Why is fear paralysing your business?
Over the past few weeks, I have come across more and more examples of how fear becomes the Ultimate culture killer!
I’m a big football fan, which has changed so much over the past 10 years with foreign investors taking over clubs and turning them into business enterprises. Football has become very much about the results both on and off the field leading to regular media reports of how teams and managers fear of getting the boot.
This week it was quoted in the Metro newspaper, the Chelsea team fears that their manager Antonio Conte is going to be sacked before the end of the season due to the mixed results from the start of the season. I don’t wish anyone to be sacked however I am fascinated of where this fear has come from? What the actual cause of this fear is? And the impact of fear on teams performance.
In football, a culture of blame is created if results aren’t going your way and normally fingers are pointing straight at the manager in charge. Sports teams are always under pressure to perform at their best and investors can be ruthless if a team is underperforming. If you’re a football player and you open the newspaper to a story, that is or is not true, what does that do to the mindset of the players, what happens to the team chemistry and how does it change the behaviors of players
Does fear exist in your organisation?
Most organisations have some kind of fear that holds back the full potential of the organisation. Fear is disruptive that can slow organisations down (analysis by paralysis), causes hesitation, unnecessary stress and anxiety and holds back employees from helping their organisations grow.
We recently took on a new client that needed our help. The CEO had this massive fear of failure engrained into his DNA. When we interviewed some of the staff and clients they were becoming uncomfortable that the leader of the organisation had this perception that he thought this fear of failure would actually become a reality. He wanted to grow and scale the business but he was holding the organisation back because of his fear. Before I planned out a growth strategy for his business, I knew I had to deal with these fears and find out where those fears came from. His fears came from a mixture of life experiences that he has now bought into his business.
We worked together by creating some new habits and routines that he could start straight away. By the end of the session he was excited about the future of his organisation and felt empowered to move forwards.
I know how you feel…
As an entrepreneur you have had times when your little voices and sub-conscious mind starts to talk negatively, It tells you, you are not smart enough, your not good enough, your not talented enough and your not worthy. You become frustrated and your vision becomes faded, you find it hard to breathe and become stressed and anxious.
As a former elite athlete, one of the things I learnt from a very young age is how to condition the mind, what does that exactly mean? The things we think, say or do turns into a habit. Athletes tirelessly train repeatedly to improve their performance and achieve success.
Is it easy to reprogram the mind, no of course not? Will it happen quickly? No, it requires you to repeatedly embed new scripts, mantras and healthy habits into your life like I have been doing for most of mine.
There are 5 affects of fear that Olympic athletes are faced with that can also ruin your business.
- It forces you to play safe
- It distorts your purpose
- It limits you to scale your business and grow as a person
- It creates an unhealthy force that impacts all areas of your life
You become ashamed asking for help
We will look at these in detail in part 2 of this blog.
In the meantime if you would like to know more about the Fears in your organisation contact me on hello@s969451691.websitehome.co.uk