• Leadership Lip Service – 'Walk the talk.'
• Fuzzy Focus – Lack of clear goals and direction.
• Priority Overload – Do the right thing. How hard you work is less important than how much you get done.
• Partial and Piecemeal Efforts – Focus is too narrow, individual areas are targeted rather than the entire system.
• Confusion Between Knowing and Doing – Managers need to use the tools, not just know about them.
• Flimsy Feedback – Ironically, those people that need improvement feedback are usually the least receptive.
• Technomanagement Tools – Bureaucratic 'technomanagement' is often rigid and misses the 'soft people issues' critical to high performance.
• Misaligned Systems and Processes – Business systems/structures that create non-value added work, inhibit communication, and unbalance compensation.
• Failure to Connect to Customers – Lack of good feedback about customers' real needs and desires.
• Impotent Improvement Process – Lack of disciplined process, failure to invest required time.
• Passing Programs – Temporary short-term programs have no real long-term impact, 'flavor of the month.'
• Asinine Improvement Attitudes – Looking for a quick fix or victimitis – it's someone else's problem.

The more of these factors you have in your business, the tougher the path to performance and the more persistent and passionate you'll have to be.

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