Why your strategy isn’t working and the hidden driver of performance

The Invisible Barrier to Results

You have the right strategy. You have talented people. You’ve optimized your processes and invested in the latest tools. Yet, friction persists. Initiatives stall, cross-functional collaboration feels like a negotiation, and the same performance issues keep resurfacing despite your best efforts to "fix" them.

Here is the hard truth: You are trying to solve mindset problems with behavioral solutions.

Behavior drives results—that much is true. But what drives behavior? Mindset. Mindset is the lens through which your people see their work, their colleagues, and their objectives. It is the operating system running underneath every interaction in your company.

If that operating system is flawed, no amount of training, incentives, or restructuring will produce lasting change. To transform your organization’s results, you must first transform how your people see.

The Villain: The Inward Mindset

The default state for many organizations—and human beings under pressure—is what we call an Inward Mindset.

When we operate with an inward mindset, we are self-focused. Our objectives, our challenges, and our results are the only things that feel "real" to us. From this perspective, other people—colleagues, customers, direct reports—aren't people with their own valid needs and goals. They are objects.

We see them in one of three ways:

• Vehicles to help us get what we want.
• Obstacles standing in our way.
• Irrelevancies to be ignored.

When your leaders and teams view each other as objects, you get predictable dysfunction. Sales blames Operations for missing targets. Marketing hoards information. Managers micromanage because they view their teams as vehicles for their own success rather than people to develop.

This isn't a "people problem" in the traditional sense. It’s a vision problem. And until you correct the vision, the behavior will never fundamentally change.

The Solution: Seeing People, Not Objects

The shift that unlocks performance is moving to an Outward Mindset.

This doesn't mean "being nice" or "soft." It means seeing reality clearly. When we have an outward mindset, we see others as people who matter, like we matter. We understand that their needs, objectives, and challenges are as real and legitimate as our own.

This shift changes everything about how we work.

Instead of asking, "How can I get them to do what I want?", a leader with an outward mindset asks, "How can I help them achieve their objectives in a way that helps the organization?"

Suddenly, the focus shifts from self-preservation to collective results.

Why This Shifts Performance (Not Just Culture)

When an organization operates with an outward mindset, you stop managing friction and start unleashing potential.

• Collaboration becomes natural: You don’t need to force silos to break down. When people see how their work impacts others, they naturally adjust their efforts to be more helpful.
• Accountability increases: People stop blaming others for failures ("They didn't send me the data") and start taking responsibility for their impact ("I didn't follow up to ensure they had what they needed").
• Innovation accelerates: Instead of protecting their turf, teams focus on solving the real problems facing the organization and the customer.

You can’t mandate this shift. You can’t policy your way into it. You have to equip your people to see it, choose it, and sustain it.

Are you ready to stop managing symptoms and start solving the root cause?

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Is "mindset" just another word for personality or attitude? 

A: No. Personality is inherent; mindset is a choice. You can have a "difficult" personality but still operate with an outward mindset—seeing others’ needs and adjusting your efforts to help. Conversely, someone with a "nice" personality can be deeply inward, seeing others only as vehicles for their own validation. Mindset is about how we see others, not who we are.

Q: Can you actually measure mindset? 

A: Yes. You measure it by its impact. We look at metrics like "horizontal alignment" (how well departments support each other), collaborative problem solving, and the reduction of blame/conflict. Organizations shifting to an outward mindset see measurable improvements in retention, efficiency, and revenue because the internal friction costs disappear.

Q: Does an outward mindset mean putting others’ needs above the business goals? 

A: Not at all. In fact, an outward mindset is the most direct path to achieving business goals. It focuses on collective results rather than individual agendas. It allows leaders to have difficult conversations and make hard decisions quickly because they are focused on what is right for the organization, not on protecting themselves.