Don't make me start kicking the walls!
Years ago I was in a martial arts club in University College Dublin. My friends and I practised a form of Chinese martial arts which involves moves which, to the uninitiated, can seem pointless and somewhat silly.
One day we were practising in Hall B while in Hall A there was a tournament involving clubs from a very different martial art. Some of the practitioners of that art were having a coffee break and leaning on the wall overlooking our class. Our movements seemed strange to them and their point of view was that if they didn’t understand what we were doing, then what we were doing made no sense.
How did I know they thought this? Because some of them chose to shout their opinion at us in metaphoric language. Others were overheard by a friend of ours standing nearby. “They’re very flash and very fast but you can see there is no power there at all,” pontificated one.
Our friend popped down and repeated what she had heard, so we decided to switch to our kicking practise. Kicking practise involved our kicking the sports centre itself, that is to say, the very high, very thick, concrete-block walls of the sports centre (actually, it involved kicking the walls until the director of the centre banned us from doing so because we started dislodging the concrete blocks).
Our friend was back standing beside our highly opinionated audience when we started kicking the wall beneath them. She told us later that their coffee splashed in the cups and they backed away from the walls in surprise.
The funny thing is that they were very quiet after that.
Takeaways:
- In business, as well as in martial arts, don’t publicly criticise that which you do not understand.
- When you want to answer your critics, it’s better to “kick the wall” than try to explain yourself.
Kind regards,
Declan Chellar
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- What if you are really, really average? (by Rowan Manahan)
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