You Can't Have a New Vision With Old Thinking

Have you tried to change your vision? Or maybe elevated your thinking and your vision has changed? And yet many people around you signed up for your old thinking? What now?

I find it interesting to hear people say “we used to do it like this” or “I’m frustrated because it used to be like this.” I get that change is so hard. And our first instinct is to go back to the way it used to be.

In the Salon industry, some of the most successful salons including our salon did it a certain way. And that certain way was, we trained people for years before they could have a chance to start cutting hair. They would apprentice for 2 years and then finally after 2 more years of building a client base they would get on the floor and start seeing a change in pay. Then it would take at least 5 years before they were making money and seeing rewards.

These new millennials and Gen Z- Generation are teaching us differently. Are we ready to listen? They want training at warp speed. They want to run and learn as they run. And I don’t really blame them. I never heard them say I don’t want to get good. They say I want to get better at a much faster pace then you did.

I see it in my kids. They challenge me as to why I do it this way. My 17-year-old is figuring out how to make $20.00 an hour. She won’t take no for an answer. She doesn’t want to work all night and day and weekends. She wants to be creative and figure it out. And I need to support her in her efforts and not get in the way!

Watching my daughters grow and challenge my thinking has really allowed me to realize that there is more than just one way of looking at things. There might be a better way.

The crazy thing is if they did it on their own, they would fail their way forward. Instead, what we want to do is make them an expert before they have the opportunity to fail forward.

So the way I used to think about our training is not working and has not worked for a long time. So why do we keep doing the same thing over and over and expect different results? Isn't that the definition of insanity?

In order for us to have a new vision, we need new thinking. We need to end old beliefs and move onto new ones.

We need to listen to people who work in our environment and pay attention to their needs. We need to get uncomfortable and give up old thinking and start implementing new training that supports our New Vision.

We have to give up the fear that we might not be as good, fear that we are dropping the standard, the fear, and control that if we do it differently we are not going to be at the top.

I Challenged old beliefs and started asking questions like…

How am I listening to the needs of your team? 

How am I creating a new system and training that supports your vision? 

How am I creating a new vision? 

How am I going to model and adapt to new beliefs for my team?

Every time you are tempted to react in the same old way, ask if you want to be a prisoner of the past or pioneer of the future. ~ Deepak Chopra.