Your business’s growth may have stalled or just may not be growing as fast as you might like. It’s natural to ask why? As the business’s leader you want to know what’s getting in the way. What’s limiting (or even blocking) your business’s growth? Sometimes it’s obvious. Sometimes not. One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that one limiting factor is almost always at play – a lack of vision. It’s time to ask yourself is your mindset is holding your company back.
So often I see companies with a limited vision about what’s possible. They are primarily held down by the past – how things have been done, the results obtained before, etc.
It turns out the culprit, the barrier, wasn’t the entire human body, only the brain. When people’s mindset changed, so did their goals. Is your business mired in that same mindset. We’ve never made X amount of money before, so how would we ever do it? We’ve never sold that new product before, so why would anyone buy it from us now? We’ve never entered a new market in under X days/weeks/months so how could we now? It can ALL be done with the right mindset.
It begins with a vision. Not a boring plan or a textbook-derived strategy… a vision. What canbe done. And honestly some of the best visions are the boldest. These visions suggest doing things that others commonly believe can’t be done.
A few years back I was advising the CEO of a nonprofit about a variety of issues. One thing I suggested to her time and time again was the need for a broad vision for her organization. Her typical response was that she didn’t have enough money…or enough staff…or whatever. So what was the point of “dreaming”? Sigh. I firmly believe she had it backwards.
You usually don’t get the money and the resources and then dream up a vision to invest them in. No one hands you a million dollars and says “Go figure out something grand to do with it.”. Nope. This is the real world. You need to have a future vision, understand those things that are in the way of achieving your vision and knocking them down. But those barriers typically don’t come down unless you first have a clear vision for what you want to achieve. You build a long-term vision and bring others into that vision. Then you kick down the barriers that are in your way. Develop a strategy for making the vision a reality. Find a way to get the money. Bring on resources in a creative, effective, and efficient way.
So, today I encourage you to step back and look at your vision for your business’s future. Do you even have one? It’s so easy to be caught up in the day-to-day that we just forget. Or sometimes we feel that without unlimited resources we can’t achieve a old long-term vision. Wrong. Build a vision. Get others on board. Kick in some doors. See what you and your team can achieve together!