Fighting bad habits in your business is similar to fighting bad habits in your personal life.
We’re coming up on the holidays, and I hope you love this time of year. But this is a time where we have to be careful with what we eat. I know that’s not what you want to hear. You’re probably saying to yourself, “Look, January 2nd is coming. I’ll start watching what I eat when the new year begins.”
Remember how great it was as a kid and be able to eat whatever you wanted? We were able to eat a lot of junk food. I could eat Twinkies, donuts, and whatever else and still not gain weight. What often happens, though, is that we get used to certain types of food, certain types of feelings. And nothing else seems to satisfy those cravings as those sweets or carbs do.
But as you get older, your metabolism slows down. You may become more sedentary in your lifestyle. And in fact, the same things that you ate before that seemed to have no impact on your weight and health clearly do. It results in sluggishness and weight gain.
You were able to get away with bad habits when you were younger. But as you get older, you no longer can.
Continuous improvement
So how does this relate to your business?
We have enjoyed an incredible economic run. It has to end sometime. I hope it doesn’t, but history tells us that it will. During this type of economy, we can get away with a lot of inefficiencies in our businesses.
Our results continue to get better. We’re making good profits. Our employees seem happy, and our customers are satisfied with the service we’re providing. It’s easy to coast with current success despite some lingering bad habits or inefficiencies.
But some of those bad habits or unaddressed problems will begin to result in negative consequences, especially when the economy starts to slow down. Some of the same things you’re doing today in this economic environment aren’t going to work in a different economic environment.
Fight bad habits now
My encouragement to you would be to work on those things now. Proactively look at how you will survive and thrive during a downturn. Don’t assume that just because you have good results today that everything you’re doing is positive.
It’s easy to hide bad habits right now. It won’t be so easy in the future.