Inform Yourself

It is well known than small and medium sized business owners fill many roles within their organizations. This being true, we can also agree that some roles fit them better than others. This holds true for many employees within the small or medium sized organization as well. Far too often people are selected to fill a role simply because they have the available time to handle the role regardless of the skills required for the role.

Does this really help the organization achieve its objective?

Is the business getting maximum return on this asset in this role?

Most times, the answer to above questions is NO! Fitting an available resource in to a role based on availability, actually is undermining the organization. It may undermine the organization in productivity, customer service, quality, culture, and ultimately financial performance.

Business Week Magazine recently published an article on this exact subject. The article presented a number of cases where the business owner filled roles simply out of availability or because friends or family were ready and willing to help. In each instance, each owner discovered that this simple act was actually preventing them from achieving their goals!

Defining the qualities and characteristics of each role within an organization, measuring and quantifying your assets qualities and characteristics, and placing them into roles based on the assessment results is called Workforce Alignment. How well an organization scores on its Workforce Alignment is a key indicator of not just success, but if an organization is positioned for high performance. If the Workforce Alignment score is solid, high performance can be achieved more naturally and with a lower total cost to the organization.

At Imagine Yourself, we recommend that an organization use a good cross-section of assessments to help ensure the best matches. it is important to quantity the characteristics of each asset, as well as HOW they will act, WHAT they will do, WHY they do what they do to ensure that each role is filled with the best matching asset. By utilizing this method, the business owner also learns the key areas of development for each asset as it relates to the role for which they have been selected.

What process do you use to match your assets with the roles defined in your organization?

What is your organizations Workforce Alignment score?

You are probbaly asking yourself, "what in the world is he talking about, get outside to go inside?". Please read on and explore the thought.

Most of us operate on a daily basis within a certain space, be it in our professional or private lives. As a result, we see, hear, feel, and think about our world in repetitive patterns. While our world changes to a certain degree everyday, it remains within a larger pattern that is fairly consistent. Why? Because we are creatures of habit. We enjoy the security of our patterns because we pretty much know what we will get everytime. Our patterns act as a safety net for us. While these patterns keep us safe, they may also be preventing us from reaching your goals both professionally nad personally!

"Get Outside" means to step outside our common patterns of sight, sound, feelings, and thoughts. If your liek most people, you typically deal with daily challenges in our offices, cars, or homes. We pretty much deal with them the same way every time. How has that served you? Do you repeat the same actions all of the time? Are you continuing to make steady progress and growth? If not, get outside! You will be amazed how this simple little change will change the way you see, hear, feel, and think about your challenge! The simple act of "getting outside" will anable you to change your patterns. You will experience your world in a whole new way.

"Getting oustide" enables you to "Go Inside" yourself and tap all of your resources! When you get outide, you leave your patern behind. This enables you to "go inside" yourself and tap the many resources that you have yet rarely utilize. They are within you, just waiting to be called upon to assist you, everyday! Do you permit yourself to tap all of your resources? Do you permit yourself to "get outside" your pattern so you may grow?

When we exit our daily patterns we experience our worlds in a new way. As a result,we learn and grow everyday. This makes us more and more powerful everyday. It also makes us more resourceful everyday as we develop ourselves and hone our unique skills and abilities everyday.

So, I challenge you to "get outside to go inside"!

Everything we experience on a daily basis is a reflection of ourselves. This holds true for every interaction; everything we see and how we see it, everything we hear and how we hear it or not, everything thing we feel and how we feel about our interactions. This is true for both individuals and organizations. From an organizational perspective, a small and medium sized business is a reflection of its owner and in larger organizations a reflection of its managers.

On an individual basis, if you are having a good day, you feel great, the birds are singing a sweet song, and the sun shines brighter. If you are having a bad day, you may feel angry, frustrated, sad etc., you probably don't even hear the birds singing, and there is a black cloud following you everywhere you go. Your environment is reflecting your state of being! If you do really do not enjoy grocery shopping, everyone that you interact with in the store will bother you, regardless if it's the store clerk or another shopper. If you feel that you dislike speaking with a particular person, you will feel every communication is wasted time.

Looking at organizations, if a business owner is frustrated the employees are frustrated and the customer probably are as well! If an owner or manager struggles with a particular area of the business, the business will undoubtedly be struggling in the same area. For instance, if a business owner dislikes dealing with financials, the business is probably is having cash flow issues. If the owner or managers dislike sales and marketing, the organizations sales will be declining. If the owner or managers dislike dealing with details, service or product delivery has issues.

So what does this all mean? Your reflections are the universe's means of providing you feedback for areas of growth. This is true for both individuals and organizations.

How can you change it?

1. In order to improve, you must first select an area of focus. Look at yourself or your organization. Be honest. Where are you struggling? Only select a single item.
2. Ask yourself how you see it, hear it, and feel about this issue. Specifically, what do you dislike about it?
3. Now ask yourself "What is the universe trying to teach me here?"
4. Your answer to the question is the basis of your action plan for improvement.
5. Execute your action plan for improvement!

When you apply the above process, you change your state. When you change your state, your reflections change. using the above process on a continual basis will keep you on a constant path of self and organizational improvement.

So I ask you, do you like your reflections?

How comfortable are you right now? Did you do anything today that made you uncomfortable? Were you nervous, uptight, or anxious about anything?

This question is an important one, especially if you are an executive, manager, or a business owner. You see, we all fall into our own comfortable behavior patterns. Whether we realize it or not, we all tend to do things on a daily basis that are comfortable for us. Right or wrong, good or bad, we do it. We do so because it keeps us safe. There is no denying it, we all do it.

How is this safety net you have developed aiding you in your growth or the growth of your staff or organization? If you do the same things everyday, are you really growing? Probably not! We grow and learn when we are challenged to expand our comfort zones. When we expand our comfort zones, we expereience new things, meet new people, and learn new lessons.

I challenge you to be uncomfortable at least once a day. Here are some typical examples of things that may make you uncomfortable; making a cold calls to prospects, complimenting one of your staff for a job well done, or it may be getting out and meeting other business owners. Select one thing that makes you uncomfortable and focus on it. When you get comfortbale doing it, repeat the process and pick another.

We make many excuses for our non-action. It's not my nature, I'm not good at it, no one wants to talk with me. NONSENSE! These are all examples of excuses for avoiding dealing with the real issue, your inner-self. This is what is truly holding you back! Your own limiting thoghts and your comfort zone!

NO MORE EXCUSES! Start learning and growing again! Start by taking a small step and experiencing the event. Then ask yourself, How do I feel right now? What made me wait so long to do this? What did I just learn? Did I move closer to my goal?

One of my favorite quotes is by Peter McWilliams:
"Be willing to be uncomfortable. Be comfortable being uncomfortable. It may get tough, but is is a small price to pay for living a dream."

So I ask you again, How comfortable are you today?