These Four Blunders Can Be Fatal

These blunders cause executives to stay stuck. Based on inter- views with hundreds of business owners and division leaders, we identified four common blunders when their company transitioned from an emerging firm to a professionally managed firm. They said it delayed their growth because they focused on tactics (doing) rather than managing the big picture.

The blunders:

Blunder One: Thinking That Any Sale Is A Good Sale.

Not all revenue is good revenue. Increasing revenue does not necessarily put more money in your bank account. It does, however, increase the potential for dissatisfied customers. Adding predictable, profitable revenue is needed to break the barrier.

Blunder Two: Settling For who Is Available when Hiring. If you want a better, bigger, bolder business, you need staff willing to go the extra mile. While it may seem like you are hunting unicorns, what it really means is finding people aligned with your business framework. Clearly defining the framework and providing on-the-job training will support your leadership team when navigating through this barrier.

Blunder Three: Managing The Urgent Rather Than The Important  In business it has been said the tyranny of the urgent usually takes precedence over what is important. This results in executives working in the business rather than on the business. Success is hard to achieve if the focus is only on the next problem. Transition creates this trap by changing the focus of the CEO from big picture (strategy) to solving the day-to-day (tactics). A change in thinking—genius thinking— is needed.

Blunder Four: Over-relying On The Boss To Solve All Business Problems. Too often in the emerging stage a CEO falls prey to becoming the chief problem-solver because the problems seem to have multiplied. This is not a sustainable construct. A better, bigger, bolder business has many leaders who can solve the myriad of problems that arise consistently. When the CEO shifts from the chief problem-solver to the chief strategy designer, they develop and train staff to use a strategic lens that eliminates this blunder.

In Transition you might think more sales is the answer (blunder one) and you may find yourself settling for who is available when hiring (blunder two). As a result, you are now spending more of your time putting out fires than focusing on running the business (blunder three). Your reaction may be to jump back into the fray (blunder four) and put your rain- maker cape on in the hopes of generating more sales instead of addressing the issues that caused your sales to flatline in the first place. One major decision, leading to four cascading issues, all result in frustration and self-doubt—a loss of boldness.

The frustration and damage of Transition is expensive.