WHY FEAR IS PARALYZING YOUR BUSINESS PART 1
actual cause of this fear? Also, how does fear impact the team's performance?
ADAM STRONG AUTHOR, SPEAKER, PRODUCTIVITY COACH, PODCASTER Adam Strong is a former elite athlete who trained with Olympic gold-medalist Mo Farah. He has taken the principles of discipline, focus, and productivity and applied them to business to help entrepreneurs and medium-sized companies deliver fast and effective results. Adam is the creator of ‘Accelerated outcomes’ an 87-day online coaching course designed to increase speed, productivity, and profits, take a look here!
20 INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE MAGAZINE
Over the past few weeks, I have come across countless examples of how fear becomes the ultimate culture killer! I’m a big football fan, which has changed so much over the past 10 years with foreign investors taking over clubs and turning them into business enterprises. Football has become very much about the results both on and off the field leading to regular media reports of how teams and managers fear getting the boot. This week it was quoted in the Metro newspaper, the Chelsea team fears that their manager Antonio Conte is going to be sacked before the end of the season due to the mixed results from the start of the season. I don’t wish anyone to be sacked however, I am fascinated by where this fear has come from? What’s the
In football, a culture of blame is created if results aren’t going your way. Normally, fingers are pointing straight at the manager in charge. Sports teams are always under pressure to perform at their best. Investors can be ruthless if a team is underperforming. If you’re a football player and you read a story in the newspaper, whether it is true or not, what does that do to the mindset of the players? What happens to the team chemistry, and how does it change the behavior of the players? Does fear exist in your organization?
Most organizations have some kind of fear that holds back their full potential. Fear is disruptive. It can slow organizations down (analysis by paralysis), causes hesitation, unnecessary stress and anxiety, and holds back employees from helping them grow. We recently took on a new client that needed our help. The CEO had a massive fear of failure ingrained into his DNA. We interviewed some of the staff and clients. They were becoming concerned that their CEO’s fear of failure would become a reality. He wanted to grow and scale the business, but he was holding the organiza-
