Procrastinate at all costs Avoid making decisions and taking action. This will frustrate your people and they’ll keep their ideas to help you and business to themselves because they know you won’t take any action. A boss who procrastinates, affects everyone else around himn/her.

Be a Know-All Avoid asking your people for their feedback. Keep them out of loop. Regular team meetings? The unsuccessful business owner or manager doesn’t see need to talk with his/her team… it means they take time off and waste valuable company time. No need to listen to what they have to say…what would they know? If meetings are called it’s only when there’s (another) crisis. Never ask your clients/customers what they think about your products/services and customer service (or is that disservice?) …you may be pleasantly surprised or horrified to find out real truth. Better not to know then you don’t have to change.

Say ‘yes’ all day Let everyone interrupt you all day long. Keep your office door open so people can wander in and talk to you. You can guarantee that you won’t get much work done. But that doesn’t matter, does it?

You’ve been doing it for so long now, why do anything differently? You want to be liked by everyone, regardless of cost to you personally. As long as everyone else gets their work done, who cares if you work late to catch up?

Avoid Delegation at all costs After all, no one is as good as you. Delegating or outsourcing means spending money if you run your own business. It’s better that you waste your time on secretarial tasks and doing bookkeeping, because what else are you going to do with your time? The Final Word

If you are a business owner or manager and you can truthfully say that 10 habits mentioned don’t apply to you because you do exact opposite …then congratulations, your business/department must be thriving. Keep up great work…you deserve to succeed.

On other hand, if you already have these habits firmly in place, then you are guaranteed not to succeed. You will leave work most days feeling stressed and unfulfilled. Is that what you really want? If so, then continue doing same as you’ve always done. If not, then you must do something different. What are you prepared to do?

If you know where to go or what to do to make changes, then go ahead and do it. If you’re unsure then call me but you better be serious about moving forward. I’m into making most of my time and yours.

The choice is yours…continue doing same things or change. As mentioned many times before, “the definition of insanity is doing same thing and expecting a different result”.

Have a great week

Lorraine Pirihi

She tried on several occasions to explain to partners of practice that workload was unrealistic. She had a number of solutions that would help not only her situation but eventually make business more money, however partners would say they would implement these changes and never followed through on her suggestions. They were too busy being busy.

Eventually Jenny left. Not only did she resign, so did four members of her team. Also some of Jenny’s clients followed her to her new place of employment. That equated to thousands of dollars lost in that business not to mention time involved hiring and training new people.

How to Build and Retain a Valuable Team Before I share these tips with you, be aware that it is extremely important to hire right type of people for your business in first place. See our newsletter How to Hire Right People. Many employers have ‘hire and hope’ mentality. After person has been hired employer hopes they work out.

1. Regular Performance and Incentive Reviews Measure your team’s achievements on a regular basis. Formally appraise performance of each individual twice a year. Salary increases, bonuses and incentives should be based on these performance reviews.

2. Weekly Team Meetings Learn how to run an effective meeting and have these weekly with your team. Have a set time each week. Ensure agenda allows for their input. See How to Have Successful Meetings

3. Personal and Professional Development Invest regularly in their development, both technical and non-technical skills. The new-found knowledge can be extremely valuable to your business. By learning and developing your people, they will also be more motivated.

4. Develop Your Own Leadership Skills Turn yourself into a Masterful Manager. There are many skills required to be an effective manager …delegation, organisation and communication etc.

Participating in specific programs such as our Masterful Manager’s Intensive Coaching Program will turn you into a powerful leader that gets results and maintains a happy, productive and high performing team.

The Final Word Looking after people in your business is vital to ensure it’s ongoing success…whatever ‘success’ means to you.

A happy, skilled and motivated team if managed effectively will have a huge impact on productivity.

To continue doing same thing and expecting a different result is definition of insanity. So if you want to achieve different results, take action today!

Have a great week

Lorraine Pirihi