When you come to clean the sink there is dirt or food remnants that you must steer into the water flow, which when it nears the plughole gains momentum and spirals down the plughole. If like me, you find there is bits that escape our initial attempt to direct them, requires additional effort or are missed, I can quite quickly become irritated (time wasting).

Why? I am striving for a perfectly clean sink.

Is that really important? Well, yes and no. I have pride in my approach to hygiene, others to making sure pictures are correctly positioned on a wall but it is so infinitesimal, there is a remote possibly it will impact anyone’s life.

I observe a great many entrepreneurs obsessing over “irritants” in their mid-market companies (web presence, the press release, modest capex decisions) without regard to the return on their time invested. Larger more profound matters (digital innovation, succession planning/career development, cash management) that impact their future financial health and well-being are addressed superficially or ignored.

They are doing it because they haven’t or won’t change the beliefs that govern their behaviour. Equally, those people, who are there to hold them to account are unable or unwilling to intervene.

What it is often overlooked is the distortion effect. How that behaviour is refracted down the chain of command (“we must do this first, the boss will go mad”), leading to an institutionalised lack of focus and discipline on critical and highly important growth issues.

The antidote is often regulation but why? If auditors and Board Chairs are doing their job, and the requisite management talent and judgement resides in the business, and amongst its’ active investors, there really is no excuse. Take any of the recent debacles around the globe: Goals Soccer Centre, Wirecard and MyPayrollHR.

No, you didn’t take your eye off the ball, you were never watching the ball in the first place.