The difference that makes the difference!

As a follow-up to my last Post on Learning from Dogs “Managing in a mad world“, I got to thinking about the so called “Law of Attraction“.

I say that because I beginning to believe that this ‘Law’ is more about what we think about and focus our attention on than anything that has a tangible force of attraction.  But it is well known that the brain (to protect our sanity!) filters out on a huge scale so this ‘attraction’ may be our minds remaining receptive or, as it were, allowing us to ‘resonate’ with others sharing our ideas and emotions.

Again, I notice this common ground between my psychotherapy clients and my business clients. Successful people tend to focus on the positive and usually have a strong belief in themselves and their abilities, and unsuccessful people who have suffered any sort of difficulty for an extended time, tend to be preoccupied with focussing on the negative and tend to have a negative self-view.

Naturally, we become orientated around our belief systems. This, I believe is where good, consistent parenting comes in because many of our beliefs are taken on from our parents. Even if the parenting style has been ‘tough’ as long as there’s consistency, balance is maintained and there is a solid reference point for the youngster to come away from.

Management styles resemble parenting styles, and why shouldn’t they, as the higher qualities of facilitating structured learning in a safe environment is exactly what good management is all about. Delegating is about empowering and confidence building. Parenting styles that are loose or have little or no structure or that are overbearing and dictatorial tend to be damaging.

Of course, there are no hard and fast rules here, just tendencies but it’s interesting how these are played out everywhere, in every situation where we are in relationship with others. Even more interesting in a recession where companies are really struggling!

How fascinating to clock the number of companies struggling badly who have an autocratic management style, where staff are told what to do and there is little empowerment, and then compare them to ones where the opposite is true and people are free to interact, communicate, feel they’re reasonably empowered and work together in an environment of mutual trust.

The correlation in this part of the South West UK where I mainly work is significant. It’s as if  when we feel empowered and we’re working together with a group of like-minded people, all problems and challenges are solvable, because our self-belief is high and we visualise success. Also, adversity is seen as a challenge and one that can be mastered.

We certainly are living in interesting times!

By Jon Lavin