A lot of marketing professionals say, the best new customer is an existing customer – because we all know we can do more business with our existing customers and its way easier to grow an existing customer than land a brand new one.

I say we should think the same way about our #1 resource (employees).

Hidden and unrealized potential bottled up in your existing employees is probably the greatest untapped resource available to you. Inside of almost all human organizations; cultures, organizational structures, and individual’s limiting beliefs can stifle potential instead of unleashing it.

We are so quick to think the next hire will solve everything, or if we just change the organizational structure. It typically doesn’t. It was a phenomenal waste of time this time, last time, and will be the next time. By the way that’s the definition of insanity – doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.

Swapping people out, moving people around, all results in ACTIVITY. If at the end of the day, companies were judged by activity – then I definitely know of some companies that would skyrocket to the top. Unfortunately for those companies, we are not judged by activity, we are judged by results. Results and activity do not go hand in hand. In fact useless activity is a negative death spiral because it not only produces no results, it burns people out, and kills morale.

You have to find a way to look at your resources unbiased by your limiting beliefs about them. You have to figure out a way to change your perspective in order to fully appreciate their potential. I work with companies all the time who are looking for a specific new hire and there is a person that precisely fits the role in their organization already. The organization can’t get out of its own way to see the potential that is right in front of them. So they go outside because “new” means unlimited potential, which frequently equates to a really slow learning curve and nothing near the potential that was promised in the interview process.

It’s a two way street; both companies and employees co-create a limiting belief about each other. New people, at least for a while believe in a larger set of possibilities.

If you are an employee who feels they have a lot more to give, are you waiting for someone to ask or are you proactively offering your services? If you lead an organization, take a fresh look at the human potential on your current team – do you have people in a position to thrive?

Here are a couple brutally honest questions…

What’s your ideal employee?

Now the hard question:
Are you the kind of company that would attract that kind of employee?

What’s your ideal company to work for?

Now the hard question:
Are you the kind of employee that would attract an opportunity at a company like that?