Many businesses struggle and often wander aimlessly. This can be attributed to one or more of a number of mistakes made by those responsible for running the business on a daily basis. Here are five common mistakes that should be avoided:

1. Making poor hiring and promotion decisions and repeating this process over and over again. It is truly amazing the number of organizations that do not have a sound hiring process in place. It is equally amazing that most organizations do a very poor job of matching people to jobs. Having too many people mis-matched for the job they hold is more common than many people want to believe.

2. Lack of accountability. In addition to poor hiring and promotion decisions, employees are often not held accountable for meeting reasonable, but demanding expectations. This impacts the organization in many ways, but most importantly in overall performance, employee morale and customer service.

3. Operating without a good long-range strategic plan. Too many companies live for today. Some have developed plans, but they often lack vision and substance. Others have no plan in place. Developing and carefully implementing a sound long-range strategic plan is critical to the success of any organization.

4. Managing with a short-term mentality. At the expense of the long-term viability of the company, management is too often focused on maximizing profits over the short-term. A short-term mentality very often leads to numerous operating and customer service problems that do significant damage to the company's credibility and image. This is often caused by cuts in the workforce that are too deep or simply unwarranted, an unwillingness to spend money on activities or infrastructure that might be important, and a focus on the compensation of management which is often directly tied to short-term profits.

5. Lack of cost controls. In too many organizations, money is spent on the wrong things and not spent on the things it should be spent on. Far too often, budgets are prepared without good assumptions and justification leading to overruns and missed profit targets. This can obviously have an adverse impact on banking and investor relationships. The balance between cost control and maintaining a long-term mentality can be difficult for managers not well trained or well prepared to deal with these issues.

Disclaimer: The information above is for informational and educational purposes only, It does not construe advice. Your use of the information is at your discretion and you assume the sole responsibility of relying on this information at your own risk.