Parallels between boxing and the cubicle: you are going to get hit
I’ve been training at a boxing gym for the last two months and I was recently given the opportunity to spar. I had never sparred before and was eager to see how I would perform. After all, the heavy bag barely moves and certainly doesn’t hit back.
In my cohort I was joined by a few intermediate boxers with sparring experience ranging from several months to a few years. While there weren’t any Mike Tysons’s in the ring, they all had done this before.
As you’d expect, my initial foray was filled with wild, anxiety-fueled motion in which I looked more like a drunken frat boy dancing an Irish jig in a death metal mosh pit than a smooth, silky boxer. I was adept at blocking jabs with my nose and my profusely bleeding nostrils indicated this was a poor strategy. As the evening progressed and I began to settle down, I noticed a peculiar dichotomy among the boxers.
There were those who didn’t mind getting hit and those who did. Now we were all wearing protective headgear and boxing at a level less than all out effort (although not by much if at all in my case), so I don’t mean to imply this was a matter of toughness or pain tolerance. Instead it was a matter of perception.
The blows we were exchanging were more jarring or annoying than incapacitating. You might flinch or blink when struck but you were unlikely to feel your legs go weak. I quickly noticed that one of the boxers, a tall, lanky fighter with quick hands and good power simply hated getting jabbed in the face. Instead of responding with selective counter-punches or even wild aggression, he would draw his head back and to his opponent’s right. While this succeeded in removing him from danger when in the center of the ring, it was completely ineffective when cornered.
In one instance I had him backed up to the corner of the ring. With his back against the ropes, I jabbed him in the face, leading to his backwards head motion. With the ropes behind him, however, there was no where to go. His head stayed within range. I jabbed him again.
At this point you’d assume he would move to his left or right to escape the ropes and the incoming jabs. But he didn’t.
I jabbed a third time, with this blow landing square on his nose and causing it to bleed. And still he remained fixed in his recoil, his movement stunted by the ropes of the ring. I fired two more jabs to his bleeding nose before the trainer leading our session shouted at him to move.
This snapped him out of his inertia and he quickly shuffled out to the center of the ring. The round ended with him delivering a powerful right hand to my chin during an ape-like attempt of mine to evade his long jab. I woke up the next morning with a painful reminder in my jaw of the parting shot, whereas after wiping his nose his face was no worse for the wear.
Nonetheless, in subsequent rounds against myself and other opponents he exhibited the same knee-jerk behavior when caught flush with a jab. While he avoided being pinned in a corner, he was unable to break the habit during the session.
I think there is a strong parallel between this behavior — responding to painful, unpleasant stimulus in such a way that only invites more of the same — that many of us exhibit in our professional lives. We seek promotions, change projects, or switch companies looking to escape the thudding jabs of our quotidian office existence. Rarely do these actions have the intended effect, and just like my friend above, they often result in more PowerPoint/Email jabs to the face that we sought so desperately to escape from.
In dissecting this behavior we can see that the body’s initial reaction is poor because it responds to the wrong stimulus. When struck in the face with the jab, we jerk our heads back and away from the blow. Our body feels the impact and tries to get our head out of the way, not realizing that the strike came not from some inanimate, falling object but from a targeted shot by an opponent.
When instead we realize that the pain extends from our opponent’s jab we can react accordingly by blocking, slipping, or using footwork and head movement. This is obvious to the bystanders around the ring and completely lost on the person getting punched in the face.
It is only by stepping out of the ring and reflecting that you can adjust your behavior. The next time you find yourself longing for a new promotion, project, or job, make sure you take a moment to reflect on whether your movement will result in moving you away from the pain you feel.
This isn’t to suggest you shouldn’t do any of the above but rather to point out that our initial reaction to being punched may not be the most effective motion to prevent getting punched again. Counter-intuitive behavior, e.g., moving forward to close the distance against a taller opponent, may be “safer” than backing away. Further, if you haven’t struck back, if you have not returned fire with punches of your own, then you really should. A great way to stop someone from punching you is to punch them first. And in the worst case, at least you can feel satisfaction in knowing you landed a few shots of your own and your pain was not for nothing.
To put it another way, our default behavior may be to seek an equilibrium where we are neither punching nor being punched. In boxing this will occur as two fighters stalk each other looking for openings or catching their breath. Unfortunately, this isn’t boxing, and no one can fight this way for an entire round or bout. Even the best defensive fighters still get hit. If you’re not getting hit you’re not boxing.
In that sense so is your work. You will get punched and you will need to punch back to be an effective participant. While it will never feel good to get punched in the face, it will provide plenty of motivation that if harnessed correctly can improve your performance and fuel you with energy. It will be chaotic and scary at times, but it will never be boring. And further, this safety you seek is a mere illusion. You cannot work or box without coming into contact with another. You must learn to take and return punches. Otherwise you will continue to get punched in the face and flail ineffectively at avoiding the next inevitable blow.
