November 1, 2009 by Denise Corcoran
Do you know the single most important asset in your company? It’s not money. It’s not equipment. It’s not even your customers or employees per se, although all these assets are important.
The single most important asset — individually as a leader and collectively as a company — is your mind.
Your mindset — ie., your thoughts, your beliefs, your perceptions, etc. — drives all your behaviors, regardless of whether you are conscious of that fact or not. You can either have your mind work for you in creating extraordinary results and success … or against you with the exact opposite effect.
The president of one of my favorite client companies recently told me how his leadership team turned around a most challenging first couple of months of 2009 into one of the most profitable years ever by using the power of their minds.
I was thrilled to hear that he took my advice, when coaching him in 2008, to shift his focus from one of concern about the economy to one of opportunistic thinking. That the global economy did not have to dictate his company’s economy, unless he and his thinking allowed that to be so.
How did he turn around his manufacturing company’s major revenue drop at the beginning of 2009 to one of their most profitable years ever, even in one of the hardest hit industries in this downturn?
At every executive meeting and every quarterly employee meeting, the company’s new mantra became “what recession?!”
That’s all it took to start changing their thinking … and ultimately their focus and actions. As a result, this president realized that the company had more control over their results than they ever imagined 12 months ago.
The team became stronger and more tenacious than ever. They aggressively went after business and got it, even when many of their competitors were going under.
Even Einstein spoke this simple yet powerful universal truth. That “the mind that created the problem is not the mind that can solve it.”
What are you and your organization doing to deliberately change your thinking … and therefore your results … in this challenging economic climate? Is your focus on the problem or the solution? Are you ready — as a business leader — to drive your company’s own thriving economy, no matter what the global economy is?
For more tips and principles about growing during recessionary times, check out:
Fearless Business Growth … Even in a Recession
Recession Power: How Great Companies Rise to the Top, Even in Down Times
