It’s time to take the next evolutionary step on the path of business success. While the step seems obvious, as many have noted common sense is often quite uncommon. More than ever businesses need to initiate new and varied approaches to connecting and collaborating with their customers and employees, especially actively soliciting their feedback and ideas. Yet, too often many business owners or chief decision-makers hesitate or hover in the shadows. While others will harangue you with: “I’m wrestling with the bottom line; I don’t have time for that soft stuff!” Or even worse, they rationalize that the moment’s not right or believe that they’re simply on a temporary holding pattern and will be launching any day, week, month, or year now. Of course, some folks subscribe to that “live for the moment” mantra: "Hard work has a future payoff. Laziness pays off NOW!" Alas, these digital daze, there are many folks, not just Californians, for whom instant gratification takes way too long.

Seriously, though, when it comes to avoidance or procrastination many are quick to acknowledge the problem and, of course, are slow to do something about it. However, you can overcome inertia by clearly understanding key mind barriers that keep individuals and companies from fully embracing and embarking on that high task and high touch path. The right blend of insight, imagination and action builds the roadmap for success. So if knowledge is empowering and you’re ready to perceive with fresh eyes, have a more open and adventurous heart beat, and want to move smartly into a new innovative gear… Here are “Top Ten Obstacles" to improving business performance and profitability, distractions keeping you from taking your business To The MAX:

1. Time Pressures. "Where are we going to find the time to do this?" We're already overloaded!" An often understandable lament, however the question really does deserve to be high on your priority list. First, not integrating new approaches into your operational procedures may well have a financial cost greater than you realize; it may also be draining your energy resources and capacity for focused concentration. Likely lurking in your subconscious is that proverbial gorilla in the room you keep trying to wish away. In addition, have these time pressures contributed to operational error, dropping the ball or even to staff turnover?

Next, doing a time management audit has two other advantages: you may discover the difference between “urgent and important.” Remember, urgent really is life and death; everything else can be prioritized. Also, by stepping back from the temporal tempest, you just may discover a way to streamline some of the process, with a dividend of energy and clarity for experimenting and integrating anew.

2. Stress Overload. Clearly, time pressure generates stress: first comes “brain strain,” then fatigue, maybe exhaustion and cynicism, and, if the adrenaline overload is chronic, and you’re still trying to be the Lone Ranger or Rangerette…welcome to the burnout battlefront. Then again, the problem is not just one of burning out. Are you on the verge of burning or blowing up? The patience fuse is getting shorter and shorter and the people around you are feeling the heat and sparks.

Conversely, chronic stress also makes some folks “hunker in their bunker;” they become more conservative, withdrawn and less confident in their thinking, communicating and problem analysis. You might consider a long getaway weekend at a health spa. More than simply a “stress brake,” you may relax and free your conscious and unconscious mind enough to take an “incubation vacation” – to refresh your focus and hatch a new perspective.

3. Lacking Perspective and Experience. Some business owners have little or no experience as a frontline employee. They lack understanding about the implied contract and set of expectations that many employees bring to the workplace. Such expectations and beliefs include:

a. I’m depending on you to provide me with tools and resources to effectively perform my job,

b. I’m trusting you to make the right business decisions that sustain the business, your customers and and your personnel,

c. I am counting on you to value and support our success and pave the way for pay raises, promotions, and new avenues for growth, for offering those organizational IRAs – Incentives, Recognition-Rewards and Advancement Opportunities.

4. Are You Going the Way of the Dinosaur? More than ever, a successful business owner must be customer attuned to be savvy. In a 24/7 wired world, where customers have so many more purchase sites and venues to choose from, potential buyers desire the chance to interact and to dialogue – both electronically and face-to-face. Having potential buyers part of the product, purchase and post-purchase process, even engaged with a community of customers, is increasingly essential for companies that want and want to keep customer business. Otherwise, with a click of a button your customer is off to the next option. Today, business as usual must be business that’s visible, virtual and mutual.

5. Underdeveloped Emotional Intelligence. Many people go into business based on experience and expertise in a technical-, engineering-, numbers-driven-, product-development- or manufacturing-related field, where logical and analytical cognitive skills along with personal ambition and competitive drive seemed sufficient to determine performance outcomes. However, success in such a role doesn’t necessarily nurture the social-emotional mindset and skill-set essential for relating to and connecting with a diversified and individualized customer and employee base.

Today’s business owner must develop and demonstrate a capacity for “Emotional Intelligence” – a wide array of competencies and skills that drive leadership performance, that is, an ability to identify, assess and control the emotions of oneself, of others and of groups (Wikipedia). Daniel Goleman, the acclaimed popularizer of EI, posits four main constructs:

a. Self-awareness – the ability to read one's emotions and recognize their impact while using gut feelings to guide decisions

b. Self-management – involves controlling one's emotions and impulses and adapting to changing circumstances

c. Social awareness – the ability to sense, understand, and react to others' emotions while comprehending social networks

d. Relationship management – the ability to inspire, influence, and develop others while managing conflict.

So remember, along with a quality product and/or service, a capacity for honest self-awareness and human connection – that is, an ability to not only walk in people’s shoes but also, and especially, to feel their bunions, soften their calluses as well as encourage and guide their journey – increasingly is the foundation for today’s successful business venture.

Stay tuned for Part II. Until then…Practice Safe Stress!

[This article is based on a collaboration with Jeff Peden, speaker and author of Take Your Business to the Max: The Ultimate Strategy for Profits and Growth; [url=http://www.jeff.peden.com]www.jeff.peden.com[/url]]

Mark Gorkin, MSW, LICSW, "The Stress Doc" ™, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, is an acclaimed keynote and kickoff speaker as well as "Motivational Humorist & Team Communication Catalyst" known for his interactive, inspiring and FUN programs for both government agencies and major corporations. In addition, the "Doc" is a team building and organizational development consultant. He is providing "Stress and Communication, as well as Managing Change, Leadership and Team Building" programs for the 1st Cavalry Division and 13th Expeditionary Support Command, Ft. Hood, Texas and for Army Community Services and Family Advocacy Programs at Ft. Meade, MD and Ft. Belvoir, VA as well as Andrews Air Force Base/Behavioral Medicine Services. Mark has also rotated as a Military & Family Life Consultant (MFLC) at Ft. Campbell, KY. A former Stress and Violence Prevention Consultant for the US Postal Service, The Stress Doc is the author of Practice Safe Stress and of The Four Faces of Anger. See his award-winning, USA Today Online "HotSite" -- www.stressdoc.com -- called a "workplace resource" by National Public Radio (NPR). For more info on the Doc's "Practice Safe Stress" programs or to receive his free e-newsletter, email stressdoc@aol.com or call 301-875-2567.