I heard Dr. Cooper, Senior Pastor at Mount Paran Church in Atlanta, share a powerful insight to the Staff I was coaching at our our 1st quarterly review session recently. “Be careful evaluating yourself with yourself. You need an outside voice to give a more realistic view of reality.” Sometimes when “WE” get in the room to solve problems or deal with issues we forget that we may need to look outside the box. We may be too close to the situation and our filter may be bent too much through who we are and how we do things.
Sometimes the situation is exactly what we need but we can’t see the opportunity to learn, grow, and even change. Good things can also come in frustrations and difficulties. It won’t always be a piece of cake. 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey challenges us to seek first to understand, and then to be understood. Are we really looking for the best solution, the best decision or option or do we find ourselves falling back into “We don’t really do it that way!”
Ask yourself, Am I running from something or stepping to something? Are you buying into the facts or are you telling yourself, “It’s not that bad!” Deception, a lot of times it is our voice that is deceiving us, influencing you that thinks are ok. “We are doing things right.” “No need to change.” Be careful if deception becomes part of the culture. Let’s not begin the process of influencing others to agree with us, our solutions and our view of the situation but strive for clarity, input and creativity from the team. We should always pursue creativity, out of the box thinking, empowerment, accountability and not manipulation.
Let’s not make permanent decisions based on temporary situations. Make sure we watch, look, listen (to the spoken and the unspoken), ask questions and challenge possible solutions to help find the best outcome. The Good Book reminds us to not grow weary in well doing for in due season we will reap a good harvest, if we do not give up.
Let’s begin the process of finding the best answers possible. It is solvable! Don’t buy in to the negative news and the media influence that things are really bad so it is OK that you are struggling as well. Everyone is struggling. Let’s identify our challenges, assemble the team, identify the issue, discuss the causes and then move to solutions we can begin to try. You can still hit your goals and projections but it will take a lot more of hard, hard work, creativity, team work and looking at every NO as an opportunity for our next YES!!
You got this! Assemble the team, create the plan and go CRUSH IT!!!