Are you growing or dying?

Are you growing you are dying?

Tim Connor

What is growing?  There are two ways to consider this – your personal growth and your business growth.  Let’s discuss each briefly and yes there is a lot more I could say about both.

But first what is dying and I’m not referring to physical death.  Don’t assume that dying is a bad thing as it can create a new beginning, one that is timely, necessary or positive or it can be a fading away or losing something you value or cherish.

Dying could be described in a variety of ways so I’ll keep it short and simple with my philosophy – dying is letting go of what was and moving on to what is new so I see it as a potential positive.  You might think this statement is contrary to the title but think about it for a minute.  Dying can be a prelude to growing or choosing to wallow in that you had or have lost.  I’m not referring here to losing a loved one or something very personal like health.  My focus here is on having a mindset of continuous groth or using dying as a step before growth.  The key secret is if you continue to grow dying or letting go is a natural part of the life process.

Personal growth –

There are only two ways to go through life when it comes to personal growth – grow a little be every day or don’t.  I know this might sound like a simplified approach but think about it – every day you learn something – from a book, another person, a formal learning experience or through self-evaluation but every day your awareness of the need to keep growing in as many life areas as possible is foremost on your mind or it isn’t.  If it isn’t I’ll wager that as the months and years pass you continually face the same challenges or problems over and over again.  I am guilty and I’ll be the first to admit it.  I read every day.  I think every day.  I learn every day but if the learning is not in the necessary life areas well, I’ll tell you – life repeats.

Personal growth requires a variety of behaviors or actions things like;

-letting go of something that is sabotaging you in some way

-surrendering to something that is holding you back

-practicing something you want to do better

-changing something to improve

-trusting God and life

-challenging your perceptions

-questioning your opinions, values, prejudices, mindsets, judgments

If you will develop the daily habit of doing just half of these you will be amazed at the results you can achieve within 30-60 days.  A new you awaits every day of your life - the question is do you let the new and better you surface or do you keep him or her suppressed behind a shield of fear, low self-esteem, arrogance or some other negative habit or mental process?

Business growth –

Whether your business is growing or stagnant depends on many factors.  I can’t dig into each of them in this short article but I would like to discuss what I believe are the most frequent issues that are involved when an organization or business is not consistently growing.  The following are in no order of importance. I hope they prove to be food for thought.

Relevance –

Relevance – being connected: having some sensible or logical connection with something else such as a matter being discussed or investigated.  Having social significance: having some bearing on or importance for real-world issues, present-day events, or the current state of society or business.

Relavance – is the ability to bring real world experience, reality and perceptions into decisions, actions, activities and behavior that maintain a connection between your business’s products and services and buyer needs, wants and trends and the direction of market, technology and social influences.

There are many aspects to consider when it comes to this issue of relevance.  A few of them are; ego control, evaluating the past with integrity and reality, paying attention to trends, letting go of old emotional baggage or emotional attachments, the ability to throw away the box (not just thinking outside the box), bringing creative solutions to problems or challenges and the ability to focus on the positives and not the negatives.

Corporate self-image –

Organizations are made up of individuals with various self-images and therefore create what I refer to as an ‘organizational or corporate self-image’.  Organizations also create a destiny which is often consistent with how the combined group of employees in a department, division, group or even the entire employee base see themselves as an entity (their personal self-image). 

For example, if a group of employees in a customer service department see themselves as unimportant and unappreciated the department in general will tend to treat customers in much the same way.  Yes, there may be select individuals who treat customers with respect and concern, but by an large the department as a whole, because of it’s department’s low self-image, will treat most customers poorly.

If the management team in an organization, for whatever reason(s), is not in sync with its direction, goals, decisions, philosophy, communication etc. it will create confusion, a lack of harmony, very little employee empowerment and poor performance among its employees.

Corporate self-image is a major factor in determining organization success and relevance.

"Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth." 

John Kennedy