If organizations could fix these three things, most businesses would thrive again.
Jesse sat in my office shaking his head. His business was grossing millions of dollars in sales, yet his bottom line was miserable. Not only was he discouraged about his results, he felt he had lost control of his employees and it was difficult for him to continue going into work each day. Burned out and overwhelmed, Jesse reached out for help.
When times are good, it is easy for most leaders to feel that their company is manageable. When the business is making money and work and customers continue to flow in, there is a tendency to overlook the blatant challenges the company faces internally. If you are facing hard times, here are the three most probable reasons why your business is struggling right now.
1. Complacency:
When times are good our team tends to get lazy, we feel that the good times will continue to roll and we don’t have to pay attention to the details. These details include taking care of our customers, looking after our premises, sloppiness in our processes including our financial management, meetings, and hiring and firing. “Good enough” creeps into the culture of our employees and before we know it as economic times change, “good enough” doesn’t cut it anymore. Complacency in the workplace and in the boardroom of our business is one of the top reasons businesses fail and competition thrives.
2. Lack of Accountability:
If there is one thing that can sink a company faster than a cryptocurrency hedge fund on the stock market, it is a lack of accountability. When we don’t hold ourselves and our employees accountable to results, our company is heading for trouble. If you employees are disengaged, your productivity and performance are poor, staff are skipping work on a regular basis, and are not getting their jobs completed on time and on budget you have accountability issues. If you have drama, conflict, theft, disorder, or dysfunction in the workplace, you probably have a problem with accountability. When we keep our teams and everyone who is part of those teams accountable for doing their jobs and the tasks that are associated with those responsibilities, our businesses tend to thrive. Fail to keep just a few people accountable and your whole team will suffer.
3. Lack of Consistency
To say that most entrepreneurs have trouble with focus and you might be overstepping. However, many leaders struggle with consistency in their organization for a number of reasons that include lack of planning, lack of focus and too many interruptions. When we fail to have consistency with our employees, with delivery of our product or service, with our communications, we are headed for trouble. Recently I was working with a successful business who forgot they needed to advertise. They had been consistent for years but lost focus and lost customers. To get their phones ringing again all we had to do was come up with a consistent program of communication with their clients. Businesses, employees and their customers all need consistency in order to be successful. Lack consistency and you will lack stability in the company.
You may not believe that by changing these three areas you can turn around a business, however I have seen it multiple times where leaders have put some effort into making changes in one or more of these areas with incredible results. When times are difficult we need to make difficult decisions and get our people to step up or step out. Most of your team will step up and by engaging your people in a process that changes the culture of your company, your company will thrive once again.
Dave FullerMBA, is an Award Winning Business Coach and the Author of the books “Profit Yourself Healthy” and “Pivotal Performance”. Not sure where to start? Email dave@pivotleader.com