REFLETS MAGAZINE - N°139 - Juillet/Août 2021 - Revue d'information et de réflexion économique - Version Preview - 84

AVIS D'EXPERT
From the Death Zone
to the Boardroom
In 2018, ESSEC professor Stefan Gröschl and company leader and extreme athlete Benedikt
Böhm joined forces to write From the Death Zone to the Boardroom.
Their textbook explores Ben's experiences and reflections as an extreme sports athlete within the
context of selective scholarly works and research from a wide range of disciplines beyond the
general business and management literature.
Their different backgrounds strengthened the bisociative associations between extreme sports,
and concepts and ideas framing and shaping human behaviours and organizational practices and
processes. Different as the experiences of an extreme sports athlete and a business leader may
seem, the business world can learn about human behaviour and organizational practices from
lessons derived from the " death zone " of extreme sports.
H
By Stefan Gröschl
With ESSEC
Knowledge Editorin-chief
BIO
Stefan
Gröschl is
Professor at the
ESSEC Business,
Paris, France.
Stefan is widely
known for his
expertise in
responsible
leadership,
sustainability,
diversity
management,
international
human resources
management,
and
organizational
behavior.
84
ow to achieve the seemingly
unthinkable and how to reach
exceptional goals is not only a
decisive process in extreme
adventure performances, but
one that is also critical for the
career development of every business leader.
Dr. Stefan Gröschl says: " Business leaders want to
work toward difficult performance goals only when
they have the relevant skills and abilities. When
facing situations where there are limited known
methods and procedures, decision-makers want
to focus on specific and difficult learning goals. "
While decision-makers and organizations operate
today in an increasingly uncertain world, most
companies and their leaders today continue to be
hugely unprepared for the unpredictable. By
sep arating the causes and effects in both time and
space and acknowledging the contradictory effects
of solutions in the short- and long-term, we
can construct a more complex worldview that
challenges deterministic certainty of actions and
their outcomes. Dr. Gröschl says: " It's important
to understand the role of luck in successes and
failures and the lightness decision-makers need
when facing today's increasingly complex and
uncertain world. "
Gröschl and Böhm go beyond the " usual suspects "
in business and management textbooks by delving
into topics like fear, pain, suffering, and failure. They
provide uncommon insights and alternative perspectives
about managing oneself and leading
oth ers. Being able to distinguish between anxieties
of the unknown und unexpected and fears of the
known and expected helps decision-makers to
focus on what is controllable and manageable. Left
unchecked, fear can lead to irrational decision-ma
king and influence our judgment. Fear is
not just a physical warning signal: when managed
correctly, it can serve as a self-analytical tool and a
motivational method. This means that it is essential
to understand the triggers of your fears to develop
better self-awareness and understand how those
feelings can influence behaviours from decision-making,
how you assess your future, and how
you interact with colleagues. Not only is it important
to understand your own fear, it is also worthwhile
for leaders to cultivate an environment where people
can share their fears so that they can be better
supported. It's also key to not let a fear of failure
ESSECALUMNI.COM#REFLETS#139
© UNSPLASH.COM

http://www.UNSPLASH.COM

REFLETS MAGAZINE - N°139 - Juillet/Août 2021 - Revue d'information et de réflexion économique - Version Preview

Table des matières de la publication REFLETS MAGAZINE - N°139 - Juillet/Août 2021 - Revue d'information et de réflexion économique - Version Preview