Do you want any of these for your business in the coming year? Peace of mind. Consistency. Efficiency. Scalability. More Fun. And of course, more profit. Every leadership team that I’ve worked with seems to have an instant eagerness to improve upon these areas in their business, regardless of industry.

The key to achieving these goals in the new year is a three-step exercise of identifying, documenting, and following your company’s Core Processes. It’s not a sexy solution, but it’s incredibly powerful. And it’s not as painful as you might think.

Keeping things simple is your business’s path to success.

That may seem counterintuitive, because as your business grows, your company becomes more complex. So it may be natural for you to assume that by employing more people, offering more products and reaching more customers, your business would need to be more complicated.

But nothing could be further from the truth.

Does this gardening incident sound familiar? “My son ran over my rosebush with the lawn mower. I thought for sure it was dead! But to my amazement, it came back stronger and more vibrant than ever.” It seems like most of us have a gardening incident somewhere in our past. Aside from teaching your son to spare the shrubbery, there is a business lesson in this gardening incident, too. It’s about pruning for growth.

It’s arguable that the same vision, hard work, techniques and patience that are required to grow a vibrant garden are also required to grow a vibrant business. Just like gardening, growing a business is a blend of science, art, and practice.

Entrepreneurs love success. For that matter, who doesn’t enjoy the feeling of making progress or overcoming challenges…or just simply winning?

Entrepreneurship is all about what’s possible – what we can create – or the boundaries that we feel compelled to push and expand.

But with success there comes the need to manage more people, satisfy more customers, and maintain more processes.

I consider myself to be somewhat “old school.” That term carries different connotations, and whether it’s good or bad depends on how you mean it. I’m proud of my old school leanings because it means I respect good traditions, appreciate my heritage, and stick with tried-and-true ideas that have consistently led to success in the past.

But there is another kind of old school thinking that, if you’re a business owner or entrepreneur, can lead to extinction. Sticking to old ideas that have proven not to work well can make you a dinosaur. I’ve seen people lose their businesses that way while their competition flourished.

Here are three old-school leadership ideas that will stifle your business growth, and how to break free of them.