What got you here, it won’t necessarily take you to the next level.
The research from executive coach, Marshall Goldsmith, shows that successful managers and directors tend to attribute their success to their behaviors, whether good or bad. That’s why those successful managers tend to have a hard time letting go of bad habits.
Here are four bad business habits to quit today.
1. Delaying Investment Decisions
It seems like it’s never the right time to make an investment. Now in 2015 that the American economy is clearly showing signs of growth, all businesses are rushing to prepare for the additional consumer demand and opportunities for growth.
However, the Great Recession was officially over back in 2009. It has been over five years, since things started improving for the U.S. economy. If your business is among the crowd that is just now getting prepared to start growing, you have to realize that it would have been so much wiser to have done the necessary investments much earlier.
When it comes to contract management, some businesses continue to delay the adoption of a contract management system. However, there are several benefits to take the leap, such as automation of contract processes and improvement at critical points of the contract lifecycle. The more that you delay necessary investments, the more expensive that they will become.
2. Not Cutting Ties with Difficult Customers
The customer is always king. However, there are kings, and there are tyrants.
While it is true that it can be hard to find new customers, it is also true that relying only on old customers may kill your company’s creativity. The longer that you rely on a few large customers, the more that you become accustomed in doing business a certain way. And if those ways are costing your company employee satisfaction also, you’re creating a vicious cycle that may hurt your company in the long run.
If your company has a high turnover of talented contract managers due to an abusive client and you insist in keeping that client just because of her huge paycheck, you have a big problem. The solution is to let the client go. Your employees will appreciate that they are no longer pulled in too many directions, are able to focus on core competencies, and deal with reasonable clients.
3. Not Attending Industry or Volunteer Events
“If it’s not billable, then don’t do it” is the usual mantra of managers everywhere.
However, this same mantra may be costing several opportunities to your company:
- Donating employee time for a good cause, such as a bloodbank fundraiser, may provide you free press coverage in the local and national media.
- The appearance of one of your VPs in a panel for an important industry event may provide your company exposure to potential clients and cement your company’s expertise in a particular field.
- Not volunteering to nominate your clients to industry awards is a missed opportunity to validate your projects with that company and showcasing your company abilities.
Remember that most industry and volunteer events do a great job at promoting themselves, so you have a lot to win, ranging from company mentions in press releases to backlinks to your website.
4. Taking Everything On Yourself
While it ‘s a common line on TV sitcoms or movies, “if you gotta do something right, you gotta do it yourself” doesn’t translate as well to business situations.
While delegation may seem an obvious skills, it is far from that. A survey found that found that about 50% of companies surveyed were concerned about their employees delegation skills.
However, the problem may be that those same companies aren’t doing enough to train their employees as to what, when, and where it’s appropriate to delegate. Experts claim that only 28% of companies actually offer any training on the subject of delegation.
If your company’s culture doesn’t encourage, one great way to get started is to lead by example. Here are three useful examples of delegation so that you can stop taking on everything by yourself.
