The only reason any company can be great is if the leadership of the organsiation cultivates a belief system about the people that work their and that focuses on the inherent potential of every individual.
The moment the leadership starts to focus on the shortcomings of its people the leadership themselves become the biggest problem. The irony is that you will find that most leaders use beautiful rhetoric that goes something like “we really believe in our people” or “our people is our greatest asset”.
I started out by stating that a positive belief system is what is required. I did not state that lightly. It is one thing to have a personal belief system which links your own set of beliefs with behaviour. When you do something in line with what you believe is good for you, or that is worthy of rewarding yourself, you affirm your own belief system. You become stronger and more resilient and you are in effect raising your self-confidence.
You also have almost total freedom to decide on how you will interpret your beliefs into a systematic approach to living and generate the results you require. Whether you do this well or not is a topic for another insight. What does however happen when you decide on your own path is that the power of agency kicks in and this is potentially the greatest motivator on earth. I.e. we are motivated when we can choose for ourselves.
It is like a waterfall that feeds a river below – it is a sudden surge of beauty and power in the flow of life!
The opposite however happens at work where the stated beliefs are different to the actually implemented system. E.g if the company says it is a high trust organisation but there are endless checks before a few thousand Rands/Dollars/Yen… can be paid out – how much trust is there really? What happens in fact is that the so-called high trust environment communicates distrust to employees and this, in short, is soul destroying!
When the power of agency, and the integrity of the flow in the system, is blocked, the waterfall becomes a trickle and the life in the organisation dies.
How are you implementing your belief system in your company or organisation? How are you empowering individual and group agency so that the water flows!? Do you trust?
Go from survive to alive!