Seth Godin is one of my favorite writers. He recently wrote, “The most difficult work many professionals do is getting someone else to agree with their point of view and take action. The second most difficult work professionals do is developing a point of view in the first place.”
What a profound statement. The reality is most people have a weak point of view. Their point of view is easily shaken. We’re all guilty.
We have self-doubts because we have the fear of loss.
We fear we may lose what we have.
We fear sales people will quit if we make changes.
We fear managers will quit if we make changes.
We fear what others may think if we make changes.
We fear the loss of money if we make changes.
The real problem is we most often don’t believe strong enough. We don’t have a strong enough view that we can get others to believe in what we know we need to do. Our point of view is so weak that we don’t take the action that needs to be taken in order to make the changes we know we need to make.
So we sit on the sidelines watching others figure it out until one day we finally do it. Yes, we do it, but only after everyone else has already done it.
So guess what? At that point we are nothing special. We are just average. Being average really sucks. Maybe it’s time to re-examine your point of view. That’s all I’m going to say, Tommy Gibbs