Three Unexpected ‘Aha’s Needed for a REAL Company Shift

A previous post with a generic ‘dream’ company garnered some sarcasm. And rightly so!

Most of us will agree that such a fictitious company is unrealistic.

Organizations are made up of humans, and humans are MESSY.

So it’s never pretty and ideal like that.

1. And yet you know you want it.

AND it’s important to call to the front of the stage that THAT’S WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE already in our heads, realistic or not.

So, we are often feeling like failures because we are measuring the daily, in-our-face situations that challenge us, against our idealized goals.

In other words, you already have unrealistic goals. Own it.

As you chew on that, here is a second key point to bring into focus.

2. Practice makes patience…

We CAN and have accessed moments that match each aspect of the ideal company. It’s NOT unrealistic to aim for experiencing these moments more often!?

If we’ve done it before, we can do it again.

Again, for the people in the back:

If you’ve done it before, you CAN do it again.

Better. Faster. Stronger.

Anyone who excels at performance knows this.

So, it’s not about making some BIG, SWEEPING CHANGE that transforms your company overnight.

Trust that you don’t want that.

Anything ‘overnight’ spells disaster and chaos.

No ‘quick fix’ pill approaches here.

It’s about baby steps, day in, day out.

It’s about falling a hundred times, but letting someone help you back up each time and trying again.

It’s about practice, practice, practice.

That’s the only REAL way that works long term to install permanent transformation.

So that rules out chasing quarterly KPI review upticks.

It rules out making yourself look good (this month) to the board.

It WILL help your KPIs shift.

It WILL make you look good to the board in the long run.

But not today.

Because a real leader builds for permanence for all stakeholders, not for surface ‘hits’ to impress a few.

Michaella Lee Bloom has an incredible tagline - “Stop chasing viral moments, let’s start building cultural MOVEMENTS”

So that’s the second key point to remember: You’ve done it before, you CAN do it again, better, and to do so will require lots of patient practice!

3. Escape the echo chamber through your body.

Then the next concern is - ‘Ok, I get that I need to practice patiently, but it hasn’t been working! I’ve been modeling [Fill in the blank] assessment or model for over a year now, and not much has really shifted!’

The sad thing about ‘business as usual’ today is that it’s an echo chamber.

Lots of things sound new and different, without actually being so.

This is because, as the quote attributed to Einstein points out “we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

‘Business as usual’ follows several clear lines of thinking that thus create more of the same result, no matter how innovatively the solution is packaged.

To get out of this maddening loop, we need to shift our thinking, the way we approach things.?

And the challenge here is that, unless we’re open to it, the ‘different’ way of thinking will literally sound crazy.

We’ll have a knee jerk reaction to retreat to the familiar way of looking at things.

The way that doesn’t work.

So, at some point, we’ll need to step out of our comfort zone.

How do we do this without becoming gullible?

We get out of our heads and into our bodies.

Our physical body gives ‘tells’ that point the way that is right for us.

So, if something is right for you, it might look like:

You’re thinking “This is nuts! My board will never go for this!” but your body feels lighter or bouncier than it has in a long time.

You go to sleep and wake up in the middle of the night thinking “How in the world will this work? I don’t have the white papers or scientific models to justify this excitement!”

This is how it might look / feel when you’re onto something that challenges your way of thinking in a way that is right for you.

On the other hand, if you feel ill in an unpleasant way, or have an instant reaction of discomfort in your body, then perhaps it’s best to keep on moving.

SO, the final key point is that to get out of the ‘business as usual’ echo chamber and experience real transformation, you need to get out of your head and listen to your body.

In summary, our key points are:

1. You already have unrealistic goals. Own it.

2. If you did it before, you CAN do it again. To do so, you need to patiently practice.

3. To get out of the ‘business as usual’ echo chamber and experience real transformation, you need to get out of your head and listen to your body.

What comes up for you after reading this? Which of the three was the biggest ‘Aha’ for you? Please share. ????

#businessasusual #holistic #leadershipdevelopment #globalvillagecampus #therealdeboraha

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Text: “Three Unexpected ‘Aha’s Needed for a Real Company Shift”