At EOS we teach that you can’t build a business on multiple operating systems with multiple languages. Your language must be intentional and conscious. When you use consistent language on a daily basis with your team, it reinforces your company culture and helps your team to bond.
I consider myself to be somewhat “old school.” That term carries different connotations, and whether it’s good or bad depends on how you mean it. I’m proud of my old school leanings because it means I respect good traditions, appreciate my heritage, and stick with tried-and-true ideas that have consistently led to success in the past.
But there is another kind of old school thinking that, if you’re a business owner or entrepreneur, can lead to extinction. Sticking to old ideas that have proven not to work well can make you a dinosaur. I’ve seen people lose their businesses that way while their competition flourished.
Here are three old-school leadership ideas that will stifle your business growth, and how to break free of them.
The Elephant in the Room. The Sacred Cow. The skeleton in the closet. Every company has certain issues that they avoid bringing up at all costs. Sometimes the issues are too uncomfortable to confront. Or the same issue has been discussed many times in the past and still nothing is being done about it. Sometimes it’s because we’re afraid that someone will get personally offended just because we brought it up.
The issues that are most often avoided are people-related issues. Someone is underperforming, but because they’ve been with the company forever, their lack of performance becomes the norm or status quo.
Sure, the “pop-pop-fizz-fizz” of Alka-Seltzer can provide temporary relief for an upset stomach, but it can only help so much. Usually the problem stems from eating spicy or greasy food, so if you continue to eat the wrong foods, the stomachache just keeps coming back.
Jim Collins famously admonishes all business owners and leaders in his classic book, Good To Great, “Before you begin your business journey, get all the right people on the bus, get all the wrong people off the bus and make sure that everyone on the bus is in the right seat”. Every business owner I speak to knows this to be true. No one disputes the logic. So why don’t more leaders act on it?
Here is a great story from Les Brown where he draws an interesting analogy.
One day, a man was walking down the street and sees a dog on a porch that was just sitting there, whimpering, whining and moaning. The man was curious as to why he was whimpering, so he went and knocked on the door and a guy came out and said, “Yes, how may I help you?” He said, “Sir, is this your dog?”
