The Fountain of Youth: Being Friends With the Enemy

Being Friends With the Enemy

How do you as corporate fitness director make friends with the adversarial fifteen percent? Is that even possible? In the interest of personal integrity, is it even desirable? After all, anyone with no enemies is really only someone without an argument--without a credible position.

Use of the word adversarial sends the message that being on the same side of the table is impossible. Adversaries are enemies, antagonists, foes, opponents people who may do more than just wish you would sell your hand warmers in Antarctica instead of their home state of Alaska. The reason for this is that they know they need what you are selling (fitness), but they do not want to buy it. That can mean anything from they do not care to be bothered right now to they don't want to buy it from you.

These people may actually say to a new corporate fitness director, You are nuts. Of course, it would be helpful to know if that meant deluded about the goodness of fitness, or just deluded in general. Whichever, that is a much stronger put down than being called a health nut. a friendly jest between people trying to get into a fitness lifestyle. That is the common way of talking within a standard (normal) American sedentary, high fat, high sugar, vitamin-less context.

What these adversarial folks are saying is that fitness will not work for anyone, or, if it does, perhaps it is for people who just need to blow off steam or act younger than their age. These are generally thought of as immature people, or at least not very serious adults. This objection is typical of many people. It is the same as may be found in open-minded people as well; but with those dead-set against any changes right now, and possibly forever, it is far stronger.

The temptation is to say to them But fitness will take years off your life to say nothing of cutting down on your time off for illness and the like. Of course, as a good fitness director, you look younger than what your driver's license says, and you justifiably believe your ways of thinking, feeling, and doing are positively impacted by your superior health. You may also have a friend in HR who can help put together figures which could prove that the unfit other people cost the company money. So, your arguments may be air-tight. But none of them will work on the fifteen percent.

In fact, any attempt to present them will give the adversarial folks an excuse for openly berating you, or simply avoiding you when they see you coming. It may even result in them talking negatively with their friends about you--something you really don't want, especially if some of their friends happen to be in the open-minded group (the folks a fitness director should be all about reaching out to.)

There is only one way to deal with these adversarial people and that is to simply say OK, no problem, which is the same as You have a right to refuse even hearing what I have to say. That means you must completely keep off the subjects of anything and everything that have to do with the good news of gluten free eating, regular exercise and the effectiveness of supplements. Of course, you can say something if asked, but if this person is on the opt-out list, you have got to be very careful.

The best place to start saying OK, no problem is with an opt-out on the very first introductory corporate email a week prior to verbal communication in the form of a group presentation sent from the director's desk. The best place to continue it is with every communication between the director and anyone in the company. People simply need to know that it is OK to not be part of the new workout facility (which cost a fortune,) and to not listen to an overpaid personal trainer lecture them on what their mothers and doctors know to be best for everyone. That is how the fitness director will be seen. Therefore, you should be content with being seen but not heard by these folks.

For anyone enthusiastic about fitness, this type of restraint, necessary as it is, is nearly impossible. One of the things about feeling good yourself is to simply tell everyone you meet about it. That means, even the disgruntled person who's always negative, the ones who have failed after only one try in the past, and the chronic smokers and over-eaters. The message, There is a better way and all you have to do is do it to see how great it is will never win any of these folks as friends.

In fact, it will have the complete opposite effect. That is even if you are able to convince them intellectually via some well put together facts or academic studies. The adversarial folks do not want to be convinced. In the words of Ben Franklin, "A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still." What's worse is that they may have enough social clout to label you as a meddler or Pollyanna. That may make it much more difficult to get on with the open-minded people.

This is a particularly knotty problem as the adversarial folks may actually be causing the greatest amount of insurance policy expense or require the greatest amount of recuperative time-off. In the case of smokers, there is always the multiple break factor, which negatively impacts productivity. The same may go for the overweight person who always has to have their pop tarts. In some cases, both groups may even be the reason that the corporate fitness director was brought in in the first place---to correct this very real, historically verifiable, threat to the company's bottom line. And, yes, a fitness program most likely will correct these problems.

Some upper echelon people are into this type of thinking long before day one. They know that fitness is the right policy to enforce. The problem is that they often think the anti-fitness people should be the prime focus of a new program. Why? Because they are the actual threat to not only the bottom line but to the workforce in general. Therefore, something must be done about them. That is much the same saying A few bad apples are spoiling the barrel. The decision then is to "shape them up or ship them out"(unless, of course, the corporate fitness director can make them over.)

Nothing could be more counterproductive. The company must know this on the front end. Being like this is no different than being a parent telling a child that if they do not do a certain thing (or stop doing another) they will no longer get their allowance. That type of coercion was prevalent a few decades ago, but went out the window with much of the very effective psycho-therapy of the seventies and eighties. Besides, it can't be enforced in a straight forward way.

Legally, it is impossible to fire these people for not taking advantage of a fitness program, or to fire them for negatively influencing the open-minded others (free speech.) There are no laws against them being anti-fitness, meaning that there could never be a corporate policy, which requires them to be as healthy as they can be, or to keep from negatively influencing the open-minded. About all that can happen is to implement a company policy similar to smoking, which in essence says This is how it is here.

There are smoke-free environment signs for most companies nowadays, but their influence doesn't extend beyond the predominant physical premises. There still are places outside where one can smoke. Of course, one cannot be fired for smoking, though it may be more difficult for obvious smokers to be hired in the first place. The same may someday go for those not into working out, but that is decades down the road. What all of this means is that simply providing healthy fitness options is about as good as it can get.

In a like manner, the company cafeteria and vending machines can all be restocked with healthier foods sending the message This is what we offer here.But someone's brown bag from home or right to go down the street to McDonald's must always still be there. Moreover, the thought of firing someone for drinking Mountain Dew as if it were as problematic as liquor, while on the clock, is absurd. Same goes for eating McDonald's burgers, though there have been incidents of high school coaches buying the bag from star swimmer and then throwing it away in front of the rest of the team. Such practices will not work in the business world, no matter how effective they might be expected to be.

The point is that the company cannot expect a complete fitness makeover on anyone, no matter how certain they are that fitness is a good thing for everyone. For example, even prolonged disparaging glances at the sedentary individual who eats pop tarts hourly cannot be part of the any supervisor's agenda. Similarly, changing others who do not want to be changed cannot be part of the expectations for the corporate fitness director. The job of shaping up the worst ones is the adversarial people's own immense job-- not the directors, not the company's.

That means the fifteen percent themselves are the only ones who should decide to get into fitness. And, this must be for their own highest well-being, not to protect themselves from being fired for some minor corporate infraction-- something far too common in the business world (like the recently too many tines late salesperson owed the big commission.)

Thus, the only right approach to everyone is what we are all about as Americans--respect of the right of the individual. In this context, that means the right to be sedentary, obsessed with the wrong kinds of foods, and completely adverse to vitamins. In other words, there can be no unwanted influence, no matter how subtle, including no persuasive tactics on the part of the virtual undercover makeover artist in the form of a corporate fitness director. In other words, no strings, no innuendos. Everything fitness must be wholly optional and straight forward.

Moreover, if no one chooses to use the brand new 250K gym, that has got to be OK. Same goes for not saying anything beyond Hello to the fitness director, and not taking advantage of the new additions to the cafeteria and break rooms. Saying no to all of this must be acceptable, without recourse. That means, pure and simple, Water can be provided for horses, but they cannot be made to drink.

Of course, the best way to head off a catastrophe such as no one being interested is to send out an inquiry poll, long before even interviewing for a corporate fitness director or implementing any type of change. Questions such as Would you consider using a corporate fitness facility along with Would you be interested in more healthy cafeteria break room options should be asked outright.That will give an indication relative to the degree of openness to new fitness options. In today's day and age, that should be rather strong number.

Initially focusing on these open-minded people will insure the overall success of the program, eventually impacting the fifteen percent. If a new workout area can be used effectively by a significant portion of the workforce, if new vending machine options can indeed replace other more standard ones, if the new meals in the company cafeteria can in fact be considered pleasing, there will be healthy changes to everyone over time. People will start looking feeling and acting healthier--more fit. But it will not come over night. Lifestyle changes take effort even for those who want them to occur.

Nevertheless, the expectation that no one initially will get with the program is unrealistic. A considerable number of people nowadays are open to the newer ways of thinking about health, and significant strides have been made to make the newest options available to them. As a result, there will be a large number who will appreciate a brand new gym, healthier onsite food and a for-free personal trainer (the salaried fitness director.) It is these people that the company must concern itself with, ie. not the adversarial fifteen percent.

Doing so will have the greatest chance for eventual success with the problem people. But to upper management, this may sound like If it ain't broke why are we fixing it? In other words, We are business people, not social workers. Therefore, go after the smokers and the overweight. This is where our real problems are and we have numbers to show just how much we lose every year by reason of these people's unhealthy lifestyles. Furthermore, if we are paying a lot of upfront money we have to see a return on our investment, such as first year cost savings in reduced insurance expense and lessened missed time due to smoking and eating disorder related problems. A fitness program should be addressing these issues. That is why we considered implementing it in the first place!

If that really is the company's final position they should be advised to have a Jenny Craig and Nicotine Anonymous on site. This would be far less costly than investing a gym, a fitness director and considerable number of alternative food vendors. But that really does not have a chance of working even with a part-time Jillian Michaels personal trainer type recommending them to likely candidates. In fact, doing so will have the exact opposite effect. If the fifteen percent had been thinking about joining either of these groups prior to this point they now will be strongly adverse to it. That is because they are now being lured into what is actually a mandatory part of their job expectation. In other words, they will see right through it and not want to be part of either of these programs. That is even if they are offered by the company at a significantly reduced price; or if "the patch" were significantly subsidized for the smokers.

The only real job for the corporate fitness director is to simply be there with great advice and encouragement relative to the new workout space, new ideas off the internet, healthy food and beverage options-- now and then wisely reaching out to those who seem curious about fitness. Continuing to do both, over time, will, very gradually, enable the fifteen percent to be exposed to what is being offered to everyone, enabling them to take advantage of it when and if they want.

That should be the goal, or explicit agenda for what is really going on.--being there and being personable for everyone, of course, but first for those going from standard health habits to ones of a fitness nature. These folks will be open to newsletters, to free personal training, to green tea instead of coffee, to the gluten-free wraps and the hard-boiled eggs. They already know something is right with all of this, and they will want to experience as much of it as they can. Helping to get these new things in place of what they are currently doing is what the director should be all about.

But how do we know that all of this is getting us, the company anywhere?

Little by little there will be changes-- rpms on the stationary bikes will go up, waistlines will become trim, dress sizes will reduce, overall appearances will change. And, as that happens, there will be an increasingly greater interest felt by those who were dead set against any and all of the new health options. All people simply want all of what fitness has to offer to them, but not all people will want to get into doing what it takes, at least not right now.

Expecting immediate results is simply problematic if not completely counterproductive. Firing, threatening, bribing or subtly trying to influence the anti-fitness people is doomed to failure from the outset. Again, the adversarial fifteen percent will only become more resistant. However, seeing another worker make a significant change, for instance lose some weight or look more healthy, may actually get them to seek their own help in addition to taking advantage of some of the new corporate options. That really will work; it really will happen. But it must happen on its own. It cannot be contrived or set up in any fashion.

In short, the only way to befriend the enemy is to allow the enemy to be the enemy. That means don't even think about making them over. If it is any help, that may in some cases be the first time in their lives that anyone has actually been that way in relation to them, namely willing to leave them alone, accepting them as they are. To a company faced with bottom line issues, knowing that behavioral changes could in fact make a significant difference, that may seem completely ineffective.

Nevertheless that is the contention of this chapter : Let the enemy be the enemy so that time can be wisely invested making friends with the open-minded friendlies. Then the others may eventually come over to our side. That may not promise an immediate impact on the bottom line, but that is the best way of treating everyone--the way that we all would like. What better chance is there for ultimate success?

For further thought on motivating the unmotivated order my e-book "Think and Grow Fit.:

Posted by mark clemens at 12/9/2011 2:00 PM