DOES YOUR BUSINESS BREATH OR WHEEZE?
If I ask the question: which is better for business ‘collaborate and liberate’ or ‘direct and control’ business owners will always say well of course it’s the former. Yet in the business management practices of the majority of those businesses it is the latter that prevails: budget driven and target orientated. It is telling that board members are called directors and there is safety in being in control. It is a psychological truth that anxiety and fear bring a need to control. If the business has a top down target orientated culture it will have created an environment of fear. The creative lifeblood of the business will be starved of the oxygen of collaboration. Out of collaboration comes trust and out of trust comes liberation. A liberation of the full potential of each employee: Chairman, CEO, Directors (let’s start calling them ‘liberators’), managers, administrators, production line, and so on.
CREATING A LIBERATED BUSINESS
‘There are two ways of being creative: one can sing and dance. Or one can create and environment within which singers and dancers flourish’ (Warren Bennis, Organisational consultant and Leadership scholar).
Attempting to sing and dance is an inward looking self-orientated way of being. It can be very discouraging. If you are not very good it will act as a disincentive to continue singing and dancing.
On the other hand whether or not you are good at singing and dancing if you are surrounded by a culture within which singing and dancing is valued, supported, encouraged, praised and there is discussion about which genre may be of interest to you, which group of like minded singers and dancers you are in and what mutually agreed singing and dancing objective you decide to achieve just imagine what might happen if these principles were applied to your business.
POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY APPLIED TO BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
We have social brains. Social brains are relational brains. When we are placed in an environment of valuing and encouraging we feel supported and trusted. When this is unconditional we will liberate our full potential without fear. Whether at work or in work we will always be at our best ‘when we are able to be the person we were truly born to be’ (Rogers C,’ On becoming a person’ 1962 after Kirkegard S)’.
Out of supportive environments within which which the full potential of the individual can flourish come flourishing businesses and fulfilled individuals.
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