How To Make Great Decisions
How To Make Great Decisions
Nothing will test your metal as an executive or entrepreneur more than your ability to make decisions. I absolutely love to make decisions and whether it is in my operating role as Chief Strategy Officer for N2growth or my role as a husband and father, I want to be the one making the tough calls. That being said, nobody is immune to bad decisioning…We have all made bad decisions whether we like to admit it or not. Show me someone who hasn’t made a bad decision and I’ll show you someone who is either not being honest or someone who avoids decisioning at all costs.
For more than 20 years I have either served in the capacity of a principal owner or senior executive and have generally been highly regarded for my decision making ability. I have also made my fair share of regrettable decisions. When I reflect back upon the poor decisions I’ve made it’s not that I wasn’t capable of making the correct decision, but for whatever reason I failed to use sound decisioning methodology. Gut instincts can only take you so far in life and anyone who operates outside of a sound decisioning framework will eventually fall prey to an act of oversight, misinformation, misunderstanding, manipulation, impulsivity or some other negative influencing factor.
The complexity of the current business landscape combined with ever increasing expectations of performance and the speed at which decisions must be made are a potential recipe for disaster for today’s executive unless a defined methodology for decisioning is put into place. If you incorporate the following metrics into your decisioning framework you will minimize the chances of making a bad decision:
1. Perform a Situation Analysis: What is motivating the need for a decision? Who will the decision impact (both directly and indirectly)? What data, analytics, research or supporting information do you have to validate your decision?
2. Subject your Decision to Public Scrutiny: There are no private decisions…Sooner or later the details surrounding any decision will likely come out. If your decision were printed on the front page of the newspaper how would you feel? What would your family think of your decision? How would your shareholders and employees feel about your decision? Have you sought counsel and/or feedback before making your decision?
3. Conduct a Cost/Benefit Analysis: Do the potential benefits derived from the decision justify the expected costs? What if the costs exceed projections and the benefits fall short of projections?
4. Assess the Risk/Reward Ratio: What are all the possible rewards and when contrasted with all the potential risks are the odds in your favor or are they stacked against you?
5. Assess Whether it is the Right Thing To Do: Standing behind decisions that everyone supports doesn’t particularly require a lot of chutzpa. On the other hand, standing behind what one believes is the right decision in the face of tremendous controversy is the stuff great leaders are made of. My wife has always told me that “you can’t go wrong by going right” and as usual I find her advice to be spot on…Never compromise you value system or your character or your integrity.
Decisions can, and usually will, make or break an executive. Those that avoid making decisions solely for fear of making a bad decision will rarely rise above mid-management, and those that make decisions just for the sake of making a decision will likely not last long. If you develop the appropriate blend of a bias to action with an analytical approach to decisioning your stock as an executive will surely rise.
How To Make Great Decisions - To learn more about this author, visit Mike Myatt's Website.
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Senior executives who rise to the C-suite do so largely based upon their ability to consistently make sound decisions. However while it may take years of solid decision making to reach the boardroom it often times only takes one bad decision to fall from the ivory tower. The reality is that in today’s competitive business world an executive is only as good as his/her last decision. In today’s post I’ll provide some tips for making consistently good decisions…
Nothing will test your metal as an executive or entrepreneur more than your ability to make decisions. I absolutely love to make decisions and whether it is in my operating role as Chief Strategy Officer for N2growth or my role as a husband and father, I want to be the one making the tough calls. That being said, nobody is immune to bad decisioning…We have all made bad decisions whether we like to admit it or not. Show me someone who hasn’t made a bad decision and I’ll show you someone who is either not being honest or someone who avoids decisioning at all costs.
For more than 20 years I have either served in the capacity of a principal owner or senior executive and have generally been highly regarded for my decision making ability. I have also made my fair share of regrettable decisions. When I reflect back upon the poor decisions I’ve made it’s not that I wasn’t capable of making the correct decision, but for whatever reason I failed to use sound decisioning methodology. Gut instincts can only take you so far in life and anyone who operates outside of a sound decisioning framework will eventually fall prey to an act of oversight, misinformation, misunderstanding, manipulation, impulsivity or some other negative influencing factor.
The complexity of the current business landscape combined with ever increasing expectations of performance and the speed at which decisions must be made are a potential recipe for disaster for today’s executive unless a defined methodology for decisioning is put into place. If you incorporate the following metrics into your decisioning framework you will minimize the chances of making a bad decision:
1. Perform a Situation Analysis: What is motivating the need for a decision? Who will the decision impact (both directly and indirectly)? What data, analytics, research or supporting information do you have to validate your decision?
2. Subject your Decision to Public Scrutiny: There are no private decisions…Sooner or later the details surrounding any decision will likely come out. If your decision were printed on the front page of the newspaper how would you feel? What would your family think of your decision? How would your shareholders and employees feel about your decision? Have you sought counsel and/or feedback before making your decision?
3. Conduct a Cost/Benefit Analysis: Do the potential benefits derived from the decision justify the expected costs? What if the costs exceed projections and the benefits fall short of projections?
4. Assess the Risk/Reward Ratio: What are all the possible rewards and when contrasted with all the potential risks are the odds in your favor or are they stacked against you?
5. Assess Whether it is the Right Thing To Do: Standing behind decisions that everyone supports doesn’t particularly require a lot of chutzpa. On the other hand, standing behind what one believes is the right decision in the face of tremendous controversy is the stuff great leaders are made of. My wife has always told me that “you can’t go wrong by going right” and as usual I find her advice to be spot on…Never compromise you value system or your character or your integrity.
Decisions can, and usually will, make or break an executive. Those that avoid making decisions solely for fear of making a bad decision will rarely rise above mid-management, and those that make decisions just for the sake of making a decision will likely not last long. If you develop the appropriate blend of a bias to action with an analytical approach to decisioning your stock as an executive will surely rise.
How To Make Great Decisions - To learn more about this author, visit Mike Myatt's Website.
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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Kim CastleWith nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation. BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them? If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com. - Visit Kim Castle's Website |
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George LudwigGeorge Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance. Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson. His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more. George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website |
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