Hidden Costs

As a business leader, I am always conscious of the operational costs I incur in managing my business. The natural tendency, therefore, is to assume that “costs” represent those aspects where we spend real money- The cost of refurbishing the office is $X, or the cost of producing some product is $Y, or the cost of proactively maintaining the tech infrastructure is $Z. However, there are other “costs” that we all incur but don’t pay attention to because they are intangible and not easily measurable. Some of these “hidden” costs that we don’t pay attention to come from- 

1. People in teams not communicating well with one another.
2. Taking a ‘short-term’ view on difficult but important matters.
3. Not managing customers well.
4. Long-winded, unproductive meetings with deadlocked debates
5. Micro-managing and keeping people from making mistakes.
6. Getting stuck in an “analysis-paralysis” loop and not making timely decisions.
7. Energy wasted in interpersonal conflicts and trying to protect turf.
8. Not aligning the middle-level leaders with the vision at the top.
9. Lack of process orientation and Ad-hoc-ism in dealing with matters.
10. Inefficient execution because of inadequate training.

 It would be prudent to plug these “hidden costs” before they become real costs.