Where Has Your Best Thinking Got You?

Leaders have many challenges when it comes to stimulating genuinely high performance in their business. One area that is often missed is that of thinking – their own and that of others.

30th June 2009 published by Michael Nicholas

 

Have you ever realised that it has been your VERY BEST thinking that has got you to exactly where you are today? The more I think about this idea the more powerful it becomes. It makes it so clear that if we want to improve our results then we must improve our thinking. And this is vital to understand in the context of leadership development because…

 

No matter how well you are doing, if you want to get to the next level you will need to change your thinking.

 

The problem is that improving thinking is not easy. For every one of us, the majority of our thoughts are habitual. If they weren’t our conscious mind would rapidly become overloaded and we would be unable to function properly. In fact, our whole neurology is set up to allow us to function most efficiently once what we are doing is established as a habit.

 

How big is this problem?

 

It has been estimated that as many as 95% of our thoughts each day will mirror those of the previous day. That can create a real challenge for anyone, but it is especially true for leaders. Let me explain why…

 

There is an old saying which opens up with, “If you always do what you’ve always done…”

 

When I use this opening when presenting the majority of the audience will immediately reply with, “…you’ll always get what you always got.” You may well have done the same thing. This expression is readily accepted and often repeated. Unfortunately, it is also completely wrong.

 

The big issue with this kind of thinking is that it lures people into a false sense of security, allowing them to believe that they can hang onto the good things in their life without effort. It ignores the fact that the world is constantly changing. And in that environment, doing more of the same will sooner or later make anyone or any company irrelevant.

 

We have all been programmed with many of these false beliefs while we were young. It is nobody’s fault - our parents, teachers, the media, etc. were simply giving us the best that they knew. Nevertheless, they are extremely important because at a subconscious level, whether we are aware of it or not, they influence our decisions and thereby our results.

 

So far it might at least seem that another expression, “Garbage in, Garbage Out,” has least has some merit. Unfortunately this is not true either. The situation is actually worse than that, for a couple of reasons. I’ll cover one of them here: once our subconscious mind is full of garbage it rarely, if ever, comes out. It is there to stay.

 

And therein lies the problem. I’m sure you have experienced how difficult it can be to change a habit. Even where people have habits which are literally killing them it is not uncommon for them give up their attempts to change. There is a lot of comfort to be gained in what is familiar to us.

 

So back to why this is such a major challenge for leaders…

 

It stands to reason that if your company or team isn’t changing the way it does things at least as quickly as the market is changing, then it must actually be going backwards. So leaders in business must inspire and enable change within their organisation if they are to be successful.

 

Such change requires not only that leaders be successful in developing themselves. They must also be able to help others to overcome their own embedded thought patterns, enabling them to add more value.

 

This is at the heart of true leadership - helping others to bring out more of their true potential. If you can become good at it you are assured of great results. So if you are seeking leadership training or executive coaching, make sure that it includes the development of skills that will help you to shift both your own thinking and that of others. That is the only way to create long term performance improvements in your team.