Behavior change is the process of altering or modifying actions, habits, patterns, and responses to achieve a desired outcome.
Primary Implication
Doing what you know isn’t working is not good business, nor is it right for you personally or those you care about.
One of the hardest things to do in life is to make sustained behavior changes. The failure to change is the number one reason why businesses run out of cash on their way to going out of business.
Protect your business from failing by applying profit and cash management tools in your business to stop wasting cash that leads to profit losses, not profits.
Overview
People undertake change to make something they care about different. People who care about the livelihoods their business provides will elect to perform differently to make when the results of the business are unsatisfactory. Most of the time, the change they must make is behavior change. The transformation or modification of human behavior intended to produce a new result.
Sustained behavior change requires determination, courage, self-control, and a feedback loop, confirming that the new actions are producing the desired results. Actual change—permanent change—is more than just acknowledging we want to stop doing things wrong so we can do them right. It is a change of mind and heart that gives us a fresh view about who we are and what we need to do in our lives and business. It includes turning away from that which holds us back and turning toward those things we need to start, stop, or do differently to realize better results from our actions.
In business, sustained behavior change is occurring when higher profits and cash reserves through less effort and sacrifice are consistently produced.
In business, you are out of business when you run out of cash. Every business violates this law of business through waste and mistakes that cost us money. Failure to reduce waste, eliminate stupid mistakes, and improve productivity brings higher anxiety and stress into too many lives working in a business that is consistently losing money.
In business, either a behavior costing us money is changed, or it isn’t. Any change is an acknowledgment that what we are doing isn’t producing the desired results. New actions represent changing what we are doing until we get what we want because the results we are experiencing are costing us time and money. For us to realize the desired results, we must have a willingness to submit to doing what we know needs to be to increase sales at lower costs to hold onto cash at a profit.
An essential element in sustaining profitable change, jettisoning failed changes, and making new behavior changes stick in business is a willingness to consistently take a hard look at the financial results your business is reporting to verify what’s working and what isn’t. The failure to review the financial results of your decisions and actions is a mistake.
While desire is an essential element of behavior change, it is not enough. We must maintain an unyielding, permanent resolve that we will avoid repeating costly mistakes. When we keep this commitment, we avoid further losses in that area.
It is not enough to try to resist costly mistakes or empty our lives of ignorance. We must engage in activities that bring us more excellent knowledge, insights, and wisdom. We must immerse ourselves in the key performance indicators and results of our business to give us the confidence to do what we know needs to be done.
Higher profits with predictable cash flow bring the power of our business into our lives, the lives of our customers, and our employees. Changing through new actions brought through business intelligence is how best to position ourselves and our business to be what we are capable of being.