How A Stable Foundation Fosters Growth & Prosperity — And How We Must Eliminate The Opposite Approach

Hand your kids a box of Legos and tell them to build a tower. As they’re building it, take away half their blocks including ones they’ve already used to build the tower. 

A few minutes later, have them limit the colors in their tower, even if they’ve used some of those colors in their construction. Wait a few minutes and tell them to take their tower downstairs and build it there. While they're carrying it, try and knock them down and tell them not to let the tower break. 

How well do you think they’ll do at successfully completing their project? Not good and the problem is not them, it’s you (at least for now). 

When it comes to building a department or business, this no-plan reactive approach is often how entrepreneurs interface with their team. In my scenario, it’s obvious how harmful it is to grow, how frustrating this “style” is to the creator, and ultimately how problematic it is for accomplishing our objectives. And yes, I’m guilty of leading people in such a frustrating way.

Stability and coherent consistent direction are foundational for building something worthwhile. And, for providing the safety for someone to create something meaningful over the long term. 

Planning ahead prevents these mid-stream changes from negatively affecting the construction. But it’s not until we know, feel and experience this pitfall that we as leaders are willing to change our approach. To operate proactively, and to provide room for our team to build is a gift of empowerment. 

Always being given new missions or having the rug pulled out from underneath us will consistently lead to low morale and poor results. While we might finish the mission, we’ll burn people out along the way.

How is your negative reactive behavior harming your team’s ability to grow your business?

Once we choose to operate with a solid and unmoving foundation and proactively lead with consistency, we’re forced to face the underlying problem causing this harmful behavior. 

Commitment to one mission and deciding to say no to everything else. 

Hero Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash