Making things happen takes effort. Leaders know that sometimes all the best effort gets wasted on outcomes that fall short of expectations. You face leadership decisions throughout your day. How do you make the effort worthwhile?
Consistently making the best of your own effort and that of your team is what separates one leader from another.
You know the types of decisions:
- Organizational change
- Moving your facilities/offices
- Launching a new product or service
- Simply growing the business
- Expanding your vision
What ways can you drive better outcome and avoid the squeeze?
Planning
Much is written about data-driven decisions. In big business gathering the data is both more achievable (deeper pockets to spend on big data) and harder to do (broader range of variables). Yet you don’t need the high end, rocket science-like data to drive your planning. You do need valid information.
For smaller companies and entrepreneurial endeavors, you need simple trend line information like:
- Recent sales, perhaps seasonal data
- Expenses, what are you spending?
- Payroll information
- Materials/supply usage
- Buyer profiles, who’s buying your product or service?
The process of planning for your next big decision can uncover blind spots, things you haven’t yet thought about. Once the unknown is revealed, you may decide the “juice isn’t worth the squeeze”. That is, you will not realize the return you expected for the effort and resources you may be planning to spend.
Culture
The culture of your team drives everything. The team effort derived from a healthy work culture can often produce amazing results. Culture can overcome limited resources.
Peter Drucker is often quoted as saying “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Sources say he never meant that literally, but it does indicate a bias toward the power of a high trust team effort. A powerful and empowering culture within your team is a more reliable path to success.
Culture isn’t inherently about workspaces and perks, like comfy chairs and ping pong tables. It’s about the habits people have formed, how they make decisions, how they respond to challenges, pressure, and discomfort, and what they believe is good or bad for success. Culture is based on what’s been incentivized, rewarded, reinforced, and possibly even punished in their workplace.
Process
What process has your company or team developed to be able to execute on decisions made?
Ready, Fire, Aim! Is not a process. It’s a train wreck. ~Doug Thorpe
The process you devise for achieving success accomplishes several things, all at once.
First, it allows you to score some wins. Finding the right blend of people, technology, and a procedure is a process. When a particular combination of those elements is producing good results, you have a winning process.
Scoring wins for your team builds momentum. Strong, viable businesses have their unique momentum. But you must have some wins to be able to build momentum. Overnight success is seldom that. Rather it comes from sustained hard work and dedication to winning ways.
Keep finding ways to improve the process. The business world is not static, it’s dynamic. That is, it keeps changing. So, too, must you.
The Bottom Line
While you certainly have learned a lot about making better decisions, we’ve only just scratched the surface when it comes to executive decision making. And that’s why I’d like to conclude by pointing out a few resources to help you get the most out of the decisions you make:
- If you want to learn more about values-based decision making, then you’ll want to read about these Elite 8 leadership principles.
- If your primary interest is leadership, then you can’t go wrong with this article.
- Need to know more about delegation? Here’s the best place to learn it.
- Lastly, want to build a high-trust team environment?
Check them out – you’ll be glad you did!
Question: What are some ways you avoid making decisions that “aren’t worth the squeeze?” Leave a comment.
Originally posted on DougThorpe.com
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