With the onset of the New Year, we often think about how we can meet our goals. One of the best things you can do for yourself and your employees is to install a wealth consciousness in your culture.
After years of a difficult economy and lean-sizing their companies, many business executives are left with a poverty-based mindset that often wonders: where will I get the money or resources I need to do what I want? This continual focus on lack keeps us stuck in a poverty-mindset that only leads to limited thinking and poor decision-making.
Instead of worrying and wondering about how you are going to get where you want to go, delete the poverty programming and install a new way of holding possibilities this new year. Your thoughts are a program hidden in the hard-drive of your sub-conscious mind and as a result: what you think about you bring about.
Begin by creating a vision board
Every year I suggest my clients begin with creating a vision board for their life. I ask them to tear pictures out of a magazine and paste on one half of the board what it would look like if they were contributing to their work in a passionate and purposeful way. On the second half of the board they paste pictures of what it would look like if they had a joyous and prosperous personal life.
Then I ask employees to share their vision board with their managers to discuss, “how might I add value to the company and create a win-win?”
This type of employee engagement creates a mindset of wealth and empowerment instead of the poverty-thinking that occurs when managers tell their employees what they must do to meet the goals. The automatic unconscious response to being told what to do is often one of a poverty-mindset that sounds like: “I already do not have enough time to get done what I need to do!”
Be the change you want to see in others
“The Speed of the Leader is the Speed of the Gang” is a saying I use in my leadership training to remind leaders that they are constantly being watched. It’s not what you tell your employees to do that matters, it’s how you show them what to do that counts. If you want to change your culture to one of a wealth mindset, you must begin by changing your mind first.
The first thing you can do is change how you respond to requests from your employees. Often employees will go to their boss and tell them they need something in order to accomplish what they were told to do. First, recognize that this is a request that comes from poverty-thinking. In essence they are saying, “I am lacking the resources I need to get me to where you want me to go!”
To shift their poverty mindset I suggest the following employee engagement steps:
- First act as if you had enough resources and time: I challenge them by asking, “If that was all the time and resources you had, what would you do? Focus on accomplishing what you need to accomplish by asking, ‘How might I get this done within the means given to me? Only after you have shown me all of the possibilities you have thought about, will we discuss the need for more.'” Notice this response is different than saying, “We don’t have it in our budget…or this is all we can give you.”
- If you need more, build a case of R.O.I.: If they have exhausted all the possibilities within the means given to them, then ask them to present a return on investment case that shows how the additional resources and time will yield greater results. This encourages a wealth mindset and helps them to have a stake in ownership.
- Focus on the positive changes happening: Leaders who have a wealth mindset understand that praising small steps of success raises the dopamine levels in the brain and causes a wealth mindset in others. Focusing on progress creates more progress, as the positive reinforcement acts as fuel for further success.
- Stop trying to beat the clock: While I am a firm believer in setting time frames for goals and activities, one of the sure signs you are working from a poverty mindset is seen when someone is racing to beat the clock. When we are tied too tightly to the clock, we lose touch with our gut feeling, which is the core of our wealth consciousness. Allow your gut to guide you and you will be able to hear the possibilities right in front of you!
Challenge: This New Year, how might you create more wealth consciousness in your life?
Susan K. Wehrley has been a coach and consultant for 24 years as president of Susan K. Wehrley & Associates Inc. (www.solutionsbysusan.com). She is the author of five empowerment books and founder of BIZremedies (www.BIZremedies.com) a strategic growth community to help others grow. She can be reached at susan@solutionsbysusan.com or (414) 581-0449.
