Improving Results in a Challenging Economy

In these changing and challenging times where budgets and workforces are often shrinking, and workloads typically aren’t, businesses and organisations everywhere are finding themselves under pressure to do more with less.

In the UK, Brexit is imminent, the minimum wage is due a big increase in April, and it's all looking rather volatile and uncertain.

Many employees are feeling overworked, demoralised, disenfranchised, stressed, overwhelmed, burnt out, and so on, and this is having a huge, negative impact across all kinds of results...

e     Employee engagement

e     Mental, Physical & Emotional Wellbeing

e     Attendance/sickness absence

e     Conduct

e     Performance (Quality & Productivity)

e     Customer satisfaction and complaints

e     Employee relations, teamwork and collaboration

e     Disciplinaries and grievances

e     Creativity and innovation

e     Sales.

Costs are escalating, and it's all affecting the bottom line.

If your business or organisation is struggling in some of these areas and doesn’t take action NOW to mitigate the situation, you could find yourselves facing something of a crisis in the very near future. 

What you read over the next few minutes has the potential to turn everything around, and enable you to transform results in pretty much all of the areas outlined above.

I help businesses and organisations to optimise their thinking, well-being and work performance, in order to transform results. The following model informs all that I do, and describes the pathway to every result:

THOUGHTS > FEELINGS > ACTIONS > RESULTS

Working backwards:

* (RESULTS). As human beings, our Thoughts create our Feelings, which drive our Actions, which determine the Results we get. Our thoughts are the cause, and our results are the effect. The quality of thinking taking place in a business or organisation will always be directly reflected in the quality of results it’s getting.

* (ACTIONS). Every result in the workplace is traceable back to what the people are doing/not doing, and how they’re doing it. It’s how they present and conduct themselves… what they do and don’t say and do (and how they say and do it); it’s their level of skill in the key areas of their roles; it’s the quality of the choices and decisions they make; how effectively they prioritise and manage their workloads; it’s how ‘smart’ they work. In the workplace, this translates as PERFORMANCE. 

* (FEELINGS). People’s actions (performance) are strongly driven by how they’re feeling, physically, mentally and emotionally. In the workplace, this translates as WELLBEING, morale and spirits. 

* (THOUGHTS). How people are feeling is directly caused by what and how they’re thinking. Unfortunately, we have an in-built negativity bias whereby we pay more attention to negative information than positive (this is a survival instinct). Most people carry a significant amount of unhelpful thinking (worry, fear, self-doubt, negative and limiting beliefs, overthinking, ‘monkey-mind’, and so on), which can get in the way of their best work. Our thinking can either be our superpower - enabling us to feel well, do well and get great results, or it can be our Kryptonite – blocking us, and creating all manner of issues and dysfunction.

But there’s one more very important aspect to this! The thinking taking place within a business or organisation is strongly influenced by a host of different situational factors, including the physical environment itself (colour of the walls, comfort of the furnishings, the quality of the light, air temperature, space, etc), the equipment that people work with, the volume of work, changes and restructures taking place, the management culture, the quality, frequency and tone of the communications people receive, pay, policies and procedures, systems, resources, the customers, and so much more - including what’s happening for people outside of work and in the world of politics and economics. All of these things can sometimes present people with a very strong invitation to feel tense, worried, anxious, stressed, demoralised, tired, angry, frustrated, etc., or equally (when things are good), can help them to think positively and feel happy, empowered, engaged, motivated, and so on.

So the question, then, is where best to invest our efforts in order to transform results? For example, should we focus on thinking? On well-being? On performance/skills? On addressing all the things that can influence people, and get in their way? The answer is that we need to focus on all of these things.

·      Historically, we’ve looked at how to improve performance at the level of action – upskilling people in terms of what they actually do.

·      In more recent times, we’ve also begun to focus on wellbeing, engagement and happiness at work.

·      Many organisations are understanding that people operate as part of a system that influences their behaviour/productivity, and have introduced ‘LEAN’ practices and a ‘Systems Thinking’ philosophy to drive efficiencies.

·      HOWEVER – we’ve been slow to realise that the fundamental cause of how someone feels and performs is their thinking. Wouldn’t you think that, as every result is traceable back to the quality of thinking taking place, that training people in the skills of effective, high-performance thinking would be a commonplace thing? I think it’s the biggest trick that business (by and large) is currently missing. Perhaps the fact that 'thinking skills' aren't mainstream yet, is evidence that our thinking isn’t as good as we think it is, and that we can be slow to grasp new ideas, embrace new paradigms and champion new ways of doing things! As Henry Ford once said, "Thinking is the hardest work, which is probably the reason so few engage in it"! I would stick the word 'Effective' at the start of this quote, because we all think rather a lot - just not very effectively, some of the time.

We can’t always change a situation, or the system. Some things are entirely outside of our control. We might not be able to wave a magic wand and reduce workload, increase headcount, influence the political agenda. But what we can do is find better ways to deal with the situations we find ourselves in. We can become more agile in our thinking, and learn to be more creative and innovative in our approach to challenges. We can learn to manage our thoughts, our stress and our responses. We can become more reflective and learn from our mistakes. We can learn how to think more clearly in order to make fewer mistakes. We can learn to ask better questions, and make better decisions.

Here are a few things that you could choose to do with this information (if you're not doing them already):

1.      You could find out what things in the workplace are having a negative impact on how your people think and feel at work. For the things that can potentially be changed or influenced, gather their ideas about how best to improve these, and involve them in the doing.

2.      Train people in the skills of high-performance thinking, so they can take better direction of their thoughts, and think more resourcefully, constructively and creatively. Also, ensure an ongoing focus on role modelling/encouraging great thinking, and challenging/discouraging unhelpful thinking, as well as providing regular positive, encouraging and inspiring messages to keep spirits up. Of the World Economic Forum’s ‘Top 10 Emerging Skills for 2022’, 8 have a direct link to thinking, so really good, effective thinking is going to be an essential requirement for surviving and thriving into the future. 

3.      Pay attention to employees’ physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being needs, and upskill/encourage them to pro-actively look after themselves and manage their stress. Do what you can to provide an environment in which it's easy for people to feel good.

4.      Pinpoint the key skills that your people need to master in order to perform brilliantly, and provide regular practical, hands-on, practice-based learning sessions for those that need them. This could be anything from management training to customer service, soft skills, business skills, technical skills, and so on. 

Really good thinking skills seem to be something of a rare commodity. Most people who are great thinkers have had to learn how to think that way. Our default seems to be that of the fear-based ‘monkey mind’, rather than naturally clear, confident, creative thinking. We need to take greater directorship of our minds, channelling our thoughts in more constructive, resourceful ways.

If you were to take no action in these areas, your results would be highly unlikely to improve, and may well deteriorate further. Whilst it’s not always helpful to imagine the worst possible outcomes, we do need to be aware of the potential risks so we can mobilise ourselves into taking action to avoid disaster. Take the action though, and you’re highly likely to see significant improvements across most (if not all) of your KPIs.

The world is changing, and it's going to get tougher out there. What will you choose to do about it?

About me:

With over 20 years of experience in corporate management and training roles, I set up my business 'Sunshine Corporate & Personal Development' at the start of 2018. In 2019 I published my book ‘Your Thinking is Your Superpower’, with the aim of helping as many people and organisations as possible to identify and conquer their Kryptonite, and supercharge their thinking. I now work as an independent consultant, helping my clients to ‘THINK WELL, FEEL WELL, DO WELL – AND GET GREAT RESULTS’ (my motto). 

If your business or organisation could use some training in the areas outlined in this article, please get in touch to arrange a free initial consultation. I’ll be happy to bring a free copy of my book – in exchange for a cup of tea!