One of my favorite martial arts exercises was trying to go with my partner's flow. It wasn't about hitting or even blocking, just trying to be so in tune with his energy that I could mimic his movements.

In reading Stan Slap's explanation of culture in his book Under the Hood: Fire Up and Fine-Tune Your Employee Culture, that exercise came to mind.

As Stan explains it, employee culture is an organism that exists in companies of all sizes and its primary purpose is to protect itself. There is no way to force it to do or go along with anything, and if you want any initiative to succeed, you have to figure out how to appease this organism.

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