Change Your Self-Beliefs

The first step to change is inside your own company. Inside your own hearts.

• Gaurav Rastogi
• 25 Oct. 2016

We’re discussing how your company needs to reintroduce itself to your clients frequently to avoid being put into the “friend-zone” that might prevent access to new business opportunities. There are six steps, discussed in my post here, and we’re on the second step.

This is called a “pivot” in Silicon Valley

YouTube started as a video dating site, but pivoted into a web video sharing site. Google was a search engine “organize the world’s information”, but pivoted into a platform to serve ads to the world’s billions of internet users. Twitter was a podcasting network before it pivoted into the breaking news HQ of the world, and is pivoting again into the unknown.

"When times change, your company will change with them."

But it’s not enough to change the words. You have to buy into the meaning of this change. Twitter, for example, is still going through an extended and fairly open process of self-discovery. What is their reason to exist? If they don’t find one quickly, the company will disappear into the same trash heap of history that holds United States Leather Company, which was one of the largest companies in the world in 1900 but doesn’t exist anymore, Circuit City, Blockbuster, Motorola and Nokia.

When times change...

When the Indian systems integrators were born two decades ago, they were suppliers of cheap talent into the global economy. As they grew, their sense of mission evolved with them, and these companies (TCS, Infosys, Cognizant) began to change their self-belief in line. Now they were “partners” to their clients, and their mission was to solve complex business problems. The belief wasn’t defined by a specific offering or a technology, but in the way they engaged with their customers. But now these companies are struggling to deal with their new mission. How do they pivot into “digital transformation” when their current service mix was sold five to ten years ago?

Do you believe all those things you want others to believe about yourself?

Take some time to answer these questions

• • Why does your company exist?
• • What is the nature of your relationship with your customers?
• • What problems are you solving for customers?
• • What has changed in the environment (customer needs, competitive products, new technology, usage habits and so on)?
• • What impact do these changes have on your company’s solutions, the problems you are solving, the nature of your relationships, and your reason for existence?
• • What will be the new “you”? What progress are you making towards that direction?
• • How do you know your move is working for your clients?
• • What are the early signs that your new mission has been accepted by your customers?
• •How will other customers know the difference between the old you and the new you?

Hire a Coach to help with this mirror talk.

Your coach can serve as your mirror, giving you a place to practice with confidence and giving your frank feedback. Your coach’s job isn’t to sweet-talk you, or to give you a script that you can regurgitate. The coach’s job is to offer you a mirror. If you don’t like what you see, don’t change the mirror.

Your belief in your new beliefs should be complete.   Sounds redundant, but If you haven’t made that transition completely, all other future steps towards reintroduction will fail, because you will still be riddled with self-doubt. This is the platform on which your pivot will hinge

Have you changed what you believe about yourself?