March 2007
"Does Your Business or Career Measure Up to Your Expectations?"
Helping businesses and business leaders plan for the future is a core activity for Win Win Workplace Solutions. We passionately believe in the power of planning and creating a vision for the future, because we see how it works all the time.
It's exciting for us to see our clients achieve the goals they set for themselves. However, there is nothing more powerful than realizing you have achieved a vision you had for your company several years ago. And that is what we are experiencing at Win Win Workplace Solutions right now.
Four years ago, I envisioned Win Win becoming a multi-disciplinary consulting firm that would be a catalyst for organizational change by offering innovative programs that focused on corporate emotional fitness and employee personal development.
At the beginning of the year, Rick Kiel joined me as a managing partner; and we have three very experienced consultants with widely different backgrounds who have joined the Win Win Consulting Team. The
Vision from four years ago is becoming a reality.
The path to this Vision began with my committing to a process that is now the Career Transformation Workbook that we use to help others take their businesses and careers to the next level. At that time, two colleagues and I talked about building a consulting practice together. However, we first used the CT Workbook process to lead us to a preliminary business plan.
Before developing the more traditional pieces of a business plan, we each reflected on our strengths, talents, personal dreams, and values (in all aspects of our life, not just business or career). At the end of the process, we realized that going into business together at that time was not the right thing to do. Not because we couldn't work together or we didn't like the work, but because the financial risks of starting up a boutique consulting practice ran counter to each of our dreams and wants for other areas of our life -- family, financial, and social -- at that time.
While we knew we would work well together and would enjoy the work we would be doing, we realized that the expectations in the other areas of our lives could eventually pull us apart.
One of those two friends realized that she needed a business with a high earning potential, designed so that it could eventually be run by employees and had minimal start-up risks. She bought a franchise and brought a unique business to Pasadena whose primary target client is working families with school-aged children. The other day she told me that her franchise is now number one in the nation.
The other friend, though passionate about consulting work, wanted the financial security and opportunities found in a corporate environment. He decided on a career path that allowed him to continue to develop his consulting skills as an Internal Consultant in a corporate environment. You will read more about this journey, because this friend is Rick Kiel who is the new Win Win partner.
While taking four years may seem slow to some of you, the lessons learned with my previous businesses taught me that it is better for me to take time to develop the right partners because of my core values:
- Maintaining a professional consciousness that places the client first.
- Honesty, integrity, trust, and ethical behavior at all time.
- Expressing a genuine caring and respect for others.
- High quality, competent, and meaningful services.
- Practical, client-centered solutions that are a good value.
- Efficiency, effectiveness, and responsibility.
These values lead me to, as one of my business colleagues recently called it, a "Life Style" career as opposed to building a business that is largely based around financial growth.
That doesn't mean that my colleague who is a serial entrepreneur and on his fifth or sixth successful company is wrong.
It is that our career paths reflect the different needs we have for our lives and our sense of success.
In our work, it is not uncommon for us to find business partners who after the first few years begin to clash because their personal needs and expectations outside of the business are different and cause them to have different expectations for their business. We work with these partners to help them find solutions that keep their businesses strong while allowing them to each have a career that's in alignment with all areas of their life.
Does your business or career match up to your expectations? Do you have a vision for your future or just business goals for this year?
If you are not comfortable with your answer, let us help you transform your business or your career so that you can achieve your full potential.
To Your Business Success!
Gail