With 2018 approaching, many organizations have started looking into refreshing their business, be it in terms of updating their facilities, taking up more projects or diving into the digital world. However the true significant factor in contributing to the growth of the company is not on its structure, but on the Human Capital.
Your staff are the people who determine the rise and fall of the company. Hence, if the employees do not step up their game, the company is in serious trouble.
“Clients don’t come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of your clients.” Wise words by Sir Richard Branson.
In my 17 years of conducting training, travelling widely across the globe, I’ve noticed many types of organizations, government and private sectors, large or small companies – there are two categories of employees. I categorize them into chickens and eagles.
The Chickens: The common word you hear is that they are complacent. They stick to their comfort zone and are reluctant to change. In fact, they prefer things not to change as they are comfortable with that they have at the moment. This forms their mindset.
There’s a danger in being a chicken – you can never get new results by remaining where you are. The only way to progress is to jump out of complacency.
- Mindset of A Chicken: They are not consistent in terms of their performance. Sometimes they can be very good other times, can be very average. We are creatures of habit, when we do not do consistently well in one thing, it will be transferrable to other things that we do. How we do one thing, is how we do everything. If a person has no high standards in performing a task or duty, the same person will have low expectations in other areas of his life. Therefore when referring to mindset, it encompasses the way we think, what our expected standard of performance is and the results we want. The chickens are driven by short-term gain and cannot see beyond the horizon. They expect the rewards to land instantly on their lap otherwise, they will give up. This is the characteristic of a chicken.
- They are easily influenced by others, they do not really have goals. Even if they have goals, they do not really believe in it. They are more likely to live another’s persons life or follow blindly working for others. The chicken are not strong-willed in pursuing their goal. This is why they are very easily influenced to stop achieving their goal. One of the patterns of the chicken is that they have these very low standard of performance. They have a nature of not willing to experiment new ideas. They are stress/risk adverse. Infact they are also change adverse. So they are not really open to changes.
Can a person transform and become an eagle?
The answer is YES !
What are the characteristics of eagles?
- Eagles have a sense of ownership. Eagles know if they want to do well, they have to be responsible for their failure and success. Eagles are people who make things happen. They will do whatever it takes to get to the next step. In order to win, eagles know they have to solve their problems and do not waste time blaming other or making excuses.
- They have the ability to push everything else and focus on the thing in front of them. This is called being disciplined. It is tough to be disciplined because we are surrounded by so much noise and can get distracted by the many things around us.
- Consistency: Eagles keep getting better and better each time they do something because they are building competency with each accomplishment. By the time you know it, there is already a significant improvement. When it comes to the level of performance, eagles are consistent and do not give up so easily.
- Self-motivated: They have a personal goals and vision. They believe strongly in their vision and once attained, are going to reap the reward. They know they will not see result right away, but they are more than willing to put in the work. Eagles are people who do not need to be reminded, they can perform with very little instruction. Therefore the eagles are the people who believe that one day, the image they have in their mind will translate into the physical form.
For instance, if the eagle has a goal in their mind to buy a car, he will put in the grunt work and save money. In the right timing, he will get the car. Most importantly, they never negotiate the goal, they only negotiate the strategy. Whereas the chickens always negotiate the goal because they make it easier, more achievable but has no impact. This is the key difference. The eagles also understand that to become a better solution, they set their own bar high.
Common questions like “Can I improve the process? Can I improve the system? Can I break the record? Can I do something new? Can I experiment new ideas? Can I innovate? Can I create something we’ve not done yet?”
Eagles like to challenge the status quo by asking how they can get out of the box.
How can chickens transform themselves and become eagles?
My motto for everything : Do the extra 1%.
Doing the extra 1% is basically doing things that chickens do not want to do. For example, chickens do not want to exercise, but the eagles do – because they know the benefits it entails. The eagles know that if you study and learn, you are going to improve your competency. The eagles know that if you invest your money, it will grow. While the chickens spend all their money. There are a lot of things that eagles want to do and pay serious attention into whereas the chickens just don’t care. They live life on repeat and have no intention of self-improvement. But the eagles always do three things differently; they learn, they grow and they change.
Can you become an eagle?
YES ! if you are willing to do the extra 1%.Here is an example of an eagle, my good friend Mr. Phang.
His house is the biggest in my neighborhood. He owns a bungalow, drives fancy cars and everything in his life is worthy of being noted. When I spoke to him, I said, “Mr. Phang, what is the secret to your material success?” He said, “Well Jackson, I have been in insurance for a long time, 10 years ago I drove my car every single day to Serian which is an hour away from Kuching. I did not want to sell insurance in Kuching because there are 100’s of agents at every corner and due to the saturated market, my wife and I decided to go to the outskirts of town and looked for customers in Serian. After many years, today we have built a lot of trust with our customers because we are willing to come this far every day.”
They have built a huge market share for themselves in Serian because they are willing to travel the distance, talk to the locals and create a new market for themselves. So today, all those years of hard work paid off and they are very successful in the industry
Nowadays, a lot of people have lost their fire. Work has become a chore instead of a passion, where they have to force a smile just to please their boss or finish a task for the sake of clocking out early. In Developing Winning Attitude, we look into the most common challenges faced:
To mention a few,
- Spreading yourself too thin: Those who work for 10-16 hours a day. By doing so, get burned out and will not be able to give a 100% at their work. Statistics show that this has a list of detrimental effects to your health, namely depression, stress and even heart disease.
- Under performance: Staff who do not have passion for their job. The term ‘Monday Blues’ was invented because of these employees. There is 2.5x more revenue for companies with engaged employees vs. competitors with low engagement levels.
- Obesity: Usually, more than 40% of people above the age of 40 in the training room are obese. They take little care of their health and their slow psychomotor skills are reflected in their work. According to yearly studies, obesity can affect the productivity at the workplace and suffer from back problems and sleep apnea which can equate to more than thousands of dollars in loss for the company.
- Poor Money Management: Heavily burdened by rent, overdue bank notices… on the back of his mind – leads to stress. Stress at the workplace is detrimental to one’s mental health.
- Multi-tasking: According to research, multi-tasking is counterproductive. One focuses on too many tasks at one time and will not get either of them done.
- No growth: The people who will not budge from their comfort-zone to expand in their field. They limit their own abilities and are hesitant to venture into the unknown.
- Complacency: Being happy with one’s position is good, but definitely not great and will not contribute to the company’s progress.
The New You Program (Developing Winning Mindset)
targets employees specifically those who have been under performing in their workplace.
Download program flyer here
(The New You Program Flyer Pg1, Pg2, Pg3)
This year alone, we’ve conducted 18 training sessions on Developing Winning Mindset for EPF (Employee Provident Fund). We got an increase in requests for 2018 – (19 sessions). Why is it that EPF wants to invest in this topic so heavily?
- Guaranteed behavioral changes within the first 10 days and employees become more excited about their work. This translates to a higher profit for your company. If you are a government organization, your staff will achieve the given KPI as the service is more efficient and more effective after the necessary training.
- This program will help re-wire the way a person thinks and improve his well-being in his personal and professional environment.
- Furthermore, based on my training sessions in the past, many have quit smoking, have spent more time with their family and have turned up to work earlier.
The sum total of your employees forms your company. To grow your company, you need to grow your greatest asset aka Human Capital.
UPCOMING PUBLIC TRAINING :
| KUALA LUMPUR | 1 – 2 March 2018 |
| KUCHING | 5 – 6 March 2018 |
Download program flyer here
(The New You Program Flyer Pg1, Pg2, Pg3)
When your people experience new results in their lives, they will become better. Thus they are able to contribute to the productivity, performance and profit of their organization. If you like to see new business results, call us to do Developing Winning Mindset for you.
Expect to see some behavioral changes within weeks after training!
We will be able to bring your organization to the next level !
For more information or training request on
The New You Program (Developing Winning Mindset) , kindly write to us at
[email protected] / [email protected] or
call +6016-3366030.
Thank you for reading.
Find this article useful ?
