Our costly mistakes include relying too heavily on the advice of business coaches, not properly vetting business partners, not doing thorough background checks on employees, not getting basic agreements in writing, hiring managers from outside of JVM, investing in fields we didn’t understand, micro-managing, chasing shiny objects (CRMs, Reverse Mortgages, Co-marketing), not protecting our culture (allowing our anger to surface), not having checks and balances to catch an embezzler, expanding too quickly, compromising our hiring standards, keeping the “wrong people on the bus,” and many others.
In short, we were pretty stupid :). BUT – we learned from all of our mistakes and are now much better for them.
One of the dumbest things we did, however, is also one of the most amusing only b/c I thought it was such an ingenious idea. We split our office down the middle and made them compete against each other as two separate teams. I thought it would increase production b/c everyone would strive to beat the other team.
Instead it made everyone miserable b/c nobody wanted anyone to lose. And, it eliminated much of the intra-office support that makes our company thrive. It was a debacle.
According to a culture consultant on this excellent Masters of Scale Podcast on Culture, making teams compete is one of the worst mistakes managers can make, and she sees it all the time.
The podcast is really entertaining and it is mostly about Netflix. We highly recommend it.
Jay Voorhees
Founder/Broker | JVM Lending
(855) 855-4491 | DRE# 01524255, NMLS# 310167
