Can you guess what it is?

Whenever I bring it out in front of CEO’s, business owners or sales people they shriek in horror and turn away insisting that I remove it from their presence.  I have seen senior executives tremble in fear at the very idea that I would use this hideous tool in their organization.  Virtually every group I work with insists that my particular version of this tool is broken even though I can prove it is functioning normally.

What is even stranger is that this tool has been around for thousands of years and has ALWAYS produced the same reaction.  Even stranger still is the fact that those people who use this tool properly almost always end up being the most successful people in our society.  They use it so frequently that they become comfortable with its power and help others to use it effectively as well.

So what is this tool that can produce both visceral fear and phenomenal success?

A mirror

That’s right, a mirror.  Simply put, all of us have a very difficult time seeing ourselves or our businesses as we or they really are.  The problem is that a true mirror doesn’t see all of the “stuff” about you that we feel like it should like our feelings, our opinions, our values, even our past…it simply reflects.   And what it reflects can be so completely different than what we thought it would be, that we fight it with every part of our being.

It can even be organizational.  I was visiting with the executive team of a technology business a few weeks ago and they were telling me all about the massive business they were going to be closing within the next few months.  I was elated to hear this since the last time I visited with them they did not have any real opportunities nor did they have any lead process in place to generate any leads.

So I asked the simple question about which companies they would be closing within the near term.  The subject quickly changed into some new features they would be adding to their product that would take the world by a storm.  As I probed further I found out that there were no new opportunities since I last saw them (earlier in the year) and there STILL was no lead process in place.  I don’t believe they had a company in their sites who would take their product for free!

This would be humorous if it weren’t so pervasive.  I have yet to meet a person or organization which doesn’t distort the reflection to some degree to fit their own view of how it should look…including me.  However, I learned long ago that to truly improve and grow in all areas of life means that we have to accept the reflection the way it really is so we can work on those things which will lead to the highest level of growth.

So do yourself and your company and favor and pull a mirror out of the back room where it is kept under lock and key and simply bring it out, look at the reflection as it really is and then take an inventory of what you see.  It isn’t easy but it is simple.  Don’t be afraid of what you see either.  It’s okay not to be perfect since the most successful people and companies on the planet understand this completely.

They bring the mirror out for themselves and their organizations WEEKLY and simply ask everyone…without fear of repurcusion…what they see.  They take stock of the good and bad and work on negating or eliminating the bad (you never work on improving the bad…just negating or eliminating…but that is another post) and then pour your efforts into improving the good.

You will find that over time the mirror loses its ability to terrify you and your company and you look upon it as one of the best high growth tools you can employ.