“Do not fear the loud things that you see and hear, nearly as much as the quiet, silent things that sneak up on you when you stop paying attention.”    ~ Joe Contrera

Lately, I have observed and heard from folks about number of situations in business that have taken place in organizations that are silently destroying them from the inside-out.

To most leaders, who are conscious and paying attention to their businesses, these issues would be obvious red flags to be addressed.

However, when leaders fail to pay attention to their businesses or are disconnected from their businesses these are the silent killers that will destroy them. These are just five I have observed recently, I am sure there are more.

 5 Silent Killers Destroying Your Business

1. Practicing Retirement Syndrome (PRS) – This happens when you allow long time employees who are at the end of their careers to take up space in critical leadership positions. Someone once said, “If you are coasting you are probably going downhill.” In critical areas like Customer Service or Purchasing, having Leaders with PRS creates a hands-off, non- customer-centric mindset throughout the entire department. No one goes the extra mile, no one pushes vendors to improve lead times, and your brand suffers because customers talk. PRS is especially damaging in today’s labor market where it is difficult to attract and retain talent so you have a lot of new inexperienced people and leaders who don’t take the time to develop the talent they have or because they are checked out they allow bad behaviors or complacency to exist. Better to send folks on their way a little earlier than to allow your business to suffer.
2. Corporate Disconnect From the Reality of the Market (Field) – This happens far more than you would think. When Leaders are disconnected from market they make very poor business decisions. At times, they will miss the urgency of various situations like competitive bids, being out-of-stock on key parts (this is disastrous especially when the competition is less expensive) or getting margin greedy at the expense of your dealers or distributor because you are trying to make the quarterly sales projections. I’ve heard of manufacturers not paying their vendors to make the quarterly numbers look good and so the vendors stopped shipping causing a domino effect with their customers. My advice to internal leaders – get off your ass, go into the market and meet the customers so you can understand their needs instead of always focusing on yours.
3. Having the Wrong People in the Wrong Seat on the Bus – This is similar to number one but is more inclusive of the overall work population. Sometimes we simply put a body in a position because we are having a hard time attracting or finding talent. If  as a leader , you believe after  a year of missteps or poor performance that things are going to change if you just give them a little more time, there is a good chance you are fooling yourself. I used to think I was doing my folks a favor by holding on, in reality I was doing them an enormous disservice. Sometimes leaders have a savior complex because they think they can save them and turn them around. What the leader fails to see is that they might be wanting the employees success more than the employee wants success. You cannot fix this, you cannot change this. It simply best to part ways unless you have a better fit for them someplace else.
4. Playing Where’s Waldo – This is a situation where you have leaders who are extremely deceptive. They have departments, stores, or locations that are performing poorly usually because they are poorly run. So instead of making the appropriate changes or addressing the core issues they take revenue from well-run locations to make the numbers look good. Basically, they are ignoring the real issues because they are trying to make themselves look good. Imagine the damage to the morale of those folks at the stores that are outperforming. Imagine the impact on commissions and bonuses? The very fact that a leader would falsify reports and documents tells you all you really need to know about what you need to do.
5. Sweeping Issues Under the Rug – This can be a tricky one especially in today’s work environment where Human Resources feels legally bound to investigate every claim made by employees. That said, if you do not address the issues you can set yourself up for an EEOC Complaint or other legal complications. Recently, I was told of a situation where a Manger’s spouse was at a facility consuming alcohol and offering it to the employees. HR swept it under the rug even though numerous employees complained. The same holds true for not addressing poor performance, unsafe working conditions, or attendance issues. Ignoring them doesn’t make them go away, it just allows them to fester and spread like a cancer that poisons the entire team. It’s better to deal with the issue straight on than to expose yourself and the business to litigation or your best employees exiting as a result of a leader not dealing with the problems.

Summary

You might think that these issues would never exist, but they do. Things like this are happening every day in organizations all over the country. It is my hope and wish, as a leader that your eyes are wide open and you are very aware and addressing any of these issues that might  be present in your organization. If you need a little help, please feel free to reach out (click here) and let’s see how we can work together to get things back on track!

Till Next Time…