When I was a kid, I remember waking up some mornings with all kinds of weird aches and pains. If I would complain about them to my Mom, she would say, “Oh, you’re just experiencing growing pains.”
If you’re the owner or an employee of a successful small business, you may be experiencing some aches and pains of your own. Some of them may be:
If you’re an Owner…
- You’re still too involved in the day-to-day details of running your business.
- All you’re doing is living and breathing your business, with very little time for family, vacations, and leisure activities.
- Employees aren’t doing as well as they should or could, leading to high turnover or non-productive, unacceptable performance.
- You have to solve most of the problems and make all of the decisions.
- Communication breaks down.
- The same problems keep surfacing.
- Deadlines are missed, quality and service suffer.
- Customer complaints are growing.
- Running your business and doing your job is no longer any fun…you dread going into the office.
- The incredible potential of your company is not being realized and you struggle to figure out why.
If you’re an Employee…
- You’re not really sure what the boss thinks of your work…at least you haven’t been yelled at lately.
- You can’t understand why the boss is upset with you…no one told you that task was part of your job!
- You’ve decided not to “go above-and-beyond-the-call-of-duty” anymore because it isn’t worth it. After all, that slacker in your department who barely shows up, is still here collecting a pay check.
- You’ve learned not to knock yourself out doing those special reports and getting information the boss asks for. Every time you’ve done the research, stayed late and put in the time to prepare them, she never asked to see them – Why bother?!
- You’ve got some really great ideas on how the company can make more money, improve customer satisfaction, and improve efficiency, but no one ever asks for your input.
If you can relate to any of the above statements, you may be in the “Reactionary Stage” in the transition of your small business. Your aches and pains will only be magnified as the business and the number of your employees and customers continue to grow. As a business owner, how long will you be able to live this way?
When you decide the pain is more than you can or want to bear, you’re ready to transition you and your business to the “Proactive Leadership Stage” to improve the quality of your business and personal life. To identify in which stage your company is in, email me at coachgail@gtcom.net for a FREE copy of my Transition of a Small Business.