As we enter both a new year and a new decade, we all have at least one common goal: to grow our business. And 2010 will be a good year to realize that goal. The economy is improving, opportunities are increasing, and demand for quality goods and services is on the rise.
But are you ready to capitalize on the opportunities? Or, is your quest to run a perfect business, while it may be a great intention, running the risk of deteriorating employee morale and missing opportunities?
There are leadership traits that if left unrecognized will prevent you from not only recognizing opportunities, but also reacting fast enough to benefit you, your employees, your customers and your business. And speed to market is a differentiator. Overdoing and perfectionistic traits, which lead to low morale, include:
- Failure to Delegate – Withholding key assignments from your direct reports because you believe they cannot do the work as well as you can do it.
- This also results in them working on meaningless or minor assignments
- Micro-managing employees work. This is similar to the above, except that you actually assign and delegate work, but thereafter you tend to tell them what to do and how to do it, not just the goal/objective but you do not allow them to figure out the best means to the end
- More concerned with how the report looks than what it says. (Appearance verses content oriented.)
- How many times have you had your punctuation and grammar corrected, or slide backgrounds and fonts changed, but received little or no meaningful feedback on the content?
- Detail (verses strategy) focused – Asking for more information when it becomes clear that no one can answer all the questions – nor do you need to, at least at the time.
- Everything is important – that is, they have a hard time determining priorities, and often, not much gets done, or done well because they are spinning.
And the likely result from this quest for perfection in business is:
- Delay in making important decisions.
- Competition gets to the market before you do.
- You become surprised by events that should have been predictable. This is also known as being predictably surprised.
- Not capitalizing on the strength of your group and the power of a contributory team
- People may leave, seeking more challenging work and a more empowering boss.
Perfection is rarely achieved and we believe it is a fool’s goal. Give up the quest for perfection. Good is good enough. As George S. Patton said: a good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week. Besides, the market doesn’t stand still. Things change, and it is your responsibility to adapt. Don’t waste your and others time creating the perfect plan and the perfect business. Develop a good plan, execute it with passion, monitor and make mid-course corrections along the way, work as a real team, and you can celebrate growth and success. And who knows, you may be happily telling someone how you grew and succeeded in the imperfect business.
Copyright 2010 Kubica and LaForest
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