I was thinking about a conversation I had a few months ago with a potential client. They were having challenges in their sales team. Performance was inconsistent. There were frustrations around accountability and results. The kind of issues you see in many businesses at that level. So I got on a call with two of the directors.
And what struck me almost immediately was not the problem itself, but their attitude toward the problem.
There was this underlying tone of, “We should be able to solve this on our own.”
Not said aggressively, but it was there. Almost like frustration that they even had to look outside for support. Like it was a sign that something was wrong.
At the time, I didn’t challenge it directly. But looking back, I realized there was a question I should have asked.
Do you, as a business, actively invest in the growth of your people?
Because in that same conversation, one of the directors mentioned that they actually needed to do some development work anyway. There were requirements they had to meet. But they hadn’t really followed through on it.
And it got me thinking.
How many businesses operate like this?
The owner or leadership team carries this quiet belief that they should be able to fix everything internally. That they should be the ones to guide, teach, and develop their people. That bringing in outside perspective is somehow unnecessary, or even a weakness.
You see it most often in smaller and mid-sized businesses.
And I understand it. When you build something from the ground up, you take ownership of everything. You solve problems. You make things happen. That identity becomes part of how you see yourself as a leader.
But there’s a point where that same strength becomes a limitation.
Werner Erhard spoke a lot about the difference between what we know and what we are actually able to produce. He would say that if something isn’t working, it’s not because you don’t care or you’re not trying. It’s because something in your way of seeing the problem is limiting the result.
In other words, it’s not always about effort. It’s about perspective.
And perspective is very hard to see from inside your own system.
Let me put it another way.
Imagine running a professional football team.
You’ve got talented players. You’ve got resources. You’ve got a clear goal, which is to win.
But you decide there will be no coaches. No external input. No performance specialists. No outside perspective at all.
The players will just figure it out.
They’ll train, they’ll play, they’ll reflect, and over time they’ll improve.
It sounds ridiculous when you say it like that.
No serious team in the world would operate that way.
Because at that level, everyone understands that improvement requires feedback. It requires structure. It requires someone who can see what you can’t see.
Yet in business, this is exactly how many teams operate.
They struggle with the same issues for years. Communication problems. Leadership gaps. Sales inconsistency. Culture challenges.
And instead of stepping outside their own thinking, they double down on it.
They have more meetings. They try harder. They put more pressure on the team.
But nothing really shifts.
George Pransky, who worked extensively in the field of understanding how people create their experience, pointed to something very simple. He said that people don’t need more information. They need new insight.
Information adds to what you already know. Insight changes how you see.
And when how you see changes, your results follow.
That’s why just trying harder inside the same thinking rarely works.
If the current thinking could solve the problem, it would have already done so.
That’s the part many leaders miss.
Nathaniel Branden spoke about self-awareness as one of the core foundations of effective leadership. Not just awareness of your behaviour, but awareness of the thinking driving that behaviour.
Because without that awareness, you stay locked into patterns that feel normal but produce the same results again and again.
I see this often.
A business owner gets frustrated with their team. They believe the issue is the people. So they push harder. They demand more. They try to fix behaviour at the surface level.
But underneath that is a way of thinking that hasn’t been examined. And until that shifts, the pattern continues.
Syd Banks put it simply. He said that all experience comes from thought. Not from circumstance.
That means the frustration, the pressure, the sense that things are not working, it is not coming from the business itself. It is coming from how the business is being thought about.
And that is not something you fix with more effort.
That is something you begin to see.
This is where outside perspective becomes powerful. Not because someone comes in with all the answers, but because they help you see what you could not see on your own.
Byron Katie’s work revolves around one simple idea. Question the thoughts you believe. Because often the stress you feel is not coming from reality, but from the story you are telling about reality.
When leaders begin to question their own assumptions, something opens up. They become less reactive. More curious. More effective.
Michael Neill often says that clarity does not come from more thinking. It comes from less.
And that’s been my experience too.
The biggest shifts I’ve seen in businesses have not come from complex strategies or new systems. They’ve come from moments of clarity. When a leader sees something differently, even slightly, and that change ripples through everything.
Steve Chandler talks about this as creating space for insight. Not filling people up with more to do, but helping them see more clearly.
Because when people see clearly, action becomes obvious.
So when I think back to that conversation with those directors, I don’t see resistance in a negative way.
I see a very common pattern.
Capable people, doing their best, trying to solve problems from within the same thinking that created them.
And that’s not a criticism. It’s just how it works.
But the moment a leader becomes open to a different perspective, everything changes.
John C. Maxwell often says that growth is the only guarantee that tomorrow will be better. But growth does not come from doing more of the same. It comes from seeing something new.
So the real question is not whether you care about your business or your team.
It’s this.
Are you willing to see what you cannot currently see?
Because if you are, then new results become possible.
If you are not, then even with the best intentions, you may find yourself solving the same problems over and over again.
And that is not a resource issue.
It’s a perspective issue.