“I’m addicted to ya babe, You’re a hard habit to break” – (Chicago, “Hard Habit to Break”, 1984)
What is cigarette addiction? Modern studies have shown that the actual nicotine component of cigarettes is a relatively weak chemical addiction. The more powerful aspect is the oral fixation – the actual act of smoking. Caffeine is another addition that is relatively weak when considering the chemical effects, but stronger once you add in the every morning habit of making or ordering coffee. As humans, we easily fall into certain habits and then fail to do anything about them, even when they are bad habits. This can be deadly to a business.
Bad habits create slowdowns in decision-making, breakdowns in communication, and micromanagement. All of which harm your business environment and make it more difficult for your team members and customers to work with your organization.
Many entrepreneurs fall into the habit of attempting to do it all and failing to pass along tasks to team members. When most businesses start, it is one person or a small core group of people performing all of the everyday business tasks from unlocking the door in the morning to preparing tax forms to managing distribution channels. As a business grows, it becomes necessary to shift tasks to others who have the expertise to manage them. But if you have gotten into the habit of doing certain tasks, it can be difficult to let go of them. The tasks have gone from a necessity of being a one-person show to a bad habit that interferes with the efficient running of your business.
Another easy habit entrepreneurs can develop is bottlenecking decision-making in the business. When the operation is small, you have control over all aspects of the business. You make all of the decisions and everything that happens in the business happens through you. However, when you expand your business, you can easily develop the bad habit of still requiring all decisions to be made through you, slowing the decision process when choices could be made by your managers and team members based on your organizational goals and your company vision.
Another habit both entrepreneurs and employees can get into is being reactive instead of proactive. When you don’t plan ahead, you don’t have actions in place to take when unexpected situations arise. This bad habit can be resolved by ensuring that you and your employees have a complete understanding of your goals and vision for the business.
These bad business habits and others are easy to fall into. When you are just starting off with any activity that you are teaching to yourself, you find something that is comfortable or something that works, and you stick with it – sometimes even if you know your habit is harming your business, you keep up with it, because it is habit and it is comfortable.
Just as with bad personal habits, you can accomplish great things by identifying the habit, recognizing it for what it is, and modifying your behavior to correct for it. Since many bad business habits are learned over the course of years and have become ingrained in you since you launched your business, it can take years of active correction to beat the bad habits and continue leading your company to success.
Alliance Group International offers training to help you develop the superior leadership skills necessary to overcoming your bad business habits. Contact us to learn more about how we can help you identify breakdowns in your leadership habits and teach you how to become a more effective manager and leader for your company.
