The Law of Attraction in Business

I'm a big believer in the Law of Attraction - the idea that we create what we focus on in our lives. That's a very simplistic definition, but it works for now.

Most people view the Law of Attraction as a way of being and thinking that impacts their personal lives.

Most businesses don't follow the Law of Attraction, at all. I think that's a status quo approach that brings loads of Gravity.  It's time to change that thinking.

Gravity is created when we focus on negative events, empowering them to become a continuing (and now expected) trend in our business.  I can't begin to tell you how many businesses I work with, today and in the past, that are stuck in Gravity because of the beliefs firmly entrenched within the company culture.

I've seen it time and time again.  We lose a big deal that we've been working on with lots of resources and energy- and we react negatively. That's expected - for a short time.  But all too often that loss becomes a mantra in the organization. "We lost that deal so we shouldn't spend the time on another one like that." "Now that we spent all that resource on the deal and lost, we have to be careful what we do going forward." "That deal was our hope for growth this year, without it, we're going to stay flat.""There's no hope for our bonuses now, we lost that big deal we needed to meet our numbers."

All of those statement are probably true. That's not my point.  My point is that when leaders use such statements with internal audiences over and over again - they begin to form a cultural belief.  If others repeat and expand on those statements - we have Gravity on the move. Yes, we do need to look at our failures.  Notice - I said look at, not focus on.  That's the problem.  We look at our failures, focus on them and beat the drum about them, until they permeate our business culture.

I've seen one or two losses or business bumps sink a company unnecessarily.  All because those losses, those failures if you will, became the focus of the business as people repeated (and usually augmented) those statements, again and again.

I've heard CEO's grouse and complain about investors, board members, customers, staff and more when inside the company's walls. Everyone who heard that grousing imprinted that negative focus into their beliefs about the company.  As they share those beliefs or words with others, the negative imprinting continues until it is everywhere in an organization.

Once that Gravity imprint is in place - it take a strong positive event or focus to change the course before the business creates more negative events.  You see, business beliefs are self-fulfilling. If the over-riding belief in a company is that the market sucks, the economy makes it impossible to succeed, that competitor beats us every time - then that is exactly what will continue to happen.

So how do we see our failures yet project our success?

That's actually pretty easy.  The answer is to combine every focus on failure or a bump in our business flight with a stronger focus on the solution or opportunity we can derive from that bump.

For example, let's look at that same failure statements above, with an eye toward positive beliefs.

• "We lost that deal so we shouldn't spend the time on another one like that." Translate that to: "We lost that deal but we learned so much about how to more efficiently bid and win the next one. Let's get busy on finding a similar opportunity and winning it now that we have experience under our belt."
  

• "Now that we spent all that resource on the deal and lost, we have to be careful what we do going forward."  TRANSLATION: "We spent a lot of resources on bidding that deal, but we learned so much.  Let's discuss how we can optimize our resources for the next opportunity, and then let's act to improve the business going forward."

•  "That deal was our hope for growth this year, without it, we're going to stay flat." TRANSLATION: "That deal was our big hope for growth for this year.  We didn't get it, so let's focus on other options for pulling in additional business, and let's get a plan for next year that leverages the successes we can create in the rest of this year to grow even more."

• "There's no hope for our bonuses now, we lost that big deal we needed to meet our numbers." TRANSLATION: "We didn't get that big deal but I'm not giving up on my bonus.  There are other deals out there - we just need to find them.  Let's have a brainstorming session to get started on the next opportunity. We're leaner and meaner now and can do an ever better job at winning the next one."

It's not that difficult. It's simply a matter of shifting our focus, our way of speaking, believing and thinking in our businesses. Negative limits, positive expands.

Once we ditch the Gravity that comes with a negative focus - the doors of opportunity do open. Then we can fly through those doors to create even more opportunity than ever before - if we remain on the positive route.