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This post of the Time for Transformation blog is brought to you by Discover HR Consulting. Discover HR Consulting exists to assist clients with creating an exceptional employee and customer experience through personal and organizational transformation by leveraging human resources.
Allow me to introduce myself!
Welcome to the Time for Transformation blog. The Time for Transformation blog exists to transform us and our organizations from the inside out by applying biblical principles and best practices to all aspects of our lives, including business.
Today’s post is titled The Experience Effect and is the very first post of the Time for Transformation blog. There’s no better time for transformation than right now so let’s get started!
Let’s get to the point
What we are experiencing externally within our own lives and organizations is a manifestation of what exists internally. I’ll repeat that one more time. What we are experiencing externally within our own lives and organizations is a manifestation of what exists internally. Allow me to shed some light on this concept with a couple of examples. Internally you value quality time with your spouse which manifests itself externally through evening walks, date nights, and weekend getaways. Internally your organization values innovation which manifests itself externally through new products and services. This concept can manifest in nonbeneficial ways too. For example, internally you harbor bitterness towards another person so you avoid them. Internally your organization values artificial harmony over honesty which shows through unproductive meetings and inefficient processes. Our internal makeup always manifests itself externally. I’ll say that again, our internal makeup always manifests itself externally. This is an irrefutable principle that serves as the foundation for what I call the Experience Effect. Consider these verses. “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thorn bushes, or grapes from briers. A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” Luke 6: 43-45
In other words, you can’t fake who you are because your words and deeds will always reflect what is on the inside. This internal makeup drives the day-to-day experiences we have, our internal makeup also effects the experiences of others, which ultimately contributes to the Experience Effect. We are all impacted by the Experience Effect. Consider experiences in your own life such as your most recent employment experience. Was your experience inspirational, motivating you to produce at a high level or was the experience disheartening, causing you to disengage. Think of an experience you’ve had as a customer. There’s a reason you return to the same stores and restaurants and recommend them to others. Your experience impacted you, for better or worse.
So, what exactly is the Experience Effect? The Experience Effect is a holistic method of how to approach life. It is a way in which we operate. The Experience Effect is a philosophy that recognizes we can impact our own experiences in life as well as the experiences of others. The Experience Effect is a call to transformation, from the inside out, for the purpose of experiencing life to the fullest. The way life was intended to be. This leads us to a question; how do we and our organizations experience transformation from the inside out? I’m going to be unpacking the answer to that question over the next few posts. The answer to that question is the key to living out The Experience Effect, an approach to life that requires us to take ownership, to own how we treat ourselves and others. If we take ownership, we can be a part of engineering some of life’s greatest moments!
Less conversation more action
To begin applying the Experience Effect in our own lives and to see the ripple effects in our own organizations we need to take an internal inventory of what is in our mind, heart, and soul. By mind I mean your thoughts or thought life, by heart I mean your motives, intentions, and desires, and by soul, I mean your core values, the essence of who you are. This is an important step because it will reveal how our internal makeup correlates to our words and deeds. What we say and don’t say. What we do and don’t do. For this to hit home we need to make the connection between the internal and the external. After these connections are made start pinpointing how a thought, desire, or core value translates to the way you speak and act. Retain the thoughts, desires, and core values that translate to healthy outcomes and identify current as well as new methods of how to fuel these healthy outcomes. Red flag the thoughts, desires, and core values that translate to unhealthy outcomes and conduct a deep dive of what is fueling these unhealthy outcomes. Once you identify the source cut it off at the root and stop fueling these unhealthy outcomes with thoughts, desires, and core values that are destructive to your life. This is a process that we need to repeat until we are in a cadence of living out healthy habits that reflect who we were created to be. Because who we are on the inside is far more important than what we do on the outside. Who we are will determine what we do, how we do it, and why we do what we do. Have you ever noticed when making small talk people ask, what do you do for a living? I’m guilty of this too. We are asking the less important question. We should be asking who are you? That’s a harder but more beneficial question because this question gets to the core. The core that resides within, the core that rises to the surface each day. “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7
So, let me ask, who are you? Really, who are you on the inside? Pause and explore your internal composition, your mind, heart, and soul. Consider how your internal composition contributes to the experiences you and others have. How has your internal composition contributed to experiences within your organization? How has the internal composition of others contributed to experiences within your organization? After all, organizations are made up of people and what those people “bring to the table” originates from within.
The ultimate goal of transformation from the inside out is to close the Experience Gap. The Experience Gap is the distance between the life we desire and our current reality. In order to close the Employee Experience Gap we must apply the Experience Effect to our organizations as well. I’ll be expanding on how to apply the Experience Effect as a business model in upcoming posts.
Closing time
Understand that transformation from the inside out is a continual process and the Experience Effect is a life-long journey. Transformation takes time and cannot be rushed. Rushing transformation only leads to surface level results which will ultimately crack under pressure. So, I leave you with this question.
Will you make the time for transformation?
Thanks for reading.
Until the next post.