Revisiting ‘Famous Five’: Reflections on renewal

A brand new year is ahead of us. As usual, people tend to have New Year resolutions. My suggestion is to go beyond resolutions, to have specific reinforcements.  For that, we need to focus on five facets of life, which I would like to call ‘Famous Five’.

Why famous? They are all what we know. That is simple common sense. Yet, the truth is that common sense becomes uncommon in the midst of chaos, confusion and clutter. I am talking of the need to take care of the physical, mental, emotional, social and spiritual dimensions of our lives. This is a good time for renewal, an awakening to the reality with focus on being better. We need a renewal in each of the above facets, in making 2011 a meaningful period of prosperity.   

Physical renewal

The human body is the vehicle that takes us through the journey of life. Being healthy and fit are of utmost importance, despite our constant negligence of them. Finding quality time for physical exercises on a regular basis will be one sure cure for physical inactivity.

Having a healthy dietary pattern, in opting to be fit than fat, is another vital need.  Now, make the decision to allocate time for it and to respect the commitment. That is what a renewal is all about.

Mental renewal

It is to do with sharpening ourselves. As Stephen Covey highlighted as one of the seven habits of highly-effective people, “sharpening the saw” is essential for growth and success. Ensuring that knowledge and skills are regularly updated and upgraded is what we need to focus on.

Tom Peters gave a challenge to US managers a decade ago. Look back for past six months, and see whether you have acquired any new knowledge or skills. If the answer is “no,” you are stagnating with a blunt saw.

With internet as a vast ocean of knowledge offering a variety of informal learning approaches, learning has become a part and parcel of our lives. As Socrates said a long time ago, we learn from “the womb to the tomb”.

Emotional renewal

There are people who have successfully passed their exams, but have miserably failed in their lives. Being aware of constructive emotions as well as destructive emotions, surrounding our lives, is the first step. Laziness and anger are two common examples for destructive emotions. Enthusiasm and determination are common constructive emotions.

As experts on Emotional Intelligence (EI) say, self awareness should lead to self-regulation. That is when you are in control of your emotions and then channelling them towards achievements. This is especially true if you are at an organisational leadership position. As Daniel Goldman, who popularised the concept of EI advocate, leaders should be 70 % more emotionally intelligent than the others.  

Social renewal

As we know, no man is an island. Human beings are social animals. Human connectivity is an essential requirement for any community to foster. In a high-tech world, where speed is a key factor, high-touch dimension of relationships should not be neglected. I have seen many achievement-oriented executives who are “married” to their jobs whilst their neighbours take care of their families.

A renewal should ensure the fostering of relationships with team at work, and more importantly with team at home. Building better relationships, taking quality time off from your work to be with your loved ones, involving in voluntary work are some of the popular activities in this respect.

Spiritual renewal

The above four renewals are not possible without the underpinning one to all of them, which I call the spiritual renewal. There is a difference between being spiritual and being religious. One can visit a church, temple, mosque or a kovil every day, but be at constant loggerheads with neighbours.

Being spiritual is much deeper in moving beyond rituals in being righteous. It required a set of values that governs your behaviour. Honesty and integrity can be the commonest examples. Harmony between your set of values and the corporate values of your organisation will ensure long term association of you and your organisation.

Renewal to results

Awakening of one’s physical, mental, emotional, social and spiritual dimensions should lead to better understanding of oneself. Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz in their seminal HBR article titled ‘Making of a Corporate Athlete,’ describe vividly the importance of physical, mental, emotional and spiritual “capacities”.  According to them, organisations cannot afford to utilise their employees’ capacities, while ignoring their physical, emotional and social wellbeing. The key point here is the need have a balanced approach towards performance. Renewed employees will reinforce their commitment towards assigned tasks in achieving the expected results. In essence, they ensure the attainment of human results.  

May the year 2011 usher an era of prosperity through productivity. That can be only possible by having the rigour of going for stretched targets with a renewed commitment as a well-balanced person.  

(Dr. Ajantha Dharmasiri is a Senior Faculty Member and a Management Consultant attached to the Postgraduate Institute of Management, University of Sri Jayewardenepura. He also serves as an adjunct faculty in International Human Resource Management at the Price College of Business, University of Oklahoma, USA. He has over two decades of both private and public sector working experience in diverse environments including Unilever and Nestlé. He has engaged in consultancies in more than 10 countries. He is a Commonwealth AMDISA Doctoral Fellow and Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellow. He holds a Ph.D. and an MBA from the Postgraduate Institute of Management, University of Sri Jayewardenepura and a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Moratuwa. He is also a member of the Chartered Management Institute, UK.)