I am often amazed at the efforts that many business leaders put into making themselves and their businesses smaller. Yes. You heard me right—making their businesses smaller. A major challenge threatens them and instead of finding the positive side and seeing the opportunity, they shrink from it and try to find a way to cut back somewhere to fill the gap.

Take the current business climate in California. A quick survey of the Chambers of Commerce throughout the state will tell you their major focus is on getting legislators to pass laws to lower the cost for companies to do business. Most of this cost cutting revolves around lowering workers comp benefits, freezing the minimum wage, and stopping legislation that would require more employers to provide health care for their employees. These all focus on making business smaller. In effect, what business members are telling their legislators is, “We don’t believe in our ability to provide enough value to our customers to make a profit, so let’s find a way to make our expenses and our businesses smaller at the expense of our employees.”

These businesses and the chambers are spending gross amounts of time and money trying to justify making their businesses smaller. What would happen, if instead, all this effort and money were directed into growing their businesses? What if instead of trying to find ways to cut benefits to employees or cut their work force, they went to their employees and asked them to help them add value to the business?

This is what expansive, positive oriented business leaders do to stay competitive. In his book, The Great Game of Business, author and business owner Jack Stack implemented this practice in his business and found phenomenal gains. He took his company from the brink of bankruptcy and turned it into a leading business in his market. He did it by being proactive and asking his employees to take ownership of the value of the company.

Is this easy? Not in the short term. But it is empowering. It moves business leaders into the proactive universe of expansion and abundance. In the long term, it is easier and a lot more fun. It’s much easier to harness the energy of a proactive workforce that believes in the company. It is much harder to make gains with disgruntled employees. How do you want to spend your time and energy? Focused on cuts and skimping or energized by expansion and abundance? The next time a major challenge faces your company are you going to expand to accept the challenge, or contract and run from it? Your future happiness and success depend on your answer.

Business consultant and professional speaker Michael Clark has been helping businesses including Fortune 500 companies such as IBM and Cellular One succeed for over 20 years. Michael is an authority on getting business owners out of overwhem and getting the most out of their businesses. His is a serial entrepreneur having opened multiple successful businesses over the last 12 years. Before that he had a successful career in finance and accounting for large corporations. He has been interviewed on radio, tv, and in print, as well as been a featured speaker at The Learning Annex, Rotary, and other business and professional groups.

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