Your employees don’t work for the business you do!

3rd March 2017 :: Guest Blog :: Author: Martin Croft

Guest Author: Martin Croft.

When it comes to change in any business, leaders often make the assumption that there is clarity in everyone with their understanding of the business, how it operates and more importantly what you are all working toward and why.

This simple misunderstanding in all leaders, middle managers and even employees is what leads to errors and mistakes, stress and anxiety, projects failing and eventually the loss of business and perhaps even talent.
 

Early Involvement in any IT Project is Crucial

With change in every business, especially when IT is part of the mix, we always misunderstand the impact on those affected and the fact that the users are often best placed to rationalise the best approach to the use of new IT. Business Analysts and Project Managers know this and their involvement in the early stages of any IT project or tailored business system is vital as is the role of a change manager or coach. 

Leaders with the Need for Change

In the past, when I have been engaged in business change of any type, I talk to the leaders who have the means authority and need for the change and I ask them this…. “Do you know that your employees don’t work for the same business you do?” And of course, I often get a bit of a startled reaction. The interesting thing is when I begin to explain where our reality comes from, the understanding grows a little and my clients begin to see something different.

In recognising that our feelings come from our personal thought in the moment, this in turn creates our reality, it’s a thought-feeling relationship, not a circumstance-feeling relationship.

Is Thought just an Illusionary Force?

We never share our thoughts, we may share the result of those thoughts through the feelings they motivate but thoughts are ours to experience internally as our consciousness plays and tosses about as they arrive moment to moment. So our experience in the moment is created by the illusionary force of thought, it is totally individual and completely separate and different to every other human on the planet. 8 billion people sharing the same existence but with a completely different reality, and it’s all generated internally.

So in this sense we see everything differently to one another - our work and the way we see the Ten O'clock News - even those of you who are reading this are experiencing something totally different.

"Out-of-Character" Employee and Boss Behaviours can Cause Issues

Most of my conversations with people who find themselves in challenging situations at work don’t see this, and it is always the case that some of their colleagues' behaviour sometimes surprises them with “out of character” actions and new unexpected motivations.

With the often normal and untrue understanding, where we all experience the same reality in a situation, this would indeed seem odd or indeed challenging. A boss then might react against this misunderstanding and start to fight it - this is when the toxic boss appears. All of a sudden, we get an unhappy workforce or even worse, previously happy working relationships become destructive because there is a simple misunderstanding of how the mind works. This is truly tragic!

Also, when faced with this new understanding, a leader often appears panicked as the now seemingly need to deal with change in their organisation now looks to be much more complex with a multitude of realities to deal with. Thankfully it’s simpler than this as all that is needed is to help people understand how their reality is generated. With this new understanding, the workforce takes any change with ease and will continue to do so with the realisation that any fear or challenge they have originates itself from them as an illusion.

Recognising - "Your employees don’t work for the business you do!" – which is brought about by our individual reality, we see our colleagues in a different light. We can understand actions by others are coming from their thinking in the moment and not from the situation. When we fundamentally know the principles behind how the mind works, relationships become simpler instead of harder and the more people look this way the more connection appears in the workplace, the easier work is and the challenges of any change situation become manageable with insight and wisdom. 

My Dream for Business

I have a dream that every business on the planet can be free of fear and mistrust. It is within everyone’s grasp and with a deeper understanding, people fear less, do more to help themselves and those around them and they thrive.
I listen, point to a deeper truth which they were unable to see - then they see something different and everything changes.

I can help people realise for themselves they can change their reality for the better in any situation - no matter what!

It’s only a simple conversation away.  www.thethoughtbusiness.com