When does your anger catch you off guard and erupt with mixed results, and when is it an intentional leadership tool you choose to employ? Can you tell the difference?
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Listen In -> Strategic Planning #1: The Tennis Player’s Stance
On the balls of your feet.
Both ready to implement your own plan of attack and ready to respond to whatever comes at you.
We begin a new series on strategic planning this week with the metaphor of the tennis player’s stance. We hope you will join the discussion. (This series is the second of three series that will make up our No Excuses Leadershipâ„¢ course. Watch for news about your opportunity to join this new online learning community!)
After the specifics of decision-making, we are going to begin thinking more broadly about where we’re going and how we’re going to get there. We want to develop both proactive and reactive planning skills.
Proactively we want to be choosing ambitious outcomes, developing concrete goals, setting guiding priorities and making the specific plans that will achieve our outcomes.
But we are naive to assume that we have as much control as we’d hope. We have to be ready to respond to what is happening around us. Technology changes, our competitors shift unexpectedly, the economy slows down while we’re expanding. The list could go on.
How do you both maintain a determined, intentional, plan of our own and a stance of attentiveness, readiness and awareness of what is going on around you?
The series will include:
- The Tennis Player’s Stance
- Shaping the Future
- Learning from the Past
- Focusing in the Present
- The Advantage Vantage Point
Join the conversation. Begin by listening in.
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If You Resist Making Decisions At All
“It’s your fault!”
Whether your own words or words being said about you, they are decision-making killers.
If failure is a blame opportunity instead of a learning opportunity, then chances are you don’t gravitate toward making identifiable decisions. After all, if it doesn’t work out, then it’s your fault and there will be some sort of blaming consequence or punishment involved. So why bother?
If that sounds childish, it is. Leaders and teams that blame are using childhood finger-pointing to divert attention.
The trick is to own one’s decisions and be proud of it. Yes, even if they don’t work out. The difference lies is remaining in on-going decision-making mode and not shifting into conclusion-drawing blaming mode. One is a learning stance. The other is a judgment stance. One is coaching on the playing field. The other is name-calling from the sidelines.
In learning mode, we are able to adjust right away when a decision doesn’t work out as anticipated. We are motivated to say involved and make any necessary improvements. In blaming mode, time slips by while fault is assigned and consequences meted out. Morale drains away, and we become increasingly gun shy about sticking our necks out with future decisions.
If you have trouble making decisions at all, try adopting an Own-It, Learn-From-It and Adjust-Quickly approach to decision-making. It will change your life. And you’ll make better decisions along the way!
(Find the entire podcast/discussion series Decision-Making with Poise here.)
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If You Sit on the Fence When Making Decisions
Black and white. Right or wrong.
Some of us have trouble making a decision until we are absolutely certain we’ve made the correct decision. We gather mounds of data, talk to everyone and their sister, and print out reports sorted on every variable imaginable. We hold off deciding until we achieve certainty. We dread making the “wrong” decision.
Unfortunately the certainty we hope for does not exist. Time waits for no one. We do not have the luxury of sitting on the fence until we are certain our decision is the “right” one
The goal here is to make the most informed decision possible. To be grounded in reality only to the extent that you have “enough” information to make your decision. Key word being “enough.” And then taking action.
If we get out of the all-or-nothing mentality, then we are freed up to make a decision, watch how it plays out, and then adjust as necessary. We are in motion and learning on the way. Our confidence comes from our on-going attentiveness instead of our all-at-once accuracy.
(Find the entire podcast/discussion series Decision-Making with Poise here.)
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If You Shoot From the Hip When Making Decisions
Ready… Fire!… Aim.
Does that describe your decision-making style? Well let me start by saying congratulations on being willing to make a decision! So many leaders avoid decisions, that I find it refreshing to come across those who don’t.
Unfortunately, the shoot-from-the-hip style has a serious weakness. It’s not grounded in reality. It may or may not be connected with the facts on the ground, understand the implications to other processes or people, or take into account facts and dynamics only known by others.
How about a simple pause? You don’t need to change your decision-making style altogether. But you probably could make a better decision and lead a healthier process if you had more information and involved more people.
So, pause.
Talk to a few people. Examine a couple of financial projections. Weigh the implications.
Then go with your gut, as you normally would. An informed intuition is better than a blind one.
And, yes, thank you for being willing to make a decision!
(Find the entire podcast/discussion series Decision-Making with Poise here.)
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If You Waffle When Making Decisions
Politics comes part and parcel with people at work. The dynamic of negotiating diverse opinions, agendas and priorities need not be negative.
Some of us find ourselves wanting to make everyone happy, though. As soon as we see the implications of our decision from a different perspective, we change our decision.
Willingness to change a decision can be a positive attribute if a better understanding of the facts on the ground will have a significant impact on our ability to achieve our stated goal.
But changing your mind can be disastrous if your rationale is rooted in self-protection, office politics, or people-pleasing. In such a situation, your focus has shifted to the response you are trying to elicit from others. Your focus needs to be steadfastly locked on the desired outcome of the decision.
Your team is proceeding down a certain path, and when they come to work the next day to discover that the path has been changed on them, frustration, resentment and resistance are sure to follow.
It doesn’t have to be this way. How has your waffling on decisions affected those around you?
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Question of the Week
Are you aware of how quickly your employees can intuit whether or not you really believe in the company values you publish?
The Question of the Week is offered to increase awareness of one’s personal leadership practices and encourage experimentation with creative alternatives.
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Listen In -> Decision-Making #5: Practical Challenges We Face
We conclude our series on decision-making with a look at the practical challenges that face us in the complex world where we work.
In your decisions, do you:
- Waffle back and forth?
- Sit on the fence?
- Shoot from the hip?
- Search for the perfect decision?
Listen in as we discuss each of these “decision makers,” and offer suggestions for more effective approaches.
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Right or Wrong Won’t Help Here
As long as you’re trying to make the “right” decision and avoid the “wrong” decision, you don’t stand a very good chance of making any decision at all.
The problem with the right versus wrong mentality is that life and work don’t sort themselves into such neat, black and white categories. For the moralist, I realize this creates quite the quandary.
In this week’s podcast conversation, we discuss the secure and confident poise a decision-maker should enjoy. Key to this peace in the midst of ambiguity, complex issues and difficult people is that we have eliminated the harsh, blame-oriented perspective that seeks to label us.
That there is no criteria for naming a decision “right” or “wrong” except in retrospect. Those that worked out well would be “right.” Hardly a basis for encouraging risk, leadership or cooperation.
Listen in to the recording and join the conversation with your thoughts and experiences.
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Question of the Week
Are you as careful to stay ahead of the competition in your management practice as you are in your technical practice? What will any inattentiveness cost you?
The Question of the Week is offered to increase awareness about personal leadership practices and encourage experimentation with creative alternatives.