I was at a BNI meeting this morning (BNI Excellence in Kuala Lumpur) and got speaking to Lenny about her spa business. She explained to me some of the issues that she faced and we dug deeper into them using the Seven Whys technique. Then we started talking about visualisation and its ability to power business transformation. This post is about the power of visualisation and business transformation.
I am a big fan of meditation. It is great for entrepreneurs and business owners to bring a sense of balance and gratitude into their lives. This technique I learned from Vishen Lakhiani at Mind Valley. He taught me that visualising how you want you day to go is a really powerful way of getting the best days that you can. He then took it a stage further by encouraging me to visualise my life in 3 years time. As you visualise the perfect life you tend to live more of that life with no additional effort. It transforms you.
What I have found is that you can apply the same techniques to business. You can apply it to either your business as a whole or a process within it.
How to Transform Your Business Using Visualisation
It is very simple.
Step 1:
Sit down in a space where you won’t be disturbed for ten to fifteen minutes
Step 2:
Put some gentle background music on to hide distracting noises.
Step 3:
Take 3 – 5 deep breaths – exhaling through the mouth – to help you get rid of all your other worries.
Step 4:
Visualise the business as it should be working. Visualise it as absolutely perfect. Imagine every detail in your minds eye.
Step 5:
Think this through for 5 to 15 minutes
Step 6:
Repeat once a day or once a week
That’s it.
There are a few small things that you need to remember when you are doing this.
First of all it is a FANTASY. It’s a daydream. So when your mind starts going negative on you and focusing on all the things that go wrong, all the problems, all the reasons why it is not and cannot be perfect……Let those thoughts go away. Focus on your fantasy
Secondly do it regularly. Doing it once is ok. Doing it daily is much much better.
Why Visualisation Transforms Businesses
The reason it works is that by setting up a vision in your mind of the way that things ought to be you automatically start making reality conform to your vision. In psychological speak – you are giving your subconscious instructions in the visualisation. Then you subconsciously take lots of actions to make the vision come true.
This is because when you imagine a positive state it becomes far easier, psychologically, to take steps towards it.
“If I want this so much then everything that I do is a step towards it”
Examples of Visualisation and Business Transformation
Consider two situations.
A staff member has not done what she has been trained to do. You get angry and correct her. The chances are you are correcting her to the training plan. The training plan is derived from the business plan. The business plan from the strategy. If you are like most small businesses these are all dry and incomplete. So you move the staff member from a failure state to a meh state.
In the other case you have a clear idea, a daydream, of how the staff member should have delivered the massage. It’s possible very tactile with touch, smell and visuals involved. In the day dream you see how the staff member cares about the customer. You see how the customer responds and the human, emotional connection is made. Then as a business owner you move the staff member towards that fantasy.
Your fantasy is a true and strong guide
Using it enables you to empower employees, and yourself, throughout every aspect of your business. The results can be radical.
Example of Visualisation and Business Transformation
I used it when working for an event company in this process optimisation case study and it cut the delivery time significantly. Since I wrote the case study we actually get all the volunteers working on site to do a 5 minute visualisation mediation after they have watched a training video. Kaboom. Great results, faster implementation. Less training.
Try it. Visualisation and business transformation is low cost, easy to implement and has no downside risk.
Visualisation is a powerful tool for transforming businesses. I have several hundred other tools that have a powerful impact on your business. Contact me for our first call
