Are You Waiting…
for someone to lead and inspire you?
for the boss to recognize you?
for clients to thank you?
for coworkers to help you?
for prospects to find you?
for the world to hail you?
Well here’s a news flash…. They are all just sitting there waiting for you.
Someone recently asked me, what I felt was the biggest challenge for corporate leaders today? My answer was complacency. Websters dictionary defines complacency as contentment and self satisfaction. You might say, “Hey hold on there Deo! Isn’t that what we are striving for as business leaders? Shouldn’t it be our ultimate goal to be content and satisfied with our business, finances, family and life?”
I say, NO.
When we become content and satisfied, we no longer have any motivation to get better. We drop our guard. We become OK with achieving the minimum. Unfortunately in today’s competitive environment achieving the “minimum” in the short term may just not be good enough to “survive” in the long term. This can be very dangerous in the fast paced, high risk, volatile economy of the 21st century. You may be thinking, “that sounds a little scary, Mark.”
It is.
You satisfied with yourself? Hope not! Many people today are saying that fear is bad. I agree that too much fear can be debilitating, just as a complete lack of satisfaction can create disappointment and disillusionment. There are no absolutes. But if we completely eliminate fear from our lives, we lose some of our most base instincts.
Think about when you first started your business or your first day on the job. Weren’t you a bit apprehensive? Didn’t you have some fear? You probably found yourself asking questions like, what if this doesn’t work? What will I do if I fail? What if my coworkers or clients don’t like me? Can I really compete? Do I really have the skills necessary to succeed at this?
I think you would agree that this is the GOOD kind of fear. The fear that drives us to greater levels of performance. Fear that motivates us. It’s the kind of fear that makes us have more apprehension for things staying the way they are rather than bringing about change.
What does this have to do with business success, you might ask. A successful enterprise must significantly differentiate themselves from the competition. They need to look different, sound different and be different. They must be willing to always be a bit uncomfortable with the way things ARE if they want to change. They can not be content with waiting for change. They can not be satisfied with the most comfortable option.