INCREASINGLY, THERE IS LITTLE EMBARRASSMENT OF EXPOSED BUSINESS INCOMPETENCE
Today, more than ever before, there appears to be a new trend in business where few people seem to be embarrassed by the exposed incompetence of their business operations. You do not have to look to far in the interactions between your business and its stakeholders to see examples and experience the consequences of incompetent business behaviour.
This evidence can be seen in a number of business interactions, such as in the:
(i) interaction between sales and customers;
(ii) supply and delivery of goods and services;
(iii) causes of customer-supplier interactions:
(iv) payment systems used;
(v) lack of knowledge about how and why business are solid financially one day and insolvent the next, etc.
The basic causes of business incompetence are as follows.
1 Money now dominates common sense to the point it drives people to steal from their family, friends and other business stakeholders.
2 Common sense is now not so common as somebody said recently and we note stupid short-term decision making dominates, whilst long-term issues are ignored or minimised.
3 A lack of personal and business discipline where people abdicate decision making for difficult situations by ignoring problems or blaming others.
4 A cult of entitlement which seems to exist across society, government and regulators, and in many areas of the business community itself.
5 The art of business is being lost by management which seems to believe everything can be done cheaper, technology will solve all problems and people cost more money than they are worth.
6 A correlation to the above, management often forgets there is more than one way to skin a cat (sorry cat lovers) and more than one way to save money or drive down unit costs.
7 The price of incompetence is never measured.
At the end of the day, not all trends are good trends. Many trends are destructive to self and to our businesses. The increasing evidence of a lack of embarrassment regarding incompetence is growing. Regretfully, few people seem to care or to do anything about when it is rears its ugly head.
Failing to understand and evaluate the incompetence factor in your business, only leads to more problems than they are worth. What many business people often fail to see in these modern times; is the money to be made by working through the issues and eliminating any observed business incompetence(s).
