Shelter Chieza : Change Management

Measuring success is very relative, it depends on one’s expectations and how much they are willing to explore them. I have read a lot on different descriptions of success. Some people use catchy phrases. The most interesting one I read about is that it is finding something that you love to do, pursue it and find someone to pay for it.

Legendary basketball coach John Wooden once said that “Success is a peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming”.

For you to feel a level of success you must be happy doing what you are doing. You may miss the mark your pursuit is to become rich.

Of course a lot of things come into play. For instance, if you have been struggling to put a roof over your head and food on the table, your pursuit can be different, happiness is not an issue for such a person.

Throughout the years, I have had moments of examining the beliefs that are responsible for my actions.

I was even shocked to learn how many had been passed willingly or unwillingly to me by my family, my teachers and the community that I live in.

We often behave according to those beliefs, these are purely make or break for some of us.

In work places, you generally find two types of people that differ in the way they view intelligence, how to solve problems at the workplace, how to increase sales, how to manage sales.

Throughout the years, I have learnt that the key to success is simply not a result of a mind that can focus or that can be resilient, it’s the growth in the mind-set that you have, the aptitude to success.

Having the right qualification does not necessarily guarantee success. I am astounded by people that have achieved a lot academically but are the least successful individuals in their departments.

In fact, most successful people around the world today were not necessarily geniuses but average students and school drop outs even.

What they succeeded in doing though was building their abilities. Individuals like Charles Darwin, Mozart, Albert Einstein were never exceptional in school work yet they became some of the successful pioneers in their lifetime.

What worked in the favour of most of these successful people was their drive to succeed and having a growth mind-set that pushed them to achieve things beyond their imagination.

On the other hand the drive to be successful can be nurtured. The aptitude to succeed will tell you that losing is not failure, it is actually a learning process.

Most of the people that quickly lose interest in a job or withdraw and set the team back belong to the group of people with a fixed mind-set.

Those with egotistic attitude also belong to this group that is constantly looking for accolades and recognition.

Within companies, managers struggle to deal with people that lack motivation, yet after careful analysis, psychologists contend that lack of motivation is reached in stages.

As a manager, be sensitive about the comments you pass on subordinates in your department.

For instance, the following comments presented to different people have different effects. “Wow that a good piece of work, you must be good at this” as compared to “Wow this is a good piece of work, you must have put a lot of effort into it”, will get you different reactions. The first one reflects a fixed mind-set because it portrays intelligence or abilities as a fixed quality.

When you hear yourself say you can’t do something, it’s time to teach your mind to believe in yourself.

Recently I was invited to speak on a controversial subject, “If you want to achieve your goals do not focus on them”.

This topic purely goes against most things we have said to managers. A lot of times as managers, we focus on achieving the highest scores and grades that our predecessors have achieved but that ends up making you too myopic and can even frustrate you.

A lot of instances, the goals that we set are outside our control, for instance to convince the top 5 companies listed on the ZSE to purchase IT products from us.

It’s a very ambitious goal to have but the only drawback is that we are not in total control of the outcome.

I would suggest that you focus on your behaviour instead of your goals. Goals require participation of other people whereas you can moderate the behaviours in your life.

Food for thought as you strive towards reshaping your mind. Till next week, may God richly bless you!

 

Shelter Chieza is a Management Consultant. She holds over a decade of Management Experience .She can be contacted at [email protected]

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