Be patient. Wait your turn. Good things happen to those who wait.  

No they don't. 

Not in business, not in life. As I am fresh from giving five keynote talks in three countries in 18 days, I have been discussing with executives around the world why NOW is absolutely the right time to accelerate your business growth.

Here are some recent quotes from the executives that I work with:

"I should have moved him out of his role sooner," said a CEO who wanted to keep giving one of his executives another chance to prove himself, but in that time that executive caused three other leaders to quit. Given the cost of replacement is 1.5 times an employee’s compensation (when you take into account the cost of hiring and loss of productivity), this delay cost that CEO over $875,000.
 
"I should have done this years ago Val," said an executive to me recently who just joined a new company after spending several years too long at her last company making herself miserable and tolerating mediocrity. The cost of not quitting sooner affected her energy, happiness, and profit contribution that she made.

We are all taught from a young age to be cautious and studious: Watch your step, don’t run with scissors, practice those violin lessons, and study every possible topic in case it comes up in your exam. But this obsessive over-reliance on being too thoughtful can ingrain behavior and habits that are too cautious. This deep-seated behavior continues to show up in the workplace, resulting in leaders who become frozen with inaction because they want to make sure they make the right decision rather than a decision.

As part of the research for my book, Thoughtfully Ruthless: The Key to Exponential Growth, Wiley, April 2016, I identified that leaders who paid attention to the Cost of Doing Nothing, were more successful at making decisions at the right speed.

Consider a decision that you have been pondering for a while and ask yourself what the business impact of NOT making that decision is (sales, profit, cost, competition passing you by, etc.) I asked this of one of my executive clients prior to commencing an executive coaching relationship and he said to me “We will become the next TIVO.” Now that is a compelling reason to take action!

Rarely do leaders regret acting too fast.

What are you excessively waiting on today?

Dedicated to growing your business,

Val