What is stopping you!
The capacity of adapt to changes and to make changes comes sometimes not quite natural to all the people and to all companies.
And that is because change sometimes doesn’t mean that you are going to be in a more comfortable position that you are now. But is no doubt that for you, your personal life, your company, your little freelancing business see the rainbow in needs for sure to see the rain.
I know how hard this is. I been there, done that…
So, I present to you here some of the things that maybe are blocking you and that blocked me also.
1. Hierarchy terror
In companies this affects directly the individual initiatives and puts a “What for?” stamp in every
action you think to commit. Although this mistake is a lot of times made buy the HR from many big companies (apparently they don’t have an urge to chance). But when I talk with profession colleagues I ear always the same complains but I also listen to really good solutions (if you are an engineer more than complain you need to solve). But this also happens in other professions.
The interesting is that they tell it to me not to someone that can change it… And why? And the answer is quite similar to the “What for?” that I refer above.
I don’t know how to solve this… I’m still trying to find it out (if you know please comment).
This transfered to our personal life can be compared with does people that we love and we like but are always putting us down in some way.
I’m not talking about your father trying to convince you to don’t drop school to become a wrestling fighter… Because, if you have a dream you better have also a strategy. And my friend, strategy is a player’s plan of action.
But if you have people that are always putting you down in your close circle, maybe you need to create a distance between you and these people.
Once I listen to one preach from Joel Osteen where he said something like, you can love them but from far away. In this way you keep most poison out of your life and I think is also a good way to keep family relations balanced.
But… be fair about it.
I knew a woman that said that she left her country because of her parents. Her parents are high middle class (in South America is not bad at all) and her father was very strict and she could not deal with that and everything that had the stamp of traditional on.
I think that is awesome… but every time she was in need of money she would ask them. So she would use the desire of her parents to please her for her to come back to manipulate them to sending her money.
2. Fear of action
The HR should be really good to filter people that are afraid to trust their own actions. I did so many tests that promised to create my true profile us a worker and human being that I can’t count them with the fingers of my own hands. I think the minimum was 3 tests for one interview, so they must be pretty good at it.;)
If you want to make a change in your small business or in your family good luck trying to convince the people that are making a part of it. And is normal, we have afraid to change but we have a bigger afraid to fail. So this takes a lot of managing skills to try to change things or a “change or leave” attitude.
If you are reading this at your job (in your lunch break, of course), look around and think about who is being the drag. I’m sure that you will find it. Are you sure you are not a drag also?
I’m not fearless. I’m really scared of failing. But, this is life and adulthood and we need to jump to make things happen.
3. Defensive thinking
The “but yes”, “but no” attitude.
Facing tasks that weren’t yours in the past and you really don’t want to do is hard. Well but you don’t change and things don’t change if the things you don’t do change. So STOP! This defensive thinking, fossilized models and contentment with the actual status just feed the bias in favor of the status quo of things.
4. The force of habit
The inertia to change is often related with the habits that we create.
In companies and in private life we can have good and also bad habits. To change is needed to know what we must to change and why. And of course, we needed to want to change.
For companies big and small changes are all in the hand of management and the creation of a motivated team.
5. Inflexibility
If your company and life are a success due to the already implemented system you have, well, who am I to say to change it. But…
If you lose your capacity of change you going to be frozen in time. You will end up being doing the same things every day, making business in the same way, with the same companies and with the same products. With this rigid structure at the time you get divorced, the time your supplier fails, the business crash… your life/business transforms in to a mess.
So flexibility also gives you the capacity of having a plan B.
6. Learn Learn and Learn
How was the last time you learn a new skill.
When was the last time you where called to learn something new?
7. Rewards
In companies the attribute of rewards for accomplishment of goals sounds most of the time like a good idea but also can lead to short-term thinking.
The worker is worried with the value of this month but is not worried how the actions to achieve the month goal will impact the company in the next month and in the years in advance.
This happens many times with the purchasing department. They can change a supplier because they will save a penny and in 1 year the company has a bunch of complains to deal with due to lack of quality of the material that was supplied.
Is like the the Goose that laid the golden eggs story, one of Aesop’s Fables, that tells a story of a Goose that laid every day a egg of gold. But his owner was not satisfied and decided to kill it because maybe the goose had all the gold inside. This is an example of short term thinking together with greed and no planning or use of game theory.
8. We like classics
Before trying something new we have to google it. Make sure that will work at the level we want in the way we want.
Can be said we are not the “adventurous” type in our life and in the companies.
Management will always use models already tested, techniques referred already in many books… I don’t blame them. Probably I will do to. But these don’t lead to creativity and to new knowledge.
9. Lack of diversity
All the time the same people around you, all the same positions, all the time the same tasks.
Time to try to change it.
Rotation!
10. Purpose
As I refer above we have an idea we need to have a plan! But if you don’t have an idea where you want to go, what you want to become then becomes hard to define what you need to do to accomplished.
This is not easy at all… finding our dreams for us, for our business is for sure very hard. But this is the first task you need to do: “Find the purpose!”. And then you will see that it will become easier to line up a path.
Think about this like the image of the fit girl/man that you always look when you are going in a diet or starting to do exercise. Some motivation, some dreams and you will find yourself in your way to try to get it done!!
11. Team or not at team
Who are making the decisions here?
Is always you? His always him?
If is tradition that you and your friends to go in a week vacation every year and one of your friends is the super holiday planner and he plans it every year. He decides the place, he decides the hotel, he decides the touristic places and he decides sometimes even the restaurants you guys should try.
I know is very comfortable to do it like that but you know what is happening during this all years? Although you guys all agree to visit this places you never going to know what the real options out there were because you didn’t search for them… you will end the other person sail it away to you and you will buy it.
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