Some of us are hearing a common theme that most of us have fallen off the wagon on one or more personal resolutions for the New Year. Going to the gym more, losing weight, or volunteering is a commendable goal which makes so much sense, yet can take so much time and effort.

Consider that if you stopped doing the basic work to meet valuable worth worth personal goals, how well you are doing on meeting or exceeding business resolutions: otherwise known as strategic plans, budgets, rolling cash forecast etc.

Call this phenomenon (a) wait for a better month, (b) kick the can down the road, or (c) the 800-pound gorilla no one wants to acknowledge. In essence this blind spot is very visible for all to see who are willing to face up to the issue.

So is the executive team turning a blind eye to an issue rather than risk adding another mammoth project to a backbreaking list of urgent tasks to be completed while doing more with less? After all, the organization will get close enough to the annual budget requirement to attain incentive plan goals for a bonus.

Meeting full potential would require stretching and the organization taking a prudent, yet greater financial risk that might endanger those bonuses or encroach even more on personal time. Yet those extra revenues or growth potential would strengthen the ability to reach future goals with an extended or stronger product or service listing.

Looking at this issue from a more strategic view, this could be a situation where resources should be reallocated, a flexible budget would add value, or you as true leader need to point out that current processes and goals incent underperformance. Each of these warrants a separate article or discussion. The fact that any one of them may exist at your organization indicates too many people have gotten too comfortable with the status quo.

When I hear and read that organizations are passing up referral based opportunities for additional business, bad things are happening to good companies and their good people. This quickly escalates into the classic slippery slope to very unpleasing situations.

You can start the process to turnaround the situation within an executive team update, offsite executive retreat or asking a few hard questions about why the organization passed on potentially lucrative business. After all, when will your more aggressive competitor who took a prudent risk circle back with stronger financial and marketing resources to target your best customer, people or even to take over your organization?

AD2 (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Source by Gary W Patterson