Feeling Our Way

I was lucky recently to receive an acupressure massage from someone who knows what they are talking about when it comes to muscle training. He told me I had good leg stock (what a flirt!) but also gave me a body critique. I have far stronger back muscle on my left-hand side than my right which is the result of carrying a baby and then a toddler and then a little girl on my left hip! I also don’t have strong glutes in comparison to the rest of my leg muscles and my shoulders are far stronger than my biceps or triceps. All interesting information but I wasn’t quite sure what to do with it until I next went running.

Switching focus

I am training for a marathon in October. My first. I can’t quite believe I have signed up for it as I have never finished any of my half marathon races thinking I would like to do it again. In fact I have never finished them anything less than completely exhausted! And yet I have signed up for the same again. In one go. I am increasing my mileage every week as I get ready to start a full plan at the end of March. Each week I allocate the right amount of time to the right amount of distance to reach my weekly total. As each run has a non-negotiable number of miles, I normally concentrate on speed to try and get a faster minute per mile each time I go out. Following my massage and critique, I decided to concentrate on positioning instead.

For eight miles, I really focused on running properly. Straight back, shoulders down, arms at optimum height. It helped that I had been to see the British Indoor Athletics the previous weekend in the Birmingham Arena so I copied them! Buy boy did it hurt! It felt almost like running for the first time again. My glutes, biceps, and triceps all ached. Those muscles I haven’t been using very much and allowing the rest of my body to compensate for whilst I had been focused only on distance and speed. I was also slow adding a staggering 45 seconds per mile to my time over the distance.

Faster and Further

My second run concentrating on positioning was so tough I cut it a mile short, meaning the next run had to add a mile on! Run three was a bit easier. By run five I was almost back to my previous speed. The pure observer of speed and distance would see no benefit to this process: after five runs my time per mile had not improved and my mile count was the same. But I have brought something really important with me on this journey. Running ‘feels’ better. It cannot be measured yet in the traditional performance metrics of speed and distance but I know eventually I will be a better runner because of my new focus. I will run faster and further and hopefully prove less susceptible to injury by ensuring I concentrate on my positioning.

So why am I sharing this? Because I think business follows the same principles. Why did VHS win out over Betamax even though the latter was first to market? Positioning. There’s lots more examples from my world of technology. The number one business smartphone Blackberry died its death when RIM lost sight of its positioning. Microsoft’s recent renaissance is the direct result of the re-focus on their position as number one in business application software. And positioning is no less important for us small businesses. At Emerald, we recently completed some work with creative agency Glued which involved surveying customers. It was a great way to remind us of our own positioning which we are guilty of forgetting some times, just like the big boys. It was an unquestionable reminder of why people buy from us and ultimately why we started our business in the first place.

Just like my running, Emerald is starting to use and strengthen all its muscles. I know in the future we’ll go faster and further as a result of keeping a close eye on our positioning. Yet the only measure I have right now is that it ‘feels’ better.

This was first published on LinkedIn in February 2019