Category: Personal Growth

3 Critical Attributes Everyone Should Consider for a Healthy Work Environment

What does a healthy growth environment look like in the corporate workplace? Although there are many considerations, I think there are three critical factors.

1. Committed to employee development.  A company must match action with their words in regards to employee development. For some companies employee development is an exercise on paper not backed up by action. A company must make employee development as strategic as other corporate initiatives. A healthy environment also refrains from punishing mistakes. Instead it takes the opportunity to learn from the mistake.

2. Willing to make changes for growth. A company must be willing to create development assignments. It must be willing to provide new opportunities and new challenges. In most cases this will require changes to the organization design. A company organizations structure should be built with the strengths of their employees as an input, rather than trying to fit employees into a fixed structure.

3. Willing to spend money for employee development. A company must invest money in their people… effectively. By effectively, I mean that the opportunities must match the needs. Much of the corporate training these days only provides training that meets the legal requirements related to employment. Also consider development opportunities are not limited to training, and are best if the are matched to individual strengths.

Why should you want to create or work in a growth environment? Because the result of matching good employees and a healthy growth environment creates success.

Compare it to the success of a motion picture:

  • If you have a good script but bad actors, your film will barely get noticed.
  • If you have a bad script with good actors, your film will fail. And people will wonder why those actors ever signed for that film.
  • If you have a bad script and bad actors, no one will ever notice. Very few people will ever see it.
  • If you have a good script with good actors, your film will rise above the other films with which you are competing. You will have a winning combination.

Do you want a winning formula? Put great employees in a healthy, growth environment! How is your current environment? What makes it great or poor?

Understanding the Gap of Intention: Know Yourself

We have dreams. We want to achieve our goals. At times we actively pursue them, and at other times, they remain as only ideas.

Most of us face a gap between our intent and our actions. We struggle to complete what we intend to achieve on a daily, a weekly, and a yearly basis. Why?

We are influenced by our optimism, and we are influenced by our internal desire for success. We set stretch goals and have big dreams. But why does it require so much focus and hard work to follow through on our intent? We know what we want to achieve.

If we examine the gap between our intent and our actions, we may discover our results to be based on several other potential gaps. Here are four to consider:

1. The gap between how we see ourselves, and how we really are. This is an extension of the gap between intent and actions. We judge ourselves based on our intent, not on our actions. So this gap can perpetuate the original gap.

2. The gap between what we think we know, and what we really know. We assume we know enough to achieve our dream, but each step requires learning. We sometimes underestimate the time to learn and take action. We sometimes forget to factor in the required failures that give us the knowledge and experience required.

3. The gap between how much time we think we will spend, and the time we really spend. Only a small number of people, who are actively working on their goals, finish their daily action plan. We push ourselves to achieve more, and yet we underestimate the interruptions, and the other activities that demand our attention.

4. The gap between the amount of effort we believe it will take, and the level of effort it really takes. We have to be persistent in our efforts to succeed. When things get tough, we need to keep going. To understand this gap just think about all the people that start their exercise and diet plans in January and then give up before the end of the month. These people underestimate the effort required to achieve their goal.

How do we close the gap between our intentions and our actions? I am not convinced it can ever be closed. We are always striving for more. But we can increase our success by knowing ourselves, increasing our awareness, and investing in our personal growth.

How are you closing the gap you have between your intentions and your actions?

How to Use Desire to Achieve Success

We spend much of our time fulfilling other people’s desire. We have responsibilities, loyalties, relationships, and requirements for which we are committed. How much time do we spend on our own desire?

I don’t ask this question in a selfish manner, but from the perspective of our grand plan for success in our life. Napoleon Hill in his book, Think and Grow Rich, said, “The starting point of all achievement is DESIRE. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desire brings weak results, just as a small fire makes a small amount of heat.”

Sometimes another person’s desire becomes our desire. But at other times, we need to know our real desire. I have a friend and mentor who loves to ask the question, “What do you want? What do you really, really want?” Unless we spend some time really thinking about our desire, we may never have the ability to really achieve what we want.

The most significant achievements develop from the desire that resides within us. We need to be able to tap into that desire with certainty, inspiration, and effort.

Even when we discover our desire, we must be prepared for obstacles. It was Dan Brown that wrote, “Men go to far greater lengths to avoid what they fear than to obtain what they desire.” It is common to observe this in our own actions from time to time.

To achieve great things, we need to have great clarity in our desire. Desire must be greater than our fear in the required actions to achieve.

How often do you reflect on your desire for success or achievement? What do you really, really want?

Discover a New Idea

I find it interesting that when I get intrigued by something, I am willing to put in the time and effort to learn more. It is not an unusual trait. You have probably experienced the same effect.

It starts with a new awareness. A fact that I was not aware of previously. Then I feed that curiosity with a simple search on the internet which produces a list ready to be explored.

After clicking and following a few leads, one of two things happen. Either I find my curiosity satisfied, and I am willing to move on, or I find my curiosity increasing.

As I continue to pursue more knowledge, the search process transforms into research. I find myself taking notes. I begin to organize and analyze data. Has this ever happened to you?

This can lead to taking action. Trying something new. Taking the knowledge and putting it to use.

For a thought to turn into action, and make it through all those obstacles, it must be linked to an outcome you desire. The desire for a new outcome is what allows us to dig deeper, solve problems, and tolerate mistakes. For me, and maybe for you also, only a few ideas survive this process.

It is difficult for us as human beings to change our behaviors. But yet all of our new actions or new behaviors begin with a single thought.

Usually I am intrigued by ideas that are related to my business, or my area of expertise. But sometimes inspiration comes from completely unrelated ideas.

I can tell you I am not very effective in this entire process. I am not sure anyone can be. Is our curiosity always bigger than our ability to follow through?

It only takes following through with one idea to make a huge improvement in your results. Also the time to research an idea in 2015 is a fraction of the time it would have taken in 1985. So we do research more. But do we take action faster also?

This process has lead me to be curious about how I could be more productive, yet more innovative, and even more curious than I am today.

Maybe we should do more searches, some of them even random.