Imagine you did everything you could as a business owner and/or CEO to make your particular business stand out and be the benchmark for all others. You analyzed carefully with the help of experts in each field how your business needs to be set up, which processes need to be in place, what kind of organizational structure you need, how exactly your market looks like, which would be your target group, what kind of demographics and psychographics are describing your potential customers, what is your USP, how do your competitors look like and who are they, SWOT, Strategy, etc. And after all that you realize that it is still not working the way you would wish, even if you might be fairly successful.

If you are determined to make your dream come true go on reading, there might be something you just didnt know or overlooked.

What your business needs is a Transformation. First lets have a look at the definition of transformation: Act of changing in form or shape or appearance, modifying and incorporating And you might say Well, thats exactly what I am doing all the time! The question is whether you are transforming the heart and soul of your business: The people including yourself.

Your business is certainly built upon your products and your ideas and you should be proud of it. But it is like us human beings: We consist of body, mind and spirit and there must be a balance between the three to truly be healthy. In your company your products are the body, which is controlled by the mind through all these processes and analysis. Your people are the spirit and if in a human being the spirit is suffering, mind and body will get sick very soon not being able to perform as required anymore.

In most companies I saw during my career body and mind were taken care of but nobody was a bit interested in the "spirit" or in other words the people. Only rules and regulations were abundant around them but the larger the company the lesser the interest in listening to people. Often then the result was disastrous for the company ending up deep in the red numbers or filing even bankruptcy and many, many people being laid off.

Transformation starts with you! Thats right, with you as the owner and CEO and within you. You got to find out where you are at, how you behave, and what impact you have on the people you lead. You must ask yourself some tough questions and deal with the answers you are getting from you. Here are some sample questions:

What are your biggest fears you have?

What makes you believe that you are a good leader?

What would be the highest vision about yourself you can come up with?

There are many more questions to ask and a lot of specific points to observe in your business to know where it is going right now and why. But it would not fit into the scope of this article. The intent is to make you aware that the truth about your business is within you and with the right Coach (I am aware that Coaching is probably the most misunderstood and misused word nowadays.) you will grow your business beyond your expectations. Who is the right coach for you? Only you can answer this, but I encourage you to talk to several coaches and note how you feel about them, before you make a decision.

The world around you is transforming at a very fast pace and it is up to you to learn and keep up with the changes coming along anyway.

Walter H. Groth
Institute for Life and Career Transition