The Secret to an Unstoppable Business: There's Nothing to Fear
?Dr. Proactive? Randy Gilbert
Fear can halt businesses like no other emotion. People of every nation in the world know this same powerful feeling. When fear is in the workplace, nothing else saps the efficiency, morale, and momentum from your organization like it.
What is the key to running an unstoppable business? "The source of innovation is a place of fearlessness where we are not trying to force things to happen," says Gayle Gregory, motivational coach, leadership consultant, and co-author of the book "The Grand Experiment: An Expedition of Self-Discovery." Gregory feels that the key to an unstoppable business is identifying and eliminating the fears present in the minds of its employees.
There are seven fears fundamental to the human psyche that Gregory has identified. These fears show up everywhere from personal choices to business activities. Although a person might not be aware of a fear are on a conscious level, it still has a marked effect upon the worker's ability to innovate, communicate, and be efficient. Everyone in the workplace, from executives and managers to entry-level interns, can find some aspect of each of the seven fears within themselves. "The seven fears are universal," Gregory observes.
Gregory believes that the world is not a scary place, but rather, an individual's own perspective determines their fear. In fact, it is rare for two different people to feel the exact same about any given situation. Gregory challenges people to be aware of the choices they make when they're deciding how to react. To dismantle the fear of the world, be proactive by making a conscious decision to react positively to a challenge rather than in a negative manner. "The world just is," advises Gregory, "You give it meaning."
To determine the unstoppability factor of your workplace, you must first identify the fears and where they are hiding. When fear is present, employees lose passion for the work they do and find excuses to do it as little as possible or put it off. "Go out into the workplace and find out what prevents people from doing their work," Gregory says. "Why are they standing around vending machines having conversations? What are those conversations about? Its all fear based." When your employees are feeling fear instead of a passion to accomplish their work, your business is crippled and it will show with little red flags of time-wasting excuses.
Once you have identified the fears of your company, you must dismantle them. At first the process is difficult, as open discussion and admission of individual fears is necessary. However, by taking the initiative and laying the fears out to be discussed, you transform an uncomfortable necessity into a proactive game. "The only thing that holds fear in place is our unwillingness to look at it," Gregory shares, "As soon as you place your fear out on the table, it begins to dissolve and lose it's power."
Gregory, who once held a lucrative position in a Fortune 500 company, left to explore the human condition by sailing to Mexico. Through her own introspection and spirituality, while sailing the Sea of Cortez, she realized what she learned about human fears realized had held her back. Knowing how costly fear can be in a work environment, Gayle now enjoys motivating and energizing the business world by purging their workplace fears, which she sees keeping all companies from reaching their fullest potentials.
To gain a competitive edge, your business needs to be bold and innovative. Fear prevents your company and it's employees from using their energy to be courageous and innovative. In an enterprise where fear is present, internal conflict also often diminishes a workplace or department's ability to function smoothly as a team.
Obviously a business that is fighting itself cannot also effectively fight its competition as well. "We're so busy competing with each other that we forget to compete with competitors in the marketplace," warns Gregory. Fears such as thinking that there is not enough resources, time, favor, and other commodities for all tend to breed individualistic attitudes rather than team spirit. To stop this, encourage an attitude of cooperation among your employees and share rewards among many rather than granting one first prize. Employees that are afraid to share their ideas or work together cripple the overall productivity of the workplace with their fears.
Ultimately, the unstoppability of your business lies with your decision to expose fears rather than let them hide. A fear kept in the dark, no matter how small, costs your company performance ability. The emotional environment of a workplace expands exponentially the vision of what you and your enterprise can do. Even if your business achieves its goals for the future, you are settling for far less than your full potential when you do not dismantle the fears within the organization and individuals. "When you take the fear away, the automatic outcome is you energize your performance," says Gregory.
?Dr. Proactive? Randy Gilbert enjoys producing "Inside Business Success," hosted by Jan Schleicher. Get Gayle Gregory's interview (free) by visiting: (
http://www.insidesuccessradio.com/Guests/Gayle-Gregory) Gayle Gregory Learn from Gayle (
http://www.pure-possibility.org/) Build Team Morale and Stop Business Fear
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