GO WEST! Organizational Empowerment

Go West! with Christine West

“There's a basic philosophy here that by empowering... workers you'll make their jobs far more interesting, and they'll be able to work at a higher level than they would have without all that information just a few clicks away.”
-- Bill Gates


All people need some means to pay their bills and maintain the lifestyle they have created. For those of us who weren’t born into wealth, who haven’t won the lottery, or found a wealthy spouse for financial support, we must earn a wage and work. The question is: What motivates us to do what we do?

It is interesting to note that money is not always the prime motivator, nor is fear.

Turn over is expensive for companies, as is change in management teams and company restructuring. Everyone deals with change and transition differently. Change in life is inevitable, but how do companies manage that change? How do leaders and managers manage the cost of their decisions? Too often repeated patterns occur in the organizational life that cost the organization more because of treating symptoms and refusal to find the root cause. Proper problem solving requires establishing an identity or role in the problem. For example, if an organization has pattern of stability and 20% turnover in a month, what is the human motivation behind a group of people to join and to later leave an organization all in the same month?

The easy route is blaming the people who moved on and never taking responsibility. These actions are costly and are signs of an immature organization. These are important factors to analyze to maintain stability monetary growth and workforce development.

Psychology plays a tremendous role in the business world. Human behavior is more complex than just seeking rewards or avoiding punishments. Human motivation has a deeper cause and a more profound purpose than many in the business world think.

Most people want to discover their purpose and have their talents optimized through that purpose. When a person desires to engage her talents and realize her true potential in life, this is called self-actualization. Once a person is self-actualized, she is in a position to follow her calling. A leader needs to lead, a manager needs to manage, an engineer needs to engineer, salesperson needs to sell, a healer need to treat illness, a speaker needs to speak and narrate, a dancer needs to dance, a singer needs to sing, and a writer needs to write. If these needs are not met, the person feels on edge and lacking something.

One of the challenges in the current business world (regardless of the industry) stems from the fact that management teams are often managing employees as though the management teams are seeking rewards or avoiding punishments instead of accurately understanding the motivation are of each individual. Clearly, each person is an individual and is motivated by different incentives. However, most organizations do not create a structure to help a person to reach their peak potential.

Another challenge in many organizations is that management teams use the word “empowerment” too loosely. If an employee is empowered to do his or her job responsibilities, then that employee needs to be allowed to be creative and think out of the box and be allowed to make decisions. Many management teams do not take the time to evaluate individual behaviors, and instead, enforce an autocratic leadership style to micromanage the employee. This creates a parent-child relationship in the workplace. Most employees would be more productive if management teams managed employees as an adult to adult. Adults communicate with other adults; parents control children. When employees are treated as adults, this boosts moral and creates true empowerment.

We spend a lot of our time at work and it should be a positive experience. Some people have been living in a world that always told them what to do. This makes life easy for them. They never let themselves discover their weakness or failures, not to mention their strengths. One can learn from self-actualizing people what the ideal attitude toward work might be under the most favorable circumstances. These highly evolved individuals assimilate their work into their identity of self, where work actually becomes part of the self and part of the individual’s definition of self.

It is then easier for each of us to be who we are instead of working toward being something we are not. This is true empowerment.

Genuinely,

Christine

About the Author: Christine M. West, TheBusinessMD, 2240 E. Tudor Rd. #976, Anchorage, Alaska, USA 99507. Phone 1-907-223-8403. Email: info@thebusinessmd.net, http://www.businessmd.net/ http://thebusinessmd.blogspot.com/

Christine West is an industrial organizational psychology practitioner and is in private practice as TheBusinessMD which helps organizations and individuals overcome fear and explore the power of change. Ms. West is also a Featured Columnist for the National Networker http://www.thenationalnetworker.com/



For more information, please visit Christine's TNNW Bio.

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GO WEST! Organizational Empowerment

GO WEST!: Give Me Truth

Go West! with Christine West

“Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinions of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.” Katherine Mansfield

Most of us want an enriched life that creates wealth, maintains health and brings us peace. We are searching for truth, righteousness and the magnificence this world has to offer. Yet we participate in activities that create the very opposite. We have the ability to access life at its very peak and yet we don’t. Why - because we resist life. Our greatest fear is to live at peak performance in our work, our relationships, and in our playtime. We allow ourselves to become indoctrinated into the ideology of fear, doubts, unworthiness, limitations and excuses.

The human mind is very similar to a personal computer. At the subliminal level of our mind are our behavioral programs, strategies, emotions, memories, beliefs and values. All processes working together at the subliminal level produces our behavior, our feelings, and our judgments into our conscious reality.

The very people we trust and love over the years of our lives have cultivated us with their good opinions. These opinions are seeds that grow inside of us. These seeds form what we believe about ourselves – our abilities, our biases, our direction, and our success and failure rate. It also teaches us what we are attracted or not attracted to.

The people we trust and love provide their opinions because they believe they are serving us a greater good. They may be or maybe not. Yet if our inside code is programmed to be inauthentic and to stop short of goals and dreams we are not living our truth.

Our belief system is part of our structural foundation and it takes courage to reflect upon the beliefs that are no longer serving our goals and our dreams. It takes even more courage to take action transform the belief.

Once a practice of truth becomes habit, a whole new reality follows. There is nothing to fear when we live in truth. Truth will set you free. In truth we are free from the limitations of others. We are free to build our life as we choose. We are free to live our dreams and to continue to expand.

To maintain our truth, we need to keep ourselves focused and free of debris. Just like personal computers that risk a computer virus and need to be scanned daily for infections, we do also. We need to maintain the integrity of our system and to sustain behavioral truth. You can attain the life of your dreams by living out your truth.

Genuinely,

Christine

Author: Christine M. West, TheBusinessMD, 2240 E. Tudor Rd. #976, Anchorage, Alaska, USA 99507. Phone 1-907-223-8403. Email: info@thebusinessmd.net, http://www.businessmd.net/ http://thebusinessmd.blogspot.com/ Christine West is an industrial organizational psychology practitioner and is in private practice as TheBusinessMD which helps organizations and individuals overcome fear and explore the power of change. Ms. West is also a Featured Columnist for the National Networker http://www.thenationalnetworker.com/


For more information, please visit Christine's TNNW Bio.

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GO WEST!: Give Me Truth

GO WEST!: Honoring Thy Self... Part II

Go West! with Christine West

“When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.” ~Franklin D. Roosevelt

Many of us fail to recognize the innate ability we have to succeed at our endeavors. Yet in order to so, we need to stop participating in activity, buying into self-limitations or of others or feeding ourselves self talk that anchors us spiraling downward.

Pursuing what we want in both our professional and personal endeavors takes persistence and stamina. It requires you to differentiate and distinguish yourself from others. It is about allowing originality and individuality to shine bright by responding to life’s opportunities.

By no means am I diminishing team or group efforts. I feel strong about working in groups or in partnerships. Yet we need pay attention if the group norms are helping or hindering us.

As an example, if you are a horse jockey and you are paid to win. Do you get paid to stay at the same pace of the other horses? Absolutely Not! Or behind the other horses? – think about it for a moment, that is an absurd thought, Right? So why would anyone do it in everyday life?

Do you get paid to react to the other jockeys, horses and audience? – No because you would be way too distracted by your emotions. You would be too focused on the approval of others or how the other jockeys treated you during the race. Not a very good or efficient strategy. Many continue to behave this way at work or in personal relationships.

The winning strategy in a horse-race is to be able to respond to opportunity. Which means the focus is on driving my horse through the path of opportunity. By paying attention and maneuvering the horse through openings past the other horses quickly with graceful efficiency toward the finish line without any hesitation, is the horse that wins. This strategy also requires a jockey who knows how to pace the horse through the openings and once ahead of the competition, continues to run the horse hard to the finish line.

The horse and jockey receive their glory because they figured out how to move past and maintain a pace ahead of the other riders. This is very similar in regular day to day life. When we honor our very existence, something magical occurs. We are no longer distracted by life, negativity, and the pressures to conform to ways of others or need a sense of approval. We anchor ourselves to the sense of purpose within ourselves and we give free rein to our sense of being to respond to life and her opportunities. And we end up belonging to more than we ever imagined.

When we do this, we increase our worth and deepen our self-love, in which radiates outward in all that we do. When we behave out of love instead of manipulation, we allow ideas, resources and opportunity to develop into prosperous endeavors. Our energy is higher and authentic. People want what we have so therefore they become magnetized by our presence. Life becomes fuller and more interesting. Stressors decrease and clarity surrounds us.

No matter what your profession is, all of us need to interact with people to accomplish our goals. When we honor who we are, it is simpler to honor and accept the choices of others instead of becoming consumed by them. People seem to trust people more that interfere less with their existence and behave in authentic means toward them. We will never truly value others until we honor and value who we are.

When continue to build and invest in the greater good of ourselves and in others, that very goodness comes reflecting right back to us. The beauty in this we learn to collaborate, build wealth and a quality of life that is more rewarding.

Genuinely,

Christine

Author: Christine M. West, TheBusinessMD, 2240 E. Tudor Rd. #976, Anchorage, Alaska, USA 99507. Phone 1-907-223-8403. Email: info@thebusinessmd.net, http://www.businessmd.net/ http://thebusinessmd.blogspot.com/ Christine West is an industrial organizational psychology practitioner and is in private practice as TheBusinessMD which helps organizations and individuals overcome fear and explore the power of change. Ms. West is also a Featured Columnist for the National Networker http://www.thenationalnetworker.com/

For more information, please visit Christine's TNNW Bio.







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GO WEST!: Honoring Thy Self... Part II

GO WEST! Honor Thy Self ...

Go West! with Christine West

“You yourself, as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection” Buddha

In every human interaction we teach other people how we wish to be treated. By the very essence of what we accept as acceptable behavior and our interactions establishes the means in which other people end up treating us by the way we treat ourselves.

I am personally fascinated in how most people are blind to this fact. We are constantly teaching others about ourselves. We do this in so many different ways that many are unaware of. Our very behavior sends signals out to the world on how to treat us. Our body language, our energy, our physiology, our words, our beliefs, our actions or inactions, our boundaries, what we take value in, what we make a priority, our self-respect, self-esteem and self worth, are some of the many factors that give others information about us. When we want the world to treat us better, we need to learn to treat ourselves better and make the adjustments within ourselves.

I have personally found when I treat myself with honor, my sales increase, my productivity improves, better people and resources come into my life and I am happy. Honor means I value myself, I make me a priority, I invest my time and energy in activity that creates happiness and moves me closer to my goals, I surround myself with healthy people, resources and activities, I fuel my body and mind with nutritious foods that helps me to focus and be emotionally stable. It also means I sell my services based on my own personal development level and self-worth. I love and accept everything about myself so that I can continue to evolve and prosper.

When we neglect ourselves and allow energy to scatter mixed results occur and we often feel depleted. We end up forgetting about our priorities, our value and end up taking on the priorities of someone else who may be leading us away from our goals. We end up procrastinating and living out the intentions of other people while never advancing ourselves.

If we are to evolve personally, professionally, cognitively, emotionally and spiritually, it is absolutely critical to recognize if you desire true change, then one must be willing to make the changes at the internal level. Nothing in your external world will change if you refuse to on the inside. This statement is true and factual when it comes to personal development, business development, organizational development, relationship development or healing physical impairments.

When we make inner adjustments the external world magically changes. The bottom line is nothing will improve until you improve. If you treat yourself poorly, then you are teaching your employer, your family, your friends and peers to do exactly the same.

I have heard people complain about their external world. What these people are really communicating is the complaints inside themselves. Everything we see in our external world and our very reaction to it is a mirrored reflection of who we are.

This statement may be difficult or easy for you as a reader to digest.

I also realize this is a different statement than some may be familiar with. It is important to reiterate this fact. The beauty or ugliness or anything in between we see in our external world is a reflection of who we are. This is why different people can experience the same event and have a very different experience. The experiences can be contrasting as though the people involved didn’t experience the same the event or the same conversation.

For example, in today’s job market many have been laid off from their job. Some people find this a great opportunity for a new beginning and others find it fatalistic. Some people when a relationship ends focus on harboring resentment and others are grateful for the experience no matter how it ended.

For growth or change to occur, if you don’t like what you see or what you experience then you need to make internal changes, learn to forgive yourself and others for mistakes, set healthy boundaries with yourself, other people and your environment and accept every piece of you. We all are a self-fulfilled prophesy - meaning our beliefs, expectations and behaviors create our reality. We possess a power within by taking responsibility and we give our power up through blaming others for what we experience or our circumstances.

Most people want more respect, more success, more prosperity and less grief and stress, yet most fail to recognize these goals are much easier to reach by learning to honor thy self.

Now, as a reader, you may be asking what do I mean? The bottom line is real simple, when you personally “HONOR” every piece of your life and work on yourself internally, your mirror will naturally reflect your inner changes.

So far I have given you some food for thought. In the next month’s column, I will help you to increase your self-worth so you can increase your prosperity, sales and quality of life. Until then ---

Genuinely,
Christine

Author: Christine M. West, TheBusinessMD, 2240 E. Tudor Rd. #976, Anchorage, Alaska, USA 99507. Phone 1-907-223-8403. Email: info@thebusinessmd.net, http://www.businessmd.net/ http://thebusinessmd.blogspot.com/ Christine West is an industrial organizational psychology practitioner and is in private practice as TheBusinessMD which helps organizations and individuals overcome fear and explore the power of change. Ms. West is also a Featured Columnist for the National Networker http://www.thenationalnetworker.com/


For more information, please visit Christine's TNNW Bio.







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GO WEST! Honor Thy Self ...

GO WEST!!! To Be or Just a WANNABE ?

GO WEST!!! with Christine M. West

We’ve all been invited to numerous social events professionally, personally and online. We connect with someone we want to impress in our audience. We want our audience to be impressed with who we are and have the desire to be interested enough to advance the relationship into a sale. Without realizing it, as you try so hard to get attention that you become totally unaware of the words spuing from your mouth are fraudulent dribble that lacks integrity, honor or ethic and you’re wondering how do I live up to this creation?

Yet it gets worse, the other person believes you and is searching for exactly what you described as a service and you have no clue how to walk the talk you just articulated. Without risking appearing utterly stupid and confessing to the truth you continue to toot your own horn to an expertise that you do not have. Now impressed with yourself, you up the stakes in this relationship and make the other person a client and commit yourself to delivering an image or a service you cannot possibly deliver.

Now under fiduciary responsibility, the only thing you can do to maintain this self-imagined image is to use condescending language with your client to taint their abilities and to create insecurity. And of course to secure your new expertise and to drive your client’s lack of self-confidence in even deeper, you continue to reinforce their fears with sending them mixed signals about your progress and continue to draw them in further into your personal dysfunction.

Eventually, the client expects you to deliver results. The pressure is on and you feel awkward because the only thing you sold to the client is your WANNABE image.

Now your world is closing in because in your mind telling the truth would be detrimental to your newly created reputation as a legend in your WANNABE world. And worse yet as you self-criticize for losing the opportunity gain customer satisfaction, repeat business and you suspect the client can see right through you. And now you are baffled in your own self-created-nonsense and do not know what to do.

Let’s talk about what drives this behavior and what to do.

Quite a while ago, a wise woman told me when you become great at what you do; you won’t need to try so hard to convince others of your expertise because people will know who you are by being who you are.

Many years ago this statement was extremely difficult for me to digest because I did not know what it really meant because I did not know how to honor who I really was and it was so different than my social conditioning. Our social conditioning has guided our behavior to lack honor and integrity. We have been taught to model the role we want to be and eventually we will grow into that role. By playing the WANNABE role we end up creating an image that lacks any substance and is based on deception.

Our EGO’s have been conditioned to being fed things such as constant attention, the need to be needed, the need to be better than everyone else or the need to diminish other people in order to build ourselves up to feel like a winner. When we feed the dogma of our EGO, we stop listening to others and have the need to be the continual informant with our mouths oozing dribble to hear ourselves talk. The EGO’s ideology believes in being right at all times at all costs. The more egotistical the person, the more that individual has an exaggerated sense of self-importance. That person is more interested in acting like as person of authority in subjects where they have no authority. This person wants to advise everyone how to run their lives when their life is a mess.

The EGO is divided. The EGO lives in past and in the future and has no clue about what is happening right now in the moment. When you are living as the “Being” that you really are, you walk the talk in state of wholeness which is undamaged. People are attracted to a frequency that reflects honor and integrity.

When we act with integrity, we do as we say and our values are aligned with our behaviors. We have the courage to reflect upon who we really are and know who we are not. We end up accepting ourselves where we are at and communicate from that place. When you have honor, you have the strength and discipline to unlearn unneeded habits and learn what is needed to grow into being more self actual. We become a trusted resource to ourselves and those around us.

When we come from a place of honor and integrity our words have power and authority when we communicate verbally, non verbally and in writing. People can hear your passion, confidence, truth and courage. You learn to communicate more substance with fewer words to influence your audience for their greater good instead of for self-serving purposes.

The more you are moving toward being self actual; doors of opportunity have a tendency to open easier and quicker. The more you learn to shed the compulsive impulses of your EGO, the Wannabe crowd moves further and further away and REAL people begin showing up.

Tell me, are you here to BE or are you just a WANNABE ?

Genuinely,
Christine

Author: Christine M. West, TheBusinessMD, 2240 E. Tudor Rd. #976, Anchorage, Alaska, USA 99507. Phone 1-907-223-8403. Email: info@thebusinessmd.net, http://www.businessmd.net/ http://thebusinessmd.blogspot.com/ Christine West is an industrial organizational psychology practitioner and is in private practice as TheBusinessMD which helps organizations and individuals overcome fear and explore the power of change. Ms. West is also a Featured Columnist for the National Networker http://www.thenationalnetworker.com/

For more information, please visit Christine's TNNW Bio.





Published by THE NATIONAL NETWORKER Newsletter. All rights reserved. Subscribe Free For Your TNNW Newsletter and THE BLUE MONDAY REPORT! - Click HERE.
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GO WEST!!! To Be or Just a WANNABE ?