Owning a New Opportunity
Nothing changes for a business that is not able to create new opportunities for itself regularly and ensure permanent niche ownership of them. The more unique the opportunities are, the more permanent they become. This critical value that applies to every facet of a business whether externally focused on customers or internally focused on efficiency, can only be sourced from people who understand that it applies to their personal economic relevance as much as it does to the business they work in.
A person creates and owns new opportunities when they constantly hunt for and find possibilities to contribute tangible value that is unique to them that would otherwise be lost without their personal motivation and attention to making a difference. This way of thinking and acting needs more than monetary reward to drive it and sustain it - it needs a personal vision, mission, values, strategy and goals. (See articles on creating and conveying vision). Owning opportunities is the exclusive domain of people and companies who understand the Impact Zone.
Why is it so critical?
Owning new opportunities is what grows your business and central to driving every part of your strategy. Without it no part of your plan can work to its fullest potential. Your company does not own a single opportunity except that which is owned in the minds and hearts of your people. The questions that leaders must ask themselves are: 1) how 'opportunity minded' is my organisation? 2) do they see what I see? 3) what could lost opportunities be costing me?
Opportunities to make a difference are missed at least once a day for the average employee. That is 21 occasions a month, about 235 a year - per person. If we tried to attach a monetary value to the customer service, sales, efficiencies or new ideas that are forever lost - we would be staggered. Companies miss so many opportunities because so few people are tuned into seeing them, because this is not the culture inspired by leaders. An 'Opportunity Mindset' belongs to a culture that highly values fresh thinking, constantly challenges accepted standards of performance and openly recognises and rewards new value.
How is it developed in an organisation?
Recognition by leaders that reaching the company's full potential is dependent on the way they and their staff, connect personal economic survival and growth to that of their team (business unit) by embracing two realities. Firstly, an on-going willingness to take collective ownership of customers' needs, and secondly, to generate from these, new ideas and solutions that can be used to create bigger opportunities for customers, their company and themselves.
Demonstration by leaders as they build a culture within their teams that:
- Change always presents more opportunities than threats.
- Who people are today and what they will become in the future has been, and will be, shaped entirely by their personal choices.
- People are totally responsible and accountable for their own future growth and prospects.
- There are more opportunities today than there have ever been.
- Success is based on the identification and pursuit of meeting the needs of others.
'We reap everything that we sow' is a law that helps us understand this better.
