The Power of Awareness in Building Sustainable Success
Aug 26, 2024
What is the relationship between the growth or success of any company in the world and how it manages its people? To understand this, let's consider the opposite scenario: why do companies fail? Statistics show that globally, only about 50% of businesses survive beyond their fifth year [1]. Traditional industries face the constant challenge of adopting new strategies to avoid disappearing. While there are many causes, if we focus on one, like "resistance to change," we can dig deeper into the issue.
Resistance to change doesn't help companies at all, so we need to understand where these barriers come from. It might be processes, paradigms, limitations, or the environment, but if we dig deeper, we find that, ultimately, companies are made up of people, and the results reflect that.
The Human Factor in Business Success
People are the ones who determine the success of a company. So, we must ask ourselves:
How does each person in our company live each day?
Where do they focus their attention?
Are they in control of what they do?
Who do they choose to be?
Are we creating a path to success for the business every day?
Does each person in our company live each day to the fullest, or is it just another day for them?
Are we making conscious decisions, or are we reacting to stimuli?
These questions are meaningful if we believe that people are the foundation where significant change can happen. Gallup's studies on happiness at work reveal that only 15% of people are happy in their jobs, meaning 85% of people work out of necessity or stimulus, not in a motivating environment that fosters the continuous construction of their own happiness [2].
Envisioning a Fully Aware Organization
Imagine a company where everyone is aware of what is happening in the present moment. They understand the business and the work they contribute to, creating collective success every day. This is entirely possible because everyone has the potential for deep understanding and the ability to be present.
The challenge is to develop this attention in people. Attention means being fully aware of what is happening around me and staying here, in the now. This involves eliminating practices like:
Multitasking
Procrastination
Working strictly by the clock
Breaking paradigms like "the more time I spend at work, the more productive I am"
When we are conscious of how things happen, how they work, and we stay focused on our surroundings, we can understand everything more easily.
Leadership's Role in Fostering Awareness
From a leadership perspective, we must also ask ourselves if we are helping our teams live this way. Are we thinking on a similar level of awareness, or are we stuck in a false reality where we seek days longer than 24 hours, weeks longer than 7 days, rushing to get things done as soon as they are conceived?
This approach doesn't build a sustainable future for anyone—not for individuals nor the organization. It only creates the illusion of doing many things without achieving anything, eventually leading to burnout for those who live this way daily.
Steps Toward a More Aware Organization
How do we change this reality? The first thing we need to do is learn to stop and live in the here and now. Stopping doesn't mean ceasing to take action; it means sitting down with full and focused awareness of who we are and what we are building. It means:
Doing things well
Having the ability to eliminate thoughts that try to steer us off course
Learning to own all our decisions
As reactivity and impatience decrease, we will know we are growing in self-mastery and self-leadership. By stopping and silently becoming aware of something as subtle as our breath, our minds become clearer, and our reactions to any situation become less rushed and unstable. We become more consistent and focused, and at that moment, we can carefully observe what needs our attention.
Adopting New Ways of Leadership
The new ways we can adopt as leaders involve living in full awareness and allowing our teams to do the same. Each person must be responsible for themselves and co-responsible for collective goals. They must live their lives fully, without paradigms or restrictions.
This means integrating personal and professional goals, making every day a scene of harmony in the aspects that are fundamental to each person. We achieve this together by breaking the paradigm of fixed schedules. We cannot pretend to live a balanced life if we work from dawn to dusk without attending to the smallest details of our personal lives.
No human being can be fully productive in a continuous stretch of daily hours, and it's not fair to expect people to meet their personal goals with an exhausted mind. The best productivity comes from a person in control, living in harmony, who is always mindful of where they direct their attention, because this is what shapes our existence.
Even when difficulties arise, we will stay focused on what brings harmony.
Sources: [1] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Survival of private sector establishments by opening year," https://www.bls.gov/bdm/us_age_naics_00_table7.txt [2] Gallup, "State of the Global Workplace: 2022 Report," https://www.gallup.com/workplace/349484/state-of-the-global-workplace.aspx