4 BUSINESS PRINCIPLES TO IGNORE AS A MANAGER

Learning from others is important in any part of life, especially business. Plenty of thought leaders - with much more experience than most - have paved the way and left us with business principles to stick by… or not?

There’s lots of sayings we pick up and apply to how we work and run teams - usually because they make sense at face value. They’re short, snappy, inspirational, and motivating.

But what happens when we take these quotes as actual principles to live by? Well, keep reading for 4 business principles to ignore.

FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION

Failure happens, and not only do we have to deal with it, with the right mindset we can learn from it.

Putting pressure on yourself or your employees to constantly succeed and make zero mistakes, will actually lead to failure and more mistakes. This principle is on the basis of striving for perfection - something that sounds good in theory but it will push you and others to insecurities and a deep dissatisfaction.

Not to mention, if you’re a boss, putting this expectation on your staff, they’ll probably feel too fearful coming to you for advice or to admit they’re struggling. As a leader, your role should be to mentor and create an environment where people feel comfortable asking for your help.

Peter Drucker, famous business and philosophical author, stated:

“Nobody learns except by making mistakes. The better a man is, the more mistakes he will make – for the more new things he will try”.

With resilience, you learn trial and error and with trial and error, you leaves room for growth and innovation; “failure is not an option” leaves room for stifled creativity.

A GOOD PRODUCT WILL SELL ITSELF

Let’s take that logic and fire every salesperson, every marketer, and to be honest, give the CEO a 3 month sabbatical. Leave that product on the shelf and it’ll sell out in 2 days.

A product can be good, but people may not want it until you persuade them that they need it. In our article “Mastering The Sales Mentality” (highly recommend the read) we spoke about how salespeople need to “understand people just as much as your product”… ding ding ding!

It’s all well and good believing in your product, but if you don’t recognise that you need to understand the people who are buying it – it will stay on the shelves. That’s why salespeople need charisma and interpersonal skills. That’s why marketers need target market research and captivating copy. That’s why CEO’s need a why, a story for their brand and a way to relate to buyers.

That’s why they all need to sell.

NICE GUYS FINISH LAST

Nice doesn’t mean weak. You can still be authoritative, earn respect, and be an influential leader without being horrible.

Cutting corners, scamming, and making everyone around you feel intimidated and fearful will just lead to a damaged reputation and damaged relationships. I wrote another article recently about becoming a better leader, and one of the leadership styles, the Authoritarian (Very Well Mind), probably holds this very same principle.

But guess what the results of this management style was? Their employees lacked creativity, felt insecure, fearful, and stifled. Most end up rebelling, quitting, and ultimately making that same “powerful leader” like they’ve lost control and respect.

Nice guys use their talent, and their passion and good character to succeed - not fear tactics.

IF YOU WANT SOMETHING DONE RIGHT, YOU HAVE TO DO IT YOURSELF

In other words, other people will always do it wrong.

This principle not only creates perfectionism which is stressful in itself, it also creates isolation. Forbes reported that employees who worked in teams stuck at their tasks 64% longer than their isolated peers, whilst also reporting lower fatigue levels and higher engagement and success levels.

Pride gets you nowhere. There’s people with ideas that you’ve never thought of, there’s people with strengths that you don’t have, there’s people who have been in the industry longer, and there’s people that are more successful than you. Why wouldn’t you want their help?

This is how managers get swamped with workload and end up falling behind on the bigger projects because they’re unwilling to delegate to their employees.

Taking responsibility for your success is good, but never asking for help isn’t.

- Written by Oliver Howson