Why Businesses Stagnate
Posted November 16th, 2015
In order for their companies to remain competitive, leaders know their organizations need to constantly improve, to learn new ways to doing things and how to adapt. But although leaders know this, it is often harder to accomplish in practice. That is because human nature often has a tendency to get in the way. Here are a few ways that it interferes, ways that leaders need to be aware of so they don’t fall victim to them.
1. Fear of failing.
Leaders may understand that failure is an opportunity for learning, and that companies cannot be afraid of failure if they are going to take the risks necessary to grow. But too often the fear of failure is what motivates executive decisions. They don’t allow people to try new ways of doing things or to question the way things are done. People who have experienced a failure are often passed over for new responsibilities or promotions.
To some extent, this is understandable –failure is a painful experience. People want to avoid it, or if it occurs, to bury it as quickly as possible. But this prevents people from trying new things, or taking risks necessary to learn and grow.
2. A static view of capabilities.
Some believe that people’s abilities – things like intelligence and other talents — are pretty much genetically determined, fixed at birth, and there is little that can be done to develop them. Some take a similar view of organizations. Others take a more open-ended view. They believe that people, and organizations, can learn, grow and develop throughout the course of their lives.
If people or organizations take the first view, they are less likely to take the measures needed to improve or change things.
3. Focus on the past, rather than the future
When companies go to hire someone, they focus exclusively on past performance, assuming it will be a good guide to future achievement. And this is good as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough.
But studies have shown that job candidates who looked about the same on past performance measures didn’t perform the same after they were hired. Researchers found that that potential played a role as well. Those who were identified with greater potential were those with curiosity, insight, engagement, and determination.
4. A flawed view of success
Often when we succeed, we believe it was our own ability, talent and hard work that made the difference. It’s a different story when we fail, however, Then, we blame other things, instead of looking how our performance contributed to the failure. We blame other people or circumstances.
But if we refuse to look at our own role in our failure, it becomes impossible to learn from the experience, and so improve in the future. We are then more likely to make the same mistakes again.
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