“Watch your thoughts
                                       They become your words
Watch your words
                                       They become your actions
Watch your actions
                                       They become your habits
Watch your habits
                                       They become your character
Watch your character
                                       It becomes your life
Watch too, the tone of your words
                                      They are a two-way mirror
Allowing people to see into your motives
                                      And reflecting the results back into your life.”

                                                                                            (Unknown)   

A beautiful and rather profound way of saying that one’s thinking governs one’s experience. Something that, if it is true for life in general, must also be true in business and at work.

So then, how much of our experience at work is determined by our attitudes? This is perhaps a question that has even more relevance for managers and executives, suggesting as it does that business performance is determined by their thinking.  

These might not actually be questions you have ever asked yourself, but this truism is the very essence of what Zealise is about. For the whole Zealise service offering is premised on the fact that employees are regarded as an expense. As a Price Waterhouse report quoted in this week’s Top Consultant Newsletter says, “Employment costs can account for up to two thirds of business costs and, in times of market uncertainty, it is unsurprising that CEOs put pressure on their HR and finance functions to manage these costs closely.”

This thinking underpins the often knee-jerk reaction to make people redundant during bad economic times and is why one of the major concerns about whether we are or aren’t going into a recession is the impact on employment. For investors looking to maintain their earnings, and managers charged with ensuring they do, the bottom-line is key, and understandably, reducing people costs is a fundamental, if expedient, way of doing so. 

What is this, if not a behaviour determined by thinking? Consequently, the only way to change behaviour is to change thinking. This is precisely what our method of treating people as assets will do.

Investors and managers already say they regard people as assets, but it is a case where their words don’t actually follow their thinking, because of the ingrained, constantly reinforced, attitude of thinking of employees as costs. By inducing investors and managers to value people as assets as they already claim they do, Zealise will shape changes in behaviour that will make the mirror a far more pleasant experience for them all.

For a clearer understanding of our service offering please have a closer look at our newly revamped website and/or download our white-paper, “Lighting the Fuse.”