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Following is a representative
sample of comments made by CEB members when they were asked to describe the
worst decision they made in their business.
1.
Purchase of another office
2.
Pushing for and implementing a dress code
3.
Assuming employees want to succeed
4.
Keeping some employees longer than I should
5.
Not putting through price increases quickly enough or frequently enough
6.
Not training and empowering my people enough
7.
Not firing certain people when problems become apparent
8.
Allowing the demands of others to strongly influence my decisions
9.
Fearing what would happen if highly productive sales representatives left
and I did not keep them under control
10.
Not diversifying sooner
11.
Investing too much time and attention on one or two clients - attention
should be given to all clients fairly and evenly
12.
Out-sourcing of certain production items
13.
To not do it right the first time
14.
Hasty employee hires
15.
Waiting too long to get rid of bad employees, not requiring managers to
make and implement more decisions
16.
Allowing too many close family members to get in positions of control
17.
Entrusted key employee with company assets without proper safeguards - didn’t terminate employee when there were warning
signals
18.
Opening a second office 35 miles away
19.
Hiring relatives
20.
“Sticking” too long with a key manager that had some serious
character flaws
21.
Keeping a bad employee too long
22.
Trusting outside vendors
23.
Hiring additional people with the thought that they would replicate me
24.
Going after business for the sake of just getting new business - not looking at the value-added
implications
25.
Having waited too long to turn over responsibilities
26.
Not being tough on my sales force
27.
Not firing my production manager when I first realized I should
28.
I should have acted sooner in replacing key sales and marketing personnel
- I allowed Board pressure
to delay the decision
29.
Not firing an employee that was not making minimum standards, ok work
quality, dress code and productivity
30.
Keeping people hoping they would change
31.
Allowing an employee to work for us after he had accepted another job
somewhere else - it turned out he
was soliciting our customers prior to leaving
32.
Not consolidating ownership solely into my hands
33.
Not firing a sales person plus fire an accounting manager sooner
34.
Trying to “fix” unhappy employees
35.
Not firing an employee when I should have
36.
Trying to grow too fast without the necessary systems and management team
in place to support rapid growth
37.
Thinking that employee issues would get better by themselves
38.
Not holding people accountable
39.
Initiated a profit sharing plan to motivate marginal employees- cost the
company money and didn’t enhance employee performance
40.
Allowing a couple of “Negative Neds” to stay
41.
Affiliation with another P.A. that was too close geographically
42.
Hiring a meathead as a Division President
43.
Procrastinating on the decision to fire for two years
44.
Taking on a partner
45.
Allowing a “committee” decision against a personal, experienced,
opposite feeling
46.
Having too many people reporting to me - that slowed the growth of the
company and my ability to accomplish objectives of the company
47.
Thinking financial statements and inventory sheets are accurate
48.
Hiring a misfit
49.
Hiring a manager who had no ability to control her people -
she could not get the respect and with day workers that’s the only way
to keep them loyal
50.
Held on to employees in anticipation of receiving a future sale that
never materialized
51.
Partnering with a software developer of a specific project
52.
Bad set of expensive consultants - did not check them out first.
53.
Signing a contract with organized labor
54.
Giving outside consultants free reign to make internal changes
55.
Hiring wrong person
56.
Hiring unqualified person for the quality department
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