This article may ruffle some feathers. But during my career and speaking with others in multiple industries regarding why businesses stall, plateau or decline these top 5 reasons come to the forefront of my mind.
#1) Company Culture
Company culture is number one as I feel everything good or wrong with a company can be traced back to company culture. In certain industries and older companies, company culture is not considered important. In turn just one bad employee could place a cancer within the company that if not treated will spread like wildfire. Most executives let this cancer grow as they are looking at other metrics of said "bad employee". The bad employee may be a high performer or generate many sales, but they have the power to destroy the company if left unchecked. Sometimes employees are not bad nor causing the toxic culture. Sometimes it comes from the top and flows down leaving wreckage & carnage in its wake. If this is the cause of a poor culture, it is next to impossible to fix as owners and executives hold the power to either change or destroy. It is up to them to resolve the culture within the company including fixing what they have created.
#2) Lack of Vision
When there is no end goal or known vision employees are setup to fail. How can anyone succeed if they do not have a map to the finish line or even worse the finish line was never defined or discussed? How can a boat sail across the seas without a bearing on the end destination? It is the same with a company, goals and vision need to be at the forefront of every employee's mind. If executives or the powers to be, cannot be transparent or forthcoming with the vision, red flags should start being raised. Why is there no vision? What are the 5-year goals for sales, customer retention, or direction the company is headed to? With no known ending point there is no starting point.
#3) Hiring Friends & Family
This is a huge conflict of interest that I see repeatedly within companies. I understand in the inception phase and the first year where it is necessary to use friends and family to get by. The issues start when you start hiring people you do not have those tight woven connections with, like you have with your friends or family. “Outsider” employees see a difference in treatment, see the difference in purposed ideas that get approved or nixed. It breeds a toxic culture into the company at some point. It could take a few years or a decade, but it will end the same as all the rest have before it. It always fails in some capacity.
#4) Leadership
True leadership, especially in the C tiered positions (CEO, COO, CRO, CTO, and CFO) seems to be a huge obstacle these days. They are normally underqualified for these positions and lead companies down dangerous paths with one unwise decision after another. They hire employees when they do not fully understand what it is they are hiring for. They expect more & more from employees until employees become burned out from being overtasked and overworked. Piling 3 or 4 different jobs onto one person thinking they are saving the company money by having one person instead of 3 or 4. But in reality, it is costing the company eventually and costing the employees. For the company, the bottom line may look good but productivity in those 4 jobs one person is doing is low. The employee is juggling and firefighting to stay afloat. This does nothing for the company but costs them loyal employees. For the employees' fatigue and burnout occurs and they will normally find greener pastures elsewhere. They (C-Suite) do not seem to know what it is that their role entails, (a quick Google search would tell them that they are not doing the company nor themselves any favors) let alone be able to run an entire company or departments that they have ZERO knowledge about. Trust is a big issue; they need to learn to trust the employees they hired to do the job and stay out of the way unless it is necessary to step in. Micromanaging does no favors to anyone. It is true what they say, “Those who do not know how to lead, micromanage.” Many companies would benefit by looking at the C tier and examine how they conduct business instead of blaming employees under them. At the end of the day, it is the C Tier’s responsibility. So, if something is wrong it is on them. Stop blaming and start taking accountability for the poor decisions that lead the company into dark waters.
#5) Lack Of Transparency
This is a huge problem I see repeated. The lack of transparency with employees, is it out of fear, lack of trust, I am sure there are always some excuses for not being open and transparent with your employees. But what this lack of transparency does is create frustration, fear, and resentment for the employees, in turn could project a culture that was not intended. Owners and C-tiered executives should be able to be transparent of direction, vision, goals, and any internal conflicts or struggles going on, to defuse any rumors or dispel any concerns. Also, a huge factor in transparency is not trying to project your company as one way and let employees see an entirely different side that is hidden from the customers of your company. I have seen this repeatedly and it truly has an negative impact on employees that came to work for your company partially due to those reasons.
At the end of the day it is not the middle managements fault, they are being provided with misguided or unwise decisions and the sad truth is the executives know this but use the middle management as scapegoats. If you find your company dealing with any of the above contact MAD SEASON.