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How to Make Better Decisions (3-Part Framework for Leaders) · Leading in Change

• speaker-0: Change used to feel like a one-time event. Something you managed and led through, then came out the other side. But we are not living in that world anymore, and change is constant now. That means the job isn't leading through it, it's learning to lead in it. So how do you actually do that? That's what this show is all about. I'm Adrienne a partner and consultant at Success Labs, and this is the Leading in Change podcast. And every episode we dig into the real questions leaders are wrestling with right now. Everything from delegating effectively when the target keeps moving to managing your career in the age of AI. Topics are coming directly from our clients, listeners, and leaders just like you. If you want to lead your people well and manage effectively in the chaos, you're in the right place. Let's get to it. Welcome to Leading in Change. This is a podcast where we talk about what it's like to lead not just ⁓ through change, but in change. And so we're going to be talking about decision making and uncertainty. I think the thing we're hearing so much right now is that decision making is really hard. And how do you do it when you don't have complete information or all the information? How do you know that you're making the right decision? And so by the end of this episode, hopefully you'll have some frameworks for how to make better decisions and some tools to help you have confidence knowing that you are effectively making the right decisions and change. Before we get into it, Devin, let's start with an icebreaker. Okay. Would you say that you are a fast or a slow decision maker, and how do your strengths play into that? speaker-1: I think I'm a little of both. I think I'm pretty action oriented and I want to attack things. So that makes me really fast with some decisions. But I would also say I'm a bit of a pro procrastinator. So I want often, if it doesn't feel like a rush, I'd like to wait and see if there's more information that might influence my decision. So I probably drive people crazy with some decisions that I don't either I don't think are important right in the moment, and I will drag them out. But I think when it really matters, when things when we're in crisis, when I've had the hardest times of my life, in some ways I think I have tons of clarity and know exactly what needs to happen because it just forces that for me. Yeah. Which is interesting, I think. speaker-0: Yeah. It's I feel the exact same way. I think it's a little bit in Enneagram eight thing, they say go with your gut as an eight. And so I have in times of high pressure, I feel like the most clarity because it's like I just know when my gut exactly like my whole body knows like this is the right answer. And I feel so confident moving in those times. And when I do deliberate, it's when I feel I feel kind of mediocre about it. And I'm like waiting for something to give me some more just ⁓ pizzazz more speaker-1: Yeah. There are things I really don't care about. I just don't think they're that important. speaker-0: And then I'm painfully slow. ⁓ speaker-1: Yeah, and people are like, and I'm you're just like, I'm just not feeling motivated enough to care about making this decision. So maybe you can wait. Yeah. I think it's interesting what you say about and I don't know if other people know what Enneagram 8 is, so maybe we want to say something about that. But I would say I th and this is Enneagram eight coming out. I think I make great decisions. Yeah. And I think I give good advice. And I'm also super logical and that probably helps. And where I fall down is that I'll make decisions and not fully think through the impact on the people around me. Because I make it with logic. speaker-0: Yeah. That's right. I see that. Yeah. speaker-1: And then sometimes I if once I get aware of it or somebody makes me aware, then I try to be thoughtful about it. At least I do now. But twenty years ago I wouldn't have. I was just like, screw it, it's a good decision. ⁓ speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. Live with it. I totally get that. ⁓ okay. So let's jump into we'll go into Enneagram another time. ⁓ look it up. It's great. I love Enneagram. ⁓ okay, so let's talk about why why is decision making during change hard? I think leaders are expected to make decisions so rapidly. I think leaders are being asked to make more decisions than ever, right? ⁓ speaker-1: People. speaker-0: And I think kind of the paradox of that is the more information you have, sometimes the more crippling it can be, right? Like we have more information at our fingertips now than ever. I think AI gives you more decision-making tools, more information now than ever. So, you know, what makes that kind of what brings that paradox to life? What makes it so hard to lead when there's more decisions and more information? speaker-1: Yeah, I think things ⁓ right, we talk about leading and change. It just means that more decisions are required because things are moving so fast. And I think you're right, we've got a lot more information. I think what makes it hard is that it's how to weigh that information and how to value that information and how much of it is just noise and how much of it really matters. And I think that's why when there's a lot of information, we can think, great, that should help this decision be better. But what I think often what what we have is a lot of information and trying to drill that down to the things that really matter is where it gets confusing, when there's too much coming at you. And if you're rushed, it just makes it that much worse because you have less time to discern what's what's good information and what's not good information. speaker-0: And then Yeah. ⁓ I I wanna drill into that for a second. One of the things that I see happen is what I'll call analysis paralysis, you know, where I see so many leaders feel like, Okay, I really need to slow down, which sometimes slowing down is the right decision, right? But belabor a decision for so long and W what you know, wh why is that not the right move and ⁓ in in change in particular? And what advice would you give to leaders they're dealing with high change in that position? speaker-1: I mean, I I think I'd say a couple of things. One is that absolutely not making a decision is a decision within itself and not always a good one because you're making a decision not to make a decision, even though you don't feel that that's what you're doing. And I think when things are moving fast, you can get behind. You can lose a window, you can be slower to market, ⁓ you can You know, you know, what kind of decisions do we make? We make business decisions, we make tech decisions that have to do with technology, people, all kinds of things could add to that list. When we're slow with people decisions, you know, it's slowing down the team, you're not efficient. And around all of this is that there are people around you that are wondering why you're not making a decision. you know, why aren't you making a decision? Why aren't you doing something about that? And that has an a whole nother effect on the business, on the team and things like that. So and what's interesting is that a lot of those people think, well, the decision would be easy if it was mine. Like everybody's done until you have to make the decision, everybody thinks it's an easy decision. speaker-0: That's right. You know, a a couple things ⁓ that stuck out as you were saying that. You know, one, I think that a lot of leaders overestimate the impact of a decision, right? When I think the truth is a mentor said to me one time, make a move, then make it right. Meaning if y you know, if you make the move and if it's doesn't feel right, make it right. You know, if you've you figure it out on the other side, but you're always gonna have more information. on the other side of a decision, whereas you're operating from a finite amount of information the more you wait. And I kind of think of change, they always say change comes in waves, right? And so you look at, you know, do you want to go with the flow or do you want to be s you know hit over and over by the waves of change? And I I and I think that that kind of like staying stagnant, staying still, belaboring a decision, it just compounds, right? It just Creates I think more. speaker-1: And why do people want to do that, right? Why do and I think a lot of that is fear of making a wrong decision. So Corn Fairy research is like ninety percent of the problems of mid-level managers and and above are ambiguous. What is ambiguity ⁓ ambiguity but being in change? And s I think it's successful managers are right about 65% of the time. So most of the decisions are ambiguous, meaning there's no clear, perfect right answer. And second, you know, about thirty-five percent of the time, you're gonna be, and I'll say wrong. No, wrong might not be horrible, but maybe it's just if I'd known more, maybe I would have done it differently. So getting comfortable not being perfect part of it, and I think in change. speaker-0: I think that's right. speaker-1: our constant change. That's even more true. Like get comfortable making wrong decisions. ⁓ you know, there's the the Mark Twain, the Mark Twain ⁓ quote, I think, and it's good decisions come from experience. Experience comes from making bad decisions. speaker-0: I love that. That's exactly right. I mean, I always say the best way to learn is to do. Right. So that's kind of like an extension of that. And screw up and say, ⁓ well, that didn't work out right. You know? I I think to to your point about people are afraid of failure. What even is failure? What really is the worst that can happen? I mean, we say this all the time. Like, what is really the worst thing that can happen? And I think people catastrophize in their mind like I'm gonna get fired and the company's gonna go o under. And it's like really the likelihood of that is so and can't if it all hinges on this one decision, like that's a structural problem that's much greater than this one decision, right? speaker-1: You're not that important. We just can't we we're human and most of the time it really isn't the end of the world when we make a decision that's not perfect or not right. And if we would do that earlier, ask that question, well, what's the worst thing that can happen? And if you're like, well, I can live with the worst thing, then roll. speaker-0: That's right. I agree. You know, Jeff Bezos has that framework, ⁓ doors you can w walk back out of. Yeah, I probably said that wrong, but doors, you know, that you can you walk through, that you can walk back out of, and then doors that you walk through and you can never go back. And so knowing like you be need to be more deliberative when you're going through, you know, a door that you can't back out of when you make a decision that it's really hard to untangle. But you'd be surprised at how many decisions you can walk back or how many, you know, it ⁓ i you go forward with a plan, you can pivot that plan. It's not like it's truly unchangeable. Mm-hmm. speaker-1: No, yeah, I I a hundred percent agree. And if we had that in our heads, it would would probably we'd have a lot less grief because I think we suffer with decisions. People suffer with decisions often. speaker-0: Okay, I'm gonna ask you a question. What's a moment personal or professional when waiting for more information was the wrong move and made made the situation worse, not better? speaker-1: Well, when I think about for me and when I also think about a lot of my clients, I think it's almost always around people. Well, and I think we can think about this personally, we can also think about professionally. I think because of relationship, that w we we can often know that we need to make a decision and make a change. Right. That could be in our personal lives, that could be at work. speaker-0: Mm, say more. speaker-1: To me, those are the decisions that we often wait too long on, and it ends up having negative effects. And so if we use the work example, I was just with a client this week, and you know, there were two roles they told me about where these people are failing, you know, one director, one manager. And they've waited and it hasn't been working, it hasn't been working for a while. And we're not talking about weeks, we're talking about year, year plus. In one case, A couple years. And now we're at the point. They're like, we need your help. But waiting has ended up causing the executive level, the VPs, for everybody to look at them and say, Why aren't you dealing with this? Now you look bad. And What happens to the team around them is you start seeing that playing out in the team who start saying, Why aren't you dealing with this? And trust breaks down and teamwork breaks down. So when I think about my own life, and I also think about a lot of the decisions that I see the leaders that I work with dealing with a lot of times, the ones that really end up dragging and causing problems and if I frame it as coming from the best place, well, we should deliberate this more. It's people's lives, it's relationship, but I think that's what gets us too, because we're very slow and sometimes wait much too long and other things start collapsing around it. speaker-0: Yeah, I think that's right. I I see people belabor people decisions all the time. And I think, you know, I'll give an example, holding off on hiring, it just compounds, compounds, compounds the issues of the team being constrained, of the team feeling like there's lack of direction, of the team feeling supported. So like, you know, get ⁓ in there. You know, the the opportunity cost, people so rarely weigh the opportunity cost of waiting. you know, they're only thinking about like, well, if I make this investment now, well, you know, w what's gonna be lost if you would have had that person on the team? What could you have grown? What you've you know, what's the value creation opportunity that could have happened if you did have someone on the team? speaker-1: That you brought up the other side of that because I do think that's the other side of it. And I get it, right? It's one of the biggest investments we make. And at the same time, I was work with a client yesterday, and they probably aren't staffed up. Somebody quit. They've got nobody to back them up. She's like, I'm gonna have to do it. And I was like, what's the cost of that? And so I was like, okay, next week we are kicking into. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. speaker-1: some more serious team capacity planning and building. We need to understand exactly what your risk and needs are. And I think for a lot of people, that's taking a look at that and making dis people decisions, you know, hard ones and just challenging ones are huge. And then from a leadership perspective, it doesn't surprise me that we both, you know, are coming up with the people stuff because honestly, that's a big part of it. speaker-0: Are people problems? I mean, so I want to get into some of the ⁓ a framework that you use around this. ⁓ but one thing you said that I I want to drill in on for a second, you know, you talked about how your client said somebody quit and now I'm gonna have to pick up that stuff. So often people see a decision as black and white or binary. And I remember some advice. I went to a design thinking training, and one of the things they said is find the third option. And so I I use this all the time whenever s staff leave. That I literally just had this conversation with a client. She had somebody go out on medical leave. She's you know, my client is totally spinning out. And I said, Go on Fiverr right now. Look for someone who can do this on an hourly basis, find a good review. Like you can find someone on Fiverr, you can hire a contractor, you can get somebody in here tomorrow to keep the ship afloat while you to stabilize while you figure out what the long term plan is. You don't have to have the long term plan tomorrow, but like how do you stabilize for today? And thinking about it in the binary of I have to do it myself or everything fails. That's rarely reality, right? And so what's what are the other options you can bring to the table? The other thing I think about in change is you can think in shorter when things are changing all the time, short term decisions actually can be an asset. What's gonna get me to tomorrow so I have more information to make a better decision the next year, right? speaker-1: Yeah, I I think what you said is super important and actually when we were kicking this around the other day, I was like creativity. And I do think people get down to their it's this or this. We're either doing this or this. And I think whether it's people or it's other things, it's like how how could we we be creative? What is another alternative? How else could we solve for this that we're not thinking of right now? And I do think that we get very, you know. It's it's A or it's B. And no one says Yeah, there are lots of ways to get there or there's some short-term solutions that buy us time. That's right. But we know it's the right thing and it gets us from point A to point B, and then we'll we'll be smarter and then we can make a bigger decision. So I I love that. speaker-0: Yeah. What about C D E F Yeah. And when you do that, let's say you make a short term decision, set a time horizon. And by s within the next month, we want to have a long term plan. But this is what we're doing in the interim, right? speaker-1: And people feel good, you know, people want decisions. They want a moving forward. They might not always love it, but they appreciate you make it s making it. So I think when things come up, someone leaves unexpectedly, you realize you've got to jump into a a new line of business. I think people really appreciate it when you say, like, okay, here's what we're gonna do. And everybody likes a plan. Everybody kinda likes a decision and I wanna talk later about just making decisions and then for other people. Yeah, let's talk about I know, it might be a little bit of a jump, but speaker-0: Yeah. No, I think ⁓ so we're talking a lot about getting to a decision, right? And so what's the right amount of information that you need to make a decision? How do you judge if this is a short-term decision or I need to make a longer term decision? You know, what is how do you start thinking through that? speaker-1: I think it's often kind of what you said, almost a one-two punch. I think something happens or something comes up. I mean, look, when you've got time, when you know something's coming, you've got time to deliberate and get information and do all that, but often we need to make quick decisions because something's changed. And I think sometimes it is a one-two punch. Sometimes it's a quick. solution. Okay, here's what we're gonna do right now. Because right now we need something that solves for the next two weeks, the next three weeks why the while the initial you know things are playing out. And then and then there's a bigger decision. And that bigger decision then can be slowed down like you said so that you can actually do your due diligence and make a decision that's better for the long term. So speaker-0: Yeah. Okay, you have a I know you have a framework for helping people through this. Can you walk us through it? speaker-1: I think the first thing is to gather information or evidence. So, what are the facts? What do we know? What do we need to know in order to move forward? And so, data, information, all those things, evidence that we need to gather in order to have what we need to make this decision. So I think that's the first thing. I think after that, it's I need to tap into my experts. There are people who know more than I do. There are people who have different perspectives. And I think going into decision making, knowing that you're probably too close to it. Right, you know, I and you know this, Adrian, because we both work with clients. And so when I'm sitting with someone, they're describing a situation, I'm not emotionally attached. So from the outside, in I'm going like, wait, you absolutely need to deal with that. You absolutely, this is you do know that's the that's the path you have to go down, but they're The emotions, the relationship, the being too close to it. And I think it's why we give other people better advice and sometimes we give ourselves because we're too close to it. So I would say you tap your experts. Who knows more than you? Who has a different angle? Who sees it differently? ⁓ just making sure you're not making decisions in an echo chamber. You're not making decisions just based on your own thoughts and what's between, you know, your ears, because you're 100%. I don't care how smart and experienced you are, you are not thinking of everything. And I think the last piece is to evaluate and really think if I if we do these things, what are the consequences? One of the questions you asked earlier is like, is this undoable? You know, can we undo this? ⁓ who does it impact? When we're making decisions, we often don't think of all the stakeholders and we don't always think of who might be impacted or affected by our decisions. So, and I do that all the time, right? I'm super logical. I know what needs to happen. And I'll be like, ⁓ yeah, I didn't think about that. ⁓ yeah, you think they'll be upset about that? And they're like, they're absolutely gonna be upset. And I'm like, ⁓ yeah, I didn't think about that right away. I'll factor it in once I know, but sometimes I'll completely miss that piece. So evaluating ⁓ and really understanding the consequences, the unintended consequences, the things that'll be touched, and then I think you can. absolutely be in a better position to make a good decision. So evidence, so gathering the facts and information, tapping your experts, evaluating your options and then making the best one. Might not be perfect, but the best one. speaker-0: I love that. I think that's great. You know, as you run through those, the place that I I see people missing on different parts of this quite a bit, but I will say I think people forget to look outside a lot. And I'm not being like gratuitous when I say that, but I think asking the experts is so critical just for outside perspective. And I'm not even saying like paid counsel, like talk to someone you trust about the situation going on. That's why I think like a personal board of directors is so critical for leaders, you know. I think the loneliness at the top for a lot of leaders is very real. And so getting outside perspective really helps give you perspective on your situation. I'm working with a leader right now who's brought me in on some a conflict that's happening within the company that's got large ramifications for the company's revenue, for their ⁓ sell potential, for a bunch of other things. And one of the things that one of the people involved, you know. was making a recommendation that was just so clearly fast backwards. It was just like this is not a good idea. And several other people in the room I could tell were like, this is not a good idea, but nobody wanted to say it, right? And so I was able to come in and say, look, I hear where you're coming from on this. And I think we can get to what I see as your end goal. But here's how I would get there. And I kind of proposed a different approach. And they were like, ⁓ my God, that's so much better. I I don't know why I didn't think of that. You're totally right. That would have been as backwards way to do it. You know, and it's like as soon as but he couldn't see it. He couldn't see it in the moment, way too close to it. And the people around him were not saying anything. You know, and so you've got to recognize that especially in high change, I think, and when decisions feel high stakes, you you may not be getting all the information. You know, you y you might be operating in a vacuum and so you need to kind of look outside and get s some counsel. speaker-1: Think it's interesting, you know, because when we say making decisions in high change, what that means is you're often making decisions, and especially I think when you're experienced and you've been doing something a long time, you're making decisions off, you know, your experience for maybe the last 20 years. But that's changed. And so that's another thing I think you've got to be watch out for is if I have a history of making, you know, if I believe I've had a history of making good decisions for 20 years, then I'm gonna overly rely on my decision making. But that might not play out the same because now we are in a different world. And so that's where you have to be open, I think, to other people's ideas, to saying yes to things that you might not value, but They are important. It's like that's not what I think is important, but I'm also operating from a from a different experience. And then I also think interesting, because you said, you know, board of directors, the, you know, your personal board of directors, your experts. Sometimes your team's the expert. So you also have to make sure that you are tapping into those important stakeholders. And if your team is a big part of this, you should be tapping into them. Like your experts can be a lot of different people. Might be the people closest, somebody internal, external, couple of lane, you know, a couple of layers below you, and a layer above you, and getting good at saying, I need your advice, or I'd love your advice, or I'd love your perspective, and is good. And I'd like to hear you you say more. ⁓ you know, you brought in the hesitancy, pushback, realizing that. speaker-0: Definitely. speaker-1: Someone who has a bigger title and longevity can be intimidating to push back on and you can believe that, well, can I really push back on this person? They seem very determined in what they're saying. You know, they're they they have a so automatically you're in a position where you might not get great advice and you might not get pushback. speaker-0: That's right. That's right. And I think in uncertainty, even talented, knowledgeable people lose their confidence. Right. And so recognizing that sometimes you have to ask a lot of questions and draw the information out. You know, one of the things this is where I do love AI. I love to use AI to be a sounding board for decision making. I think a lot of people use it as in kind of administrative capacity, which I do, and it's great for that. But it's it can be great. Counsel if you give it full context and you're not kind of poisoning the well with your own bias, you know, too much, or you tell it, I want you to push back on me and I want you to ⁓ help me get to the right best decision. One of my favorite exercises is a pre-mortem. So let's say we make this decision. Let's imagine a post-mortem a year from now. What do we think that will look like? What do we think is gonna happen? ⁓ you know, what's working based off of this decision? What went wrong with this decision? And that's where if your te get your team engaged in that conversation. And I think getting them to surface some of that is a good thing. And that's also where I I think leveraging AI can be really helpful. speaker-1: You know, you intervened in that situation where nobody would say anything. If you hadn't been there, what if they just kept going? So I think the other, and we can forget to do it, or we can, yeah, I think you have to develop a habit to do it, is to say, okay, I need you to tell me what could go wrong. Somebody be the opposition on this, somebody fight this idea, because that's the only way we're gonna know it doesn't have holes in it. So if you can do that with big decisions as a practice, you know, if they inv especially if they involve maybe your peers or your team, I think that can be a good way to say we're gonna have to work hard to make good decisions. And so who who wants to be the the next bring the next speaker-0: Yeah. Well, I worked with a team that used to appoint a devil's advocate. And I loved to do it because it's my personality, right? Like how many times a day do I say, like, well, I can see both sides? You know, and so it it the role was poke holes. The role was provide a counterpoint of view. And I think that permission structure of calling it out on the front end creates the space to get the information out so that way you can get to the next right decision. speaker-1: Yeah, and if you you know, if you don't have one person that can do that, you can always go around and say, Okay, I need to come up everybody come up with one thing that can let make this thing go wrong. Yeah. And so you invite people to actually share the thing. And you listen and you weigh it in. You weigh weigh that into your decision making. So I think that's that's good. speaker-0: Yeah. One thing I also see leaders do is they will or a way that I see leaders get decision making wrong, I'll put it this way, is you know, they'll make a decision. I'm putting it in air quotes, because then they go and revisit it and they keep reopening the door and they keep projecting uncertainty and they keep ⁓ kind of speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. And so it doesn't really feel like a full end decision. speaker-0: That's right. So what do you do? How do you w work with a leader that is doing that? speaker-1: Well, I always try to remind people people want you to make a decision. They're wondering why you're not making the decision. And I would wonder why they're doing that. And it could be because they feel like if they don't own it completely, then they can't be blamed for it. I think that goes into when you when we talk about leading and change and we talk about organizations and change and that there are no perfect decisions and you're making more of them, then I think we have to look at culture and say, is this is this The person, is this coming from the person who just wants to be perfect and wants to be right? Or have we set up an organization where there is or there are consequences for not being right, where you're gonna be punished ⁓ for it. And I think that's where often we see some hedging or some not wanting to own decisions completely. And I was just working with a team recently, and I don't think it was that they thought they were gonna get in trouble because I checked that out, but they were a young company. They they were they needed to make decisions and move fast. And when the CEO saw that they missed out and lost some money on a deal because they hadn't moved fast and made this decision and we ended up spending about half a day talking about decision making. And there was in some cases a hesit a hesitancy to act and make a decision. Still building their careers, wanted wanted to make good decisions. What weren't wasn't they weren't sure if it was their decision to make. They weren't sure who they should tap to get information to help them make the decisions. They didn't know who to go to and they didn't know when to escalate or just make the decision. So I think that hedging is coming from someplace. It could be personal, but it could also be organizational. And it doesn't it doesn't bring you know it doesn't increased confidence for sure. Yeah. And I definitely want to talk about because this makes me go into thinking about, and I think you know both think this is important. It's like we often hedge too when when the decisions we have to make involve competing values. And that's often the case. The people decisions or you know there's a anyway. Yeah. Values and competing speaker-0: Mm-hmm. speaker-1: right decisions or competing values cause people a lot of grief. speaker-0: Yeah. Okay. I wanna c click through a few things and then I wanna drill into values. So one thing I I heard you say is ⁓ people will not own it completely because they don't want to be blamed for it. And so that makes me think about ⁓ you know, the the trust pyramid, Patrick Lincioni's, you know, five stages to you know, healthy teams and trust is at the foundation of all of that, right? And so if you don't feel trusted that you can make ⁓ a mistake, then y you know, you're not gonna own the outcomes because you don't wanna be held accountable, right? speaker-1: Decisions don't get made and if decisions aren't made then goals aren't achieved, then we're it you know, nothing we don't get results. speaker-0: That's right. So there could be like a five dysfunctions of a team happening. It could be that there's not clear decision rights. So do I have the right to make the decision? Who does make the decision? How do I escalate it? What's the process for escalating it? I think decision rights, we've talked about this several times. Like teams need to be clear in them. ⁓ and then w I recently read an HBR piece that talked about when rules get broken or when big mistakes are made. looking at intent versus outcome. And it was interesting to me to think about it in that context because was somebody trying to do the right thing and they just made the wrong call or they just ⁓ did it the wrong way, they didn't follow the process or whatever it was, that that's different from somebody that did it for the wrong intent. And so understanding that piece of it, I think is important for leaders. And then that does come back to values. So talk about what role do values play in making effective decisions? speaker-1: Think we're all making decision, all our decisions are influenced by our values on some level, right? If I value ⁓ financial security, then I might might be slower to make a decision or really vet financial investment decisions. ⁓ I have this cool case study that I do in an emerging leader class that I teach. And It's meant to help people think through the decisions they would they would make. And they often find I often find that they make their decision very quickly. And they run over people who would make a because they're in groups, would make a different decision. And when we really start digging in, they start seeing the other sides of it and why it's not as simple as a decision as they think it is. And so when you're moving from, you know, because you and I do leadership development stuff and all the time when you're moving from to into higher level roles, you're making decisions that have a lot more impact. So this particular exercise, they have to make a decision to lay someone off. So their boss has told them we have to cut staff. And they have to choose between one of three people. And one person is excellent. It's a this this particular case study I'll say is healthcare related. So one of the Is excellent clinical and wonderful with advocating for patients, but pisses the doctors off. But one of them is a great team member, doesn't have all the skills, but just a delight to work with. And then the third one is a long-term employee who's solid, but has been struggling the last couple of months and not able to catch everything. And so it's kind of a little bit fallen out of favor recently. And so when you ask them, in small groups. Okay. And there's some other employees there. Who would you like to? Almost always they choose this longer term employee who's not been performing well lately. And sometimes there's some discussion, but that's a really easy decision for them to make. But then we start talking about other things. And we start talking about, well, is longevity and loyalty ⁓ matter? And somebody usually raised their hands like, that's what I said. I mean, she's been there for 10 years. Right, but nobody listened to them because it was easy to make that decision. Well, she hadn't been doing her job the last two months. some people they almost always want to keep the great clinician, but they move over the fact that there's the doctors are mad, and if they depend on those doctors to send surgeries, that they're gonna have to deal with that because that's a whole nother problem. And then the team is looking at them saying, Wait. I've been here 12 years, you're just gonna throw me out with the bath water. So when they really start thinking about it, they realize there are a lot more stakeholders involved. There are a lot more consequences and unintended consequences to their decisions. But often what we're seeing is we're seeing that we're making decisions based on our values. And often what they value is, well, we're clinicians, we value clinical expertise. But then somebody else will be like, but we also value loyalty. And we also teamwork. And so sometimes making this decision, you're like, well. Yeah, it's really important that we have a great clinician on the floor. It's also really important that we take care of our people and we show that we're not gonna just give up on you. You've been here 10 years, we're not gonna give up on you because you have a a bad month. And yes, we absolutely value being a delight to work with. So which of those values and so we call these competing right competing right decisions? A few of these decisions could be right. You've got to make the call. And then the whole whole other thing is that your team is looking at you, and I guarantee you, everybody on the team. You make a decision to lay off the lady who's been with you 10 years, they're feeling like, ⁓ my God. I mean, you know, laying off every decision you make, people on your team are going to question that decision. And so then you are setting, you are telling people who you are by the decisions you make. And that's a whole nother thing. What can you share? And how do people understand how you make decisions? How do they understand what's valued in the organization? And are you making decisions that go against that? speaker-0: Yeah. I love that. speaker-1: Because then you what happens. They go like, well, I mean, if you looked at our values on the website, they say we're family oriented. This doesn't feel family oriented, right? So and people miss that piece. And so I think one of the big beliefs for leaders and emerging leaders especially is realizing that they are making decisions and it's not even just as simple as making a good decision. That you can make a really good decision and still it can be a struggle to live with that decision. ⁓ you can have to work through some of that with the people around you who wonder why. You sometimes can't share everything, but you have to get people to get it. That you made the best decision that you could. And so that's that's a whole nother thing about decisions. And I do think it's important because I think we don't talk about these things that get in our way that are under the surface sometimes, but they are and they impact things. speaker-0: That's what I was just about to say. That's absolutely right. Two things that kind of came out of that. So thank you. I think that was such a cool example of how there isn't it's ambiguo ambiguous. You don't have a clear right answer. Right. And so a a couple of the things that I see happen where leaders really mess up after a decision that makes it wrong, right? Like like I said, you can make a move that make it right. That Any of those could be the right decision depending on how you handle it after. And any of those could be the wrong decision depending on how you handle it after. And where I've seen people spin out is not owning the decision in a healthy way. So let's take the loyalty one. They decide to let go of the long-tenured employee. Let's say there's other factors at play that make it to where, you know, ⁓ this really is the right move, okay? You don't have the opportunity to necessarily explain all of that. You just have to own it and make sure that the people that you would be worried about feel supported and celebrated, that long-tenure people get some hand-to-hand combat, some FaceTime with them to make sure they understand their value to the team, right? Instead of going around and trying to diminish this person, you know, or explain your answer, like it almost undermines your leadership. when you try to do that. And I've see so many leaders spin out in that way of trying to justify it in a public way. And it's just makes you look weak, honestly, a lot of the time. speaker-1: ⁓ and I think those people ones are hard because you can't always say everything. I think in other cases we're gonna go ahead and, you know, invest in this new technology. We're gonna open this new market. Then you've got an opportunity. I think we forget to go and say, Here's why we're doing this. This why we're and but I think people forget. They make the decision, they're like, Come on, everybody and they don't really do the work to because people aren't gonna buy in unless they understand why we're doing it, because often it means other sacrifices. We're not hiring people right now because we're opening a new market. We're not speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: We're gonna slow down this because we're gonna invest in this. And so there's almost always people can almost always feel a loss with a decision. Because it typically big decisions, it can mean something on the other side. And when we can, we should not only have people weigh in to inform our dis the decisions, but we should also do a better job of explaining our decisions. And sometimes little decisions don't think seem like they need explaining. I think I get in trouble with that all the time. I make little decisions, but people probably don't know why I make them, and they're probably perfectly good decisions. But I won't think it's important, like it will never dawn on me to explain it. speaker-0: So let me go back on what I said. So when I say they try to overexplain a decision and not own the outcome, you know, I think it's when you know you can't share all the information. I think it's so important to explain why you made a decision when you can be totally transparent. Because one, that develops the talent below you, it helps them understand what does good decision making look like. It's not just do it because I said so. It's do it because this is the right decision and here's why. Right. So walking through that logic that got you there, I think is part of it. And then two, you talked about you've got to bring people in on the decision. I think so often leaders get in an echo chamber where they're just surrounded by people who say, Yes, this is a great idea. I've I'm working with a client on this right now, a major organizational change. And she's got, you know, a handful of people that are really pushing and supportive and and at her level that are behind it, but not bringing the team along. You know, and so there's a lot of hesitation, trepidation, fear from the team because they don't understand why these changes are happening, what these changes are gonna mean for them. And it's not gonna work out if they don't get on board, you know. And so that's the work of you've got to bring the team along through the process. Yes. And and you know, let them make some decisions along the way, right? It don't put it all on yourself. Yes. speaker-1: They're gonna feel better about it because I definitely think every decision you make, especially in change, every change you make, you know, that's typically a decision. Everybody around you is thinking, what do I have to gain or lose by what's getting ready to happen? Or what happened, and so as much as you can address that, I think that is. speaker-0: Yeah, I agree. There's one last thing before we kind of like bring it all together that we've talked about, which is, you know, really knowing your strengths too. When you were talking about values, I thought about the strength of belief, which is one of the Gallups Clifton strengths that gives you a really strong internal compass. You know, it helps you separate the wheat from the chaff. Sh should we do this or not do this? Because you have strong internal core beliefs that help you make decisions quickly and effectively. ⁓ you know, other th other kind of strengths that might help you make decisions are activator. They move really fast. They want to move. If you have activator high, you might wanna surround yourself with people who are a little bit more deliberative, right? That are gonna slow down the process. Conversely, if you're somebody that's really deliberative, you might wanna have somebody that helps move things a little bit faster, you know, and is maybe more achievement-oriented weighing in to make sure that you're not bogging down the process unnecessarily. If you've got somebody that's really high futuristic like me, it's really important to have somebody with context in the room who's gonna make sure you're thinking about, well, how's this gonna impact existing systems, right? And so understanding your own strengths that are assets, but they can also hinder you when it comes to decision making. So how do you kind of balance that through the talents of the rest of the team? speaker-1: How we're built, what our strengths are, definitely influence all that. And the other side with those strengths is potentially the thing that gets you in trouble. Yeah. You know, when you overuse speaker-0: Fit. That's right. Or misapply it or whatever else. Okay. So let's bring it all together. I think the point of all this is decision making is really hard. Decision making and change is especially hard. ⁓ you talked through, you know, it's a skill that you can develop, learning to be better at decision making. So we have ⁓ a clear framework that I'm gonna read right now. So your framework for making better decisions was look for evidence, talk to the experts and really evaluate it. Okay. Is there anything ⁓ else that you would add to that that we didn't discuss already? speaker-1: You're not going to make perfect decisions, but you're going to learn from each one. And part of it in high change environment is just you've got to make decisions. They won't all be perfect, but they will be moving things forward. And in a high change environment, that can be the most important thing is to just keep things moving forward and keep adjusting and making decisions to what's in front of you. And also know when you don't, you know, we didn't talk about it, but sometimes, you know, you should say, Can we wait? Yeah. Does a decision have to be made right now? Yeah. Or can we make a short I love what you said, can we make a short term decision now? Yeah. And we'll know more. We'll be smarter. I mean, I'm off often thinking, I was like, let's do this for now. I think we'll be smarter in a couple of months. speaker-0: I love that. ⁓ you know, what new information can I gain? And what I would say is don't be passive about that, right? Like one of the things that I do when I'm going to make a decision, ⁓ you know, my husband and I were talking about repairing the roof on our house. And it's like, okay, what do we need to do in the short term? What do we need to do in the long term? But what information do we need to get be to that long term? We know we gotta replace the roof. What do we need to learn between now and that decision that will make us smarter on the other side of it, right? And so So going out and talking to your, you know, different insurance providers or whatever, you know, the case may be. You're talking about selling a company. What are what are the different ways that that could look? If you're talking about hiring staff, you know, what are the different ways that this role could change over the next five years? And what skills might we need to hire for? So you might make a short term decision, but need to gain more information before you get to that long-term decision. Okay. we will speaker-1: Absolutely. speaker-0: End with a question for our listeners. ⁓ we would love to ask you what is one decision that you're currently delaying and you know, what would it cost you to go ahead and make that decision this week? ⁓ so we would love if you would be willing to share that. Thank you so much for joining us. If you enjoyed this episode, please like, follow, share, subscribe, all of the things we're YouTube, Podic, Spotify, Apple Podcasts. and if you found this helpful, we also have a resilient leadership workbook that we'll be releasing and we have chapters specific to decision making and ⁓ leading in uncertainty. So thank you for joining us. Anything else, Debbie? speaker-1: I think that's it. Thank you. speaker-0: Thank you all for tuning in. If this conversation was useful to you, the best thing you can do is share it with someone who might use it. Leave us a review, and please subscribe wherever you're listening. You can learn more about our work at Success Labs and connect with us at SuccessLabs.com. We're on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for Success Labs. We'd love to hear from you. Until next time, keep leading well.