Just before Christmas I travelled to London for some meetings in the Kings Cross area. Now I remember the area well from when I first started working in London nearly 25 years ago. At that time Kings Cross had a reputation for being rather unsavoury. The haunt of prostitutes it was not the place to be seen, or indeed even really safe to hang out here.
Fast forward 25 years and the place has transformed. Now the home of Google and a number of other prestigious businesses, decorated in Christmas lights the place was alive with people. There was a vibrant party atmosphere and people just wanted to hang out and have fun. The buzz was amazing and people over flowed from the various bars and restaurants in the area. What a stark contrast there was to a quarter of a century earlier.
As I stopped to survey the transformation I reflected that what had happened at Kings Cross almost directly paralleled the change I witness in organisations. Often the business owner does not realise how bad things have become. Often it takes a negative event or a very brave leader to decide to embrace change and make a real difference in the organisational culture. Just like it took inspirational, visionary leaders to envisage a better Kings Cross, the same is true in business. All businesses require visionary Game Changers to challenge the status quo and help transform the business to another level.
And just like the redevelopment of Kings Cross was inconvenient and took time, so is cultural change. It is often a messy process and at times you might want to give up, but stick with it because eventually a beautiful butterfly will emerge. 10 times better than what was there before, it will shine a beacon on what is possible.
The only question that remains is are you brave enough to transform your business? Are you bold enough to really see what is going on and then get everyone engaged and aligned behind a shared purpose that transforms the business and takes it to new heights?. If you are then I’d love to chat with you and lets explore what’s possible for you and your business.
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
