13 Small Business Management Mistakes

"Most discussions of decision making assume that only senior executives make decisions or that only senior executives' decisions matter. This is a dangerous mistake." ~ Peter Drucker

Mistakes can be dangerous, but at the same time there's no reason to be afraid of making mistakes because they provide us with learning opportunities. Whether you own a decoratives business or a small business restaurant, the following tips will help you avoid making some common management mistakes.

1. Focusing more on execution than planning – In order to achieve your company's mission you need both good planning as well as execution. However, remember that planning comes before you begin working on a project, and trying to fine tune the processes. So you should ideally spend sufficient time in determining your strategy, the resources you will need, and decide on the performance metrics, before you leap.

2. Skimping on communication – Effective communication is integral to effective delegating, negotiating, and resolving conflicts. Whether it's your customers, employees, or other stakeholders, make sure that their queries, questions, complaints, are timely resolved. For instance, if your employees don't understand your instructions and expectations completely, they won't be able to deliver what you need.

3. Not seeking help when you need to - Total omniscience is better associated with God, managers being mere mortals can't be all knowledgeable. So good managers ask questions, and seek help from experts, subordinates, other employees when they are dealing with something that lies outside their scope of expertise. They don't try to do everything by themselves. And this is a strength than a weakness in managing.

4. Not changing with the times – Business environment changes rapidly, new technology, techniques, knowhow, solutions, etc emerge from time to time. So as a dynamic manager you need to be flexible and accepting in trying out newer means of accomplishing your objective. Even though you never tried these out for yourself. Don't be afraid to make mistakes, or hold rigidly on to using only what's proven to work for you in the past. For instance, sometimes your own employees will offer you innovative ideas, which may turn out to be great recipes for business success. Don't reject them outright.

5. Preferring technology over people skills – Technology is a great tool for infusing efficiency into business operations, however, it isn't a substitute for the classical managerial skills of communication, and leading. Make sure you don't neglect face-to-face talking with your employees, and spend more time using emails, online chats, microblogs, or managing high-tech gizmos instead.

6. Assigning greater value to policies and procedures than people – Policies and procedures serve as guides to action rather than thinking. While the norm should be to adhere to rules, you can always allow for some flexibility when its required. Rigidly holding on to polices can sometimes lead to alienation of valuable customers, employees and other stakeholders. You may allow exceptions on a case-to-case basis, especially when the issue is trivial and doesn't threaten safety, security, or violates the law.

7. Not delegating enough – You may have started small but as your business grows, so will your responsibilities and workload. As a result, you need to delegate the increased work to your staff and experts. Train them first and then trust them with it. If you don't think hiring staff is appropriate, consider outsourcing some of your business functions. In general, you should focus on your forte and delegate the rest of responsibilities to specialists. It is also essential for better time management.

8. Not giving priority to customer service – Research shows that retaining an existing customer will cost you five times less than acquiring a new one. In addition, a disgruntled customer would most likely badmouth your business, hurting its goodwill. You need to carefully design your customer service function and procedures. The more satisfied (or better still, delighted) your customers are, the greater the chances of your business success.

9. Setting unrealistic goals – Goals should neither be too lax nor too tough. If you've set goals that are so high that your present workforce won't achieve them despite doubling their efforts, the goals are most likely to dampen their spirits from the beginning till end. Instead, set up reasonable goals, which challenge employees to perform better than they previously did.

10. Treating some employees as your favorites – While it's impossible to hold yourself back from liking some employees over others, you don't need to lose your objectivity in treating employees. Showing that extra concern and consideration to a handful of your subordinates, will only make you lose respect and integrity amongst the rest.

11. Being sensitive only to the mistakes of employees – A manager who only points out the faults of her subordinates and never commends their achievements will soon find herself heading a team of demotivated members. And you can't expect too much out of demotivated employees, or worse still, they might quit for a better work environment sooner than you might expect.

12. Assessing your managers' performance - Managers being the decision makers on deciding how best to use a company's resources have a great responsibility on their shoulders. Consequently, their actions can either make or break a company's progress. Often selected for their expertise and experience in a domain, in small companies, mangers are not as frequently apprised based on their performance as they should be. Which is a mistake. Associating their rewards with performance will result in better performance.

13. Tolerating unsatisfactory employees – The first step in handling difficult employees is to encourage correction of undesirable behavior, however, at times you need to make the tough call and fire them. Tolerating a troublesome and unproductive employee will not only affect productivity, but also seem unfair to you other workers, affecting employee motivation. When you really need to, don't hesitate from separating a problem worker.