I have been reflecting further about the “financial crisis,” and recalling a book I read in 1982 called Towers of Gold: Feet of Clay – the Canadian Banks, by Walter Stewart.
In a conversation about this with my colleagues I happened to say towers of glass, and perhaps 27 years later, Glass is more descriptive. In 1982, I was working in the oil and gas industry in Canada and this book was written about the Banking Industry, the mortgage crisis and the oil prices. These themes are again relevant in 2009.
Nearly everyone is feeling the financial crisis, not all at once, but rather in waves. These waves or fluctuations go in and out like the ocean. Each one brings more insight, more truth, more change, and with each contact, ever greater connections that impact our reality. The illusions and ideas that we took for granted are eroding.
With today’s workplaces becoming more and more about living than they are about money and finances alone, and with the pressure to infuse our companies, organizations, and professions with passion and aliveness, we must become more passionate, alive and balanced ourselves.
The challenge is how do we do this? And what will it take to unblock our passion and creativity? Ask yourself these questions:
What do I have to do to become more alive, alert, energetic and enthusiastic?
How do I inspire my team to change? How do I handle the stress caused by the fast pace of change? How do I inspire my team to take personal responsibility for their results and their failures? How do I cope with failure? How do I create a work environment that is conducive to productivity? How do I bring more of the personal assets of my people into the workplace?
Passion, aliveness, enthusiasm, and responsibility are all infused with energy and the source of this energy is LIFEFORCE.
Check out this chart! What I find interesting is that the one-week view of the Dow Jones Industrial Average looks very similar to the six-month view. The chart shows a slow decline, then a cliff, then a slow decline again. The down trend looks at first glance to be very similar.
Some conclusions:
- All data must be read within a larger context.
- Patterns are clearly repeating.
- The trend appears to be downwards.
- Have we hit bottom yet? Tell me when you figure that one out!
Check out the below video about the credit crisis, what caused it, how it is escalating and what the connection is between house owners, brokers, bankers and Wall Street.
Even if you understand the dynamics of the crisis, this video can help you to explain it clearly to others.
With the pace of change accelerating at ever increasing rates, the world is becoming more and more stressful. How we cope with change and the resultant stress has a huge impact on our quality of life and our work performance.
Executive burnout is a direct result of an inability to cope and is a major cause of lost productivity, as is employee absenteeism and medical leave. Many high-performance people focus on one or two primary areas of life and neglect the other areas. This leads to imbalance, stress and unhappiness. Eventually, stress in one primary area of life will impact our performance in all areas.
Think about it… how can you be wired up in one area and not have this “creep” into other areas?
What would happen if our lives were optimized in all areas and fully integrated? What would happen to our quality of life and our performance?
It is time for some Corporate Reinvention!
The most common reason why most corporations only achieve a fraction of the possible potential available to them is the lack of a worthwhile, meaningful, inspiring and compelling vision that magnetizes and motivates the entire organization. Many of the vision statements hanging in the boardrooms are old, out of date, not well communicated and uninspiring.
This is especially true in times of economic recession.
Corporate Reinvention is about refocusing, reorganizing, reframing and redirecting your organization. And the most important component of any organization is the VISION. Next is aligning the people, marketing, systems, policies and procedures behind the vision.
How do you do that if your organization is in a crisis that is threatening its survival? Do you really have a choice?
Reasons to consider engaging in a Corporate Reinvention process:
- You are not achieving your goals
- The industry has changed, margins are down, competition is fierce
- Economic crisis, sales are down, financing is scarce
- Acquisition/merger with another organization requiring complete restructuring
- Dramatic changes in your product or service due to technological developments
- International expansion
- Downsizing of the organization
- Reorganization, sale or IPO
- New CEO, board or senior management
An inspiring vision should infuse passion, engage the hearts, minds, bodies and souls of the people working within your organization, your clients, your suppliers and your shareholders. Every person should know what the vision is and how their daily activities contribute to the vision.
Dealing with unwanted feelings can be a very tricky thing. It can often lead to upsets and a lot of unhappiness in relationships between people.
The purpose of this article is to provide some understanding of feelings, their purpose in our lives, and to provide a guideline for expressing one’s feelings in an appropriate manner.