Re Organising the Management
One of my clients at the moment is a company that are one of the top Spread Betting and CFD trading companies in the world. They have a huge number of staff split over offices located in 6 countries, 2 of those offices being right here in central London.
Not only does this company help it’s own clients to make hundreds of millions of pounds per year, they also rely on their staff to make sure the company does what it does in the best way possible and that at every level, each department knows it’s direction and how to get to where it needs to be.
Some of the staff at this company have been there for over 10 years and have done tremendous work in taking the company to the place it needed to be.
Today, something changed. As senior management came in today to start as they usually do, something had changed and all was about to be unveiled.
More than 3 members of the higher management ranks, including at least 1 director, were told this morning that their presence in the company would no longer be required. Basically, the most senior parts of the company had decided to have a major overhaul of the management structure and this meant getting rid of some of the top people in the company who were not only employees but also good friends of the people making the decisions.
When this was announced, I considered it and spoke to some of the other employees to find out some of their thoughts. There were 3 main thoughts that seemed to be going around after the announcement and they were:
- How could they get rid of people who have invested so much of themselves into the company, just like that?
- What does this mean for the rest of us? If they can get rid of someone as senior as that then I’m sure to lose my job
- This means stuff is going to change and I don’t like that idea.
When I thought about these things it got me thinking about the managers that people have in their minds. Those things that we use to make decisions and control the overall operations of our thinking.
One of the biggest hurdles I’ve noticed when working with people in getting them to make new choices and make better decisions is their fear of “firing the management”.
By this I mean taking a look at how their life operates and deciding with a passion, that things need to change and that old ways of doing things, as useful as they may have been in the past, are done and over.
Sometimes radical changes need to be made for the greater good and cowering in a corner, being afraid of taking on new things and fearing new and improved way of doing things, is a sure fire way to make sure the company of your life goes bust.
So here’s an experiment:
- Think about what it is you want from part of your life, whether that’s to love more, be happier, be more energetic, to have more friends or to make your life the most wonderful thing it can be
- Ask yourself, “what stops me from getting to where I want to be” and make a note of the answers.
- Now imagine for a moment that all those things you wrote down “got fired”. What would you do differently if you just stopped listening to those things and just started doing what it is you want to do?
- Remember what it’s like to have fun doing what you love and then make a decision that from today, in the most fun and enjoyable way possible, you’re going to do at least 1 radical thing towards getting to where you want, AND at the same time, you’re only going to do things that are fun and effortless for you.
I’d really love to get some feedback from all of you who give this a go and let me know how different it feels when you ditch the old management of your minds and take on new, fresh, enthusiastic employees that have only your best interest at heart.
Love, Jamie
