Published
Articles
Originally
Published in The Business Journal of CNY.
(Non)
Decision Making for Owners -103
The most prominent
and common deficiency I see in my relationships with owners is the
loss or diminishment of the ability to make decisions. This is not
true for all owners, but is prevalent in too many marginal and slowly
dying businesses. Now before you get defensive, think through your
own history of making decisions. Do you really have the same level
of intensity you had in earlier stages of your business life? At
my age, it sometimes didn't matter (in the 70's and the 80's), but
it sure does now. It s so competitive out there.
Most owners,
by the very nature of starting a business, were assertive, risk
takers, pro-active, and reactive to every issue Nothing escaped
them. But, in the life cycle of owning a business, many owners become
complacent slowly over a period of years. Somewhere along the road
to success, a number lose that attribute. A plateau is reached where
many feel that now that I have it, I'm going to keep it. Fair! The
problem is that in this ever more fluid business world, the risk
of getting passed by gets higher and higher. Others now almost surely
will do those things you forget, and eventually will steal your
business.
Procrastination
sets in. Owners begin to wait for outside influences to change,
when they ignored these earlier on and did the right things. They
now look to others to make decisions. They trust other "people
of influence" more then their gut feel, which they did earlier
in the business life cycle. Not good. Gut feel (balanced by a plan
and thought) is usually the best.
Tomorrow is
soon enough, when, in the beginning, it got done today. No action
becomes more accommodating to their current lifestyle rather than
making that tough decision today they really know they need to make.
Where owners fought for everything in the beginning, the struggle
becomes too much trouble. The visit to the customer, the talk with
the employee, the negotiation with the supplier, the evaluation
of the financials, the meeting, and the planning, are all somehow
less important.
Where, in the
beginning, all of these things were foremost in your mind, they
have taken a back seat now to community affairs, long, meaningless
conversations, golf, getting in late, leaving early, longer lunches,
and generally deferring decisions that really need to be made. None
of these luxuries were prevalent when you started the business.
Often, a crisis
is the best catalyst to returning to the necessary sense of urgency
required to run a business today. It becomes a rejuvenation process,
and often serves as a wake-up call. It reminds us of our business
mortality. If everything goes too smooth, owners get lulled into
a sense of well being, and lose their competitive edge.
A good business-threatening
problem every now and then is good and healthy. Welcome and be thankful
for them. They remind us all that we are not infallible, and to
get back to the basics. Without these, we can get lulled into major
problems and never know it. Really, in today's business world, it's
hard not to have these rather frequently. The problem is that some
now ignore them and just go on assuming they will go away. Big mistake.
Employees and
managers become family (as much as you deny it), and maximizing
their potential and value often gets back-burnered. Easier to say
nothing to them, then to upset the "family". You begin
to wonder if you could even make it without some, and rationalize
to a fault their value. They become "good enough" by default.
New ideas flounder and become extinct.
Honestly, you
set the standard. If you slack off, they do. They look to you for
leadership and a sense of direction. Customers and vendors are constantly
evaluating your company. If "good enough" becomes the
standard, than that standard will lead to failure. Its like every
day has be the first day of a new business, and you constantly have
to go back to the earlier days of the life cycle of your business
to regain whatever it was that got you there. Challenges drove you
to where you are today, and you met them by making decisions.
I have the greatest
respect for all owners. They had to do a lot of things very right
to get where they are. But the failure cycles I see generally focus
around this process of getting too comfortable and complacent.
So, revitalize
yourself and your business. Have a crisis, reawaken yourself and
your business, become aware of your vulnerability, and get back
into it. Make those decisions to do something. Don't defer them.
You win!
Dennis Hoppe is President of Change Management Implementation, Inc. in Brockport, NY. He has been a small business advisor to owners of hundreds of companies since 1989. Visit his web sites at www.dhoppe.com and www.hmcexecutivecoaching.com, or call him at 800-724-3525.
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