom goes well with modern management.
ABOUT
Shaolin Shi Xing Mi: From manager to the monk
The monk: Walter Gjergja, 42, who calls himself Shi Xing Mi in the monastery, has been training Shaolin Kung Fu since he was 13 and lived for many years in the Buddhist Shaolin Monastery in Deng-Feng in the Chinese province of Henan. Today the Italian is one of only a few consecrated combat monks in Europe. The Chinese “Mi” translates to “grain of rice” – a name was chosen for Gjergja’s teacher, Temple Grand Master Shi De Yang. He hoped that his pupil would carry the wisdom of the Far East to Europe and that it would also spread here.
The manager: After studying business administration in Melbourne, Australia, and working in the business as a manager, he founded a Shaolin school in Milan and teaches Chinese martial arts worldwide.
The author: With his book “Don’t give everything, give the right thing – Shaolin strategy for managers”, Shi Xing Mi, together with manager trainer Claudia Maurer, has transferred the philosophy of the fighting monks.
Shi Xing Mi is wearing the traditional light gray costume of the Chinese warrior monks, which does not contain any animal products when he comes to the interview. And he brought something. He ceremoniously presents a colorfully embroidered yellow satin bag containing a wooden bead bracelet. With this gift, mindfulness can be trained: Whenever I’m stressed, I’m supposed to take off the bracelet and put it on my other wrist. Effect: This makes me aware of how much of my energy I am wasting every day and I can make sure that it is reduced.
Modern managers struggle between globalization and permanent availability. And now you come to them with 1,600-year-old wisdom. How does that fit together? A company is not a monastery and the employees are not monks.
Traditional Chinese wisdom and modern management go very well together. The Shaolin is about maximizing the potential of the individual. For this, body, mind, and spirit, which influence each other, must be in balance. The things you describe affect this balance and with it the well-being and efficiency of a manager. For example, if he is constantly stressed, he will get sick and possibly have a heart attack. Our training concept offers strategies to maintain this balance in business life.
Shaolin monks are considered masters of hand-to-hand combat. What is the secret of their invincibility?
The real secret isn’t in our spectacular fighting techniques, but in being able to calmly lead to victory with the right attitude.
Sounds aloof. What exactly can managers learn from you?
Shaolin martial arts are based on holistic self-development. People these days focus mostly on the mind and only pay attention to the body and spirit when it really matters: they only eat healthier when the doctor diagnoses high cholesterol, or they look for techniques to reduce stress when they are plagued by anxiety or illness.
So do you advise managers to practice kung fu from morning to night as a preventive measure?
No. You don’t have to train hard at all. I recommend qigong. These are simple but effective movement exercises that we use in Shaolin to strengthen the body and calm the mind because they require mindfulness. And mindfulness is the basis for showing top performers in business a way out of the stress trap.
Why is mindfulness so important?
Without mindfulness, you will not notice the positive changes in the course of your further exercises on the seven competencies on which the Shaolin strategy for managers is based.
What skills are still involved?
In addition to mindfulness, it is about balance, discipline, clarity, attitude, letting go and serenity.
Assuming I was a stressed manager, what would the exercises do?
Your improved mastery of body, mind, and positive mental-energetic mood – we call it Qi – also promotes your self-confidence. Agility gets things moving, mentally too.
What use would that be?
Perhaps you will become aware of the repressed potential, for example. In any case, inner clarity ensures that the important is distinguished from the unimportant, that everyday demands are met with composure and decisive action is taken when it matters. All this relieves and motivates a stressed manager.
Please give me an example that is as specific as possible.
For many managers, their job means constant struggle or constant self-defense. You feel neither balanced nor satisfied. We have different approaches, for example, to change the mental attitude. From a stress-centric to a focused mindset. Because the focus is something like a positive force that serves to find a solution. With our exercises, the personal attitude towards problems and deadlines can be consciously changed from stress to focus
But there isn’t always a solution for everything.
It’s correct. There are situations that are beyond your control.
And then what?
The supreme rule then is to accept that something is beyond one’s personal control. However, this is one of the hardest tasks for managers.
Why?
People resist change. If you want to change something, you have to start from within. And there lies the problem. Sometimes it’s about accepting that you can’t influence or control something, but always have to adapt to developments and do the best that is possible under the circumstances. And that is particularly difficult for managers since they are geared to always wanting to be in control.
How can the Shaolin model of the spiritual warrior, who has recognized that the true struggle of man takes place within himself, be transferred to modern managers?
For example, it is not worth spending a long time looking for errors and wasting unnecessary energy. It is better to raise your own potential and that of your employees.
And how does it work?
For example, the Shaolin manager regularly asks whether he actually wants to set his priorities the way he sets them. Or whether there was an opportunity to do something different in order to use his resources and those of his employees more effectively. He asks himself the crucial question every morning and evening: Do I feel empty or full?
Why that?
If you feel “empty” after getting up, i.e. powerless, tense, or aggressive, you cannot lead effectively. And if you end your day with this feeling, you go to bed, despite many hours of work, with the impression that you have achieved little or have done your duty only slavishly. A restless and overworked mind cannot be mindful, passionate, or focused. However, long-term satisfactory success is only possible if all three factors – body, mind, and spirit – are in balance.
Suppose a manager achieves this personal balance. Does that mean he is automatically a good manager?
No, that alone is not enough. Anyone who wants to achieve true mastery as a manager must give his or her organization orientation and cultivate virtues and set an example. Employees are usually well-versed in their field, but role models are particularly important in times of change.
And you say that despite the fact that their fighting techniques were originally designed to kill.
Yes, martial arts are part of daily practice for us Shaolin. But we also cultivate virtues like humility, respect, gratitude, and compassion from the start. The supreme Shaolin masters are characterized by having deep compassion for the concerns, fears, and needs of those around them. And support them in their struggle to overcome their weaknesses.
And why do you recommend this to managers as well?
Because only then can they achieve the true following and thus lasting success.
