Latest / The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson / Avoid Decision Disasters with Gleb Tsipursky

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Avoid Decision Disasters with Gleb Tsipursky · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

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  3, 10, 1, 0, ignition, liftoff,
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  Ending small business failure.
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  Welcome to the Small Biz Chat podcast with a number 1 small business expert Melinda Emerson.
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  Bolinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give you the information
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  you need to succeed and live the life you've dream of.
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  Now here's the small biz lady herself.
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  Melinda Emerson.
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  Hi, everybody.
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  I'm Melinda Emerson's small biz lady, and welcome to small biz chat, you know, small biz
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  chat started as a little tweet chat over 10 years ago on Twitter but we have evolved.
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  And, listen, we have an amazing show for you tonight.
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  But let me tell you first about why we do Smaller's chat.
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  We created Smaller's chat because We wanted to have an opportunity for small business owners
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  to get peer to peer device in a safe environment without having to pay a coach or a
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  mentor And we really wanted to have people, you know, have an opportunity to ask questions and
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  get information that they don't even know that they need to know yet.
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  The mission of small business chat is to end small business failure, and that has been our
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  mission since day 1.
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  Now let me tell you a little bit about what our goal is.
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  We wanna give you tools and tips and information so that you can have the
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  opportunity to take your business to the next level by hearing advice from top experts.
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  Listen, we are with my guest, Glenn Dyspurski, and he is known as the Disaster avoidance
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  expert, but He told me in the break that I was allowed to call him doctor T.
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  So that is exactly what I'm gonna call him going forward.
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  And he is on a mission to protect business leaders from dangerous judgment errors known as
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  cognitive biases by developing the most effective decision making strategies via his
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  training firm disaster avoidance expert.
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  He is a cognitive neuroscientist and behavior economist And doctor T writes her ink time,
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  CNBC, and he's the best selling author of his new book.
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  Never go with your gut, how pioneering leaders make the best decisions and avoid business
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  disasters.
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  Oh, that's a lot, Doctor T.
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  I I wanna get into this.
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  You say that business owners should never trust their gut when making decisions, and a lot of
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  us only trust our gut.
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  So what are you saying?
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  We've been out here making bad decisions or forever?
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  Unfortunately, you have been.
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  Sorry about that.
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  So what the recent research on this topic shows is that our gut is about for the savannah
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  environment when we were hunters and gatherers living in small tribes of couple of dozen
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  people and reacting with saber tov Tiger responses to what's going on, you know, having
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  the fighter flight response.
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  So that's what their gut is adapted for.
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  It's not adapted to the modern business environment.
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  And that's why half of all small businesses fail within the 1st 5 years of when they're
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  created according to the small business administration.
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  So, you know, we can see that a lot of small business owners make a lot of bad decisions.
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  And, of course, many more fail within 10 years and so on.
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  And large companies fail.
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  I mean, look at what happened with WeWork right now.
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  It used to be worth $75,000,000,000 6 months ago.
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  6 months ago.
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  And right now, it's worth about $7,000,000,000.
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  Whoops.
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  That's so much value.
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  70,000,000,000 wiped out in order of magnitude because of terrible decisions by its founder
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  Adam Newton.
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  He still got an amazing payday to be somebody who makes bad decisions, but that's another
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  issue.
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  Alright.
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  But listen.
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  So so you're saying, I I guess I wanna clarify what you're saying.
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  You're saying there is not any time when I should trust my gut.
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  The only times you should trust your gut, your instinctive tribal intuitions is when you're in
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  a situation just like the Savannah environment.
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  So for example, with someone you've known for a long time, that's like a you're a tribal
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  member.
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  That's someone who you feel to be part of your tribe when your gut tells you something is off
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  with this person, like, let's say a long time business collaborator, that may be a valid time
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  to trust your gut.
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  So that's in a business situation.
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  Now in a life situation, you don't wanna think too long when, you know, when you have a bus
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  coming at you, you wanna use those fight or flight responses to get out of the wave of bus.
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  But in pretty much in any time in business, you don't have a decision that's like a bus moving
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  at you.
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  But at least a few minutes to think about it.
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  And that's when you don't wanna trust your gut.
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  You actually wanna use your head and think things for it.
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  Alright.
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  So walk us through.
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  I know you've got process with this.
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  Right?
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  So tell me, how does one how should we approach, you know, heavy decisions in our
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  business?
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  Well, the first thing I wanna talk to is small business owners often need to you approach
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  small decisions.
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  So first, let's start with small everyday decisions that you don't wanna screw up that
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  you want to get right.
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  What I have for my clients is actually the small little card right here with five
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  questions to avoid decision disasters that I get out to all my clients.
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  Very useful.
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  So the first question, important information that I not yet fully consider about this
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  decision?
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  Why is that question important?
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  Because our gut intuitions cause us to choose decisions that feel comfortable to us.
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  And often, the things that are comfortable to us are the worst things for us.
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  We need to look at information that is uncomfortable to us, information that we don't
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  tend to consider in order to make the best decision.
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  So that's first.
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  2nd, what dangerous judgment errors have we not appeared addressed?
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  And my book never go with your gut, how pioneering leaders make the best decisions and
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  avoid business disasters right there.
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  Talks about the 30 most dangerous judgment errors for businesses.
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  How can small business owners avoid these dangerous judgment errors?
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  3rd, what would a trusted objective adviser tell you to do?
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  So imagine a little Melinda on your shoulder telling you, you know, giving you a little
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  advice out there.
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  Think about what you need to do.
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  So that's, those are free questions.
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  5th, 4th question.
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  What, how have you prevented all the ways that this decision can fail?
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  Again, how have you prevented failure in this decision?
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  Think about all the threats and opportunities and make sure you seize the opportunities.
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  Avoid the threats.
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  Finally, last question.
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  What information would cause you to change your mind?
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  You wanna decide this in advance as opposed to in the heat of the moment because you'll be too
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  biased in the heat of the moment too influenced emotionally to make this decision.
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  So you wanna think what would change your mind in advance of the, you know, launching a
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  product or something like that?
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  Hey, small business owners.
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  Are you tired of being stressed out by your business?
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  Would you like to take a laptop free vacation you wanna stop like your business is running
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  you.
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  I'm Melinda Emerson's small biz lady, and I wanna invite you to my 3 day intensive January
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  18 to 20th in Tampa, Florida.
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  Using my proven methods, you're gonna be armed to double your business revenues in 2019 and
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  build business that will allow you to live your dream life.
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  We're gonna drill down on people, prophets, and prospects.
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  You'll leave my small business late intensive with offer HR systems, a full grasp of your
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  Don't miss out.
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  Only fifty people will have the chance attend this event.
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  Early bird registration ends November 1st.
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  Sessions will begin at 9 AM daily and go until 11 peak am.
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  I won't stop teaching until you have a plan to fix your business.
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  It's interesting because I am recently in the last 2 years, I've actually been pursuing my
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  MBA.
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  And the one of the very first classes we had was on effective decision making.
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  And I remember the 1st day of class being like, what the hell do I need this class?
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  For 20 years.
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  I make decisions every day.
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  Right?
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  You know, and Yeah.
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  And it was interesting because by the end of that class, I had a true appreciation for what
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  you're talking about about how to make sure for one that we're answering even the right
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  question, let alone do we have all the information that we need?
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  And so I I can completely appreciate what you're saying.
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  Now I you you write in your book that the SWAT analysis, which is where all almost all of us
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  go when we're having a problem in our business, you're saying that that creates a false
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  comfort.
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  Why do you say that?
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  Yeah.
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  Ink Magazine recently had an article published an article by me about that topic.
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  So this is often a problem for us as leaders.
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  So I lead my own business of six people, disaster avoidance experts, the training,
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  consulting, and coaching company.
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  So I'm a I'm a small business owner, And I know how tempting it is with SWAT analysis, which
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  analyzes your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to feel comfortable
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  when you do that.
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  Okay.
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  I know my strengths and all my businesses.
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  I know my opportunities.
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  I know my friends.
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  I did the analysis.
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  I can feel secure going forward.
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  Unfortunately, that analysis provides false, a sense of false comfort because small business
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  owners tend to be very optimistic.
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  I'm a small business owner.
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  I tend to be very optimistic.
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  Mostly we start our businesses because we're optimists.
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  We have good hopes for the future.
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  That means, however, we tend to overestimate our strengths and opportunities.
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  And underestimate our weaknesses and the threads that that that are posed to us.
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  So whenever I'm working with clients, I see all the time that this is exactly what they do.
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  They have too many strengths, too many opportunities to local weaknesses to local
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  threats.
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  So you need to look much more at weaknesses and opportunities and threats than you tend to do
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  in the SWAT analysis in order to actually get it right and not have this false sense of
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  comfort and security, which leads you into disasters.
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  I only have time for 2 more questions, so I'm trying to figure out what the best to.
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  So you talk a lot about cognitive biases and how that is really the root of why going with
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  our gut doesn't work because we we we go with things we know versus things that are hard,
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  right, because that's what that's what humans do.
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  So Can you talk to us a little bit about how we can keep our how we can really be aware of our
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  cognitive biases when we're trying to make important decisions?
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  Yes.
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  So I'm an optimist.
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  Right?
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  I said that earlier, now how did I learn that?
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  I learned that by looking at what kind of errors I tend to make.
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  Unfortunately, the large majority of small business owners don't look back at their
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  decisions and why those decisions went wrong.
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  They go like, well, that decision went wrong.
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  Let me go to the next step.
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  And that is what the majority of vast majority of people do.
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  You wanna look at your past decisions.
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  What are your own personal patterns of making their own decisions?
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  And to go out of that seek your patterns of behavior.
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  And how can you address that?
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  If you tend to be too optimistic, That's one area.
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  And many are too overconfident.
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  Do you make decisions too quickly?
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  Very many people.
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  This is a big, big tendency for us.
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  Don't generate enough options when they think about decisions.
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  They just go for the 1st acceptable option.
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  When if they took about 30 more minutes to look at more options, they would have made much more
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  profit and avoided many more losses.
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  So that's another area where small business owners need to look at.
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  Are you too confident?
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  Do you make decisions too quickly.
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  Now my book never go with your gut, how pioneering leaders make the best decisions and
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  avoid business disasters has an assessment in the end.
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  That's chapter 7.
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  It goes through the 30 most dangerous cognitive biases for business owners, and it gives you
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  the behaviors associated with each So you can see how often they happen in your company.
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  You how do you much do your employers engage in it?
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  How much do you engage in it?
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  And how can you avoid these situations in the future?
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  Gives you next for addressing these problems going forward.
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  Well, Cliff, you've given me so much to think about, and I hope he's given all of us stuff to
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  think about because going over why something went wrong is really important.
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  We call it an after action review, but it's something that is important.
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  You do need to think about how did you make this mistake so that you don't repeat it.
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  Right?
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  You know, because you can keep doing the making the same mistake over over and over and over
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  again.
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  Doctor T, what is your favorite podcast?
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  Well, besides your own, of course, my favorite My favorite podcast besides that is you're not
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  so smart by David McCrone.
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  It's a great podcast goes into the kind of decisions we make, the kind of errors we make
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  He's really good at actually pointing out the errors.
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  My work focuses on how they actually address them, how to solve the problems.
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  But I think he's a genius at actually pointing out these issues that we suffered from.
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  I really like him.
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  I heard him give an interview on NPR not too long ago that I thought was just really
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  brilliant, which brought him to my attention.
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  Alright.
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  What is your favorite business app?
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  My favorite business app is Trello.
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  It's a very good organization system.
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  It's kind of a Kanban board, which means essentially an index card system where you can
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  move index cards from column to column.
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  I use it to organize my life.
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  I have one for life stuff.
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  I have one for business stuff.
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  I use it to organize my personal assist productivity, and I use it to organize my
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  business.
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  So my business is virtual.
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  I have a lot of people, we don't have a central office.
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  We have people working virtually.
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  So it's a wonderful virtual collaboration system.
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  Love it.
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  Love it.
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  Doctor Tina, what's your favorite business book?
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  I think my favorite business book, one that was most helpful is the Emith series of books, and
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  that was really good partially because it's about creating systems and processes.
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  Systems and processes are incredibly underappreciated by small business owners.
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  They just go through the the process.
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  They handle everything by themselves.
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  Whereas if you create a system and a process, it just makes things so much easier.
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  That was incredibly helpful.
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  So you so you took
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  Oh, there you go.
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  You took my damn book, but that's okay.
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  My favorite book is the E Myth revisited by Michael Gilbert.
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  But I'm gonna give you my backup book.
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  It was it was written by my college classmate, Mike McCallaway, Provid First, is is one of my
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  my second favorite business books I've read.
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  So I'll give my hokey brother a shout out.
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  Anyway, listen.
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  Thank you so much for being on small voice chat live tonight.
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  Thank you all for joining me.
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  And please head over to my blog, succeed as your own boss.com.
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  You can get more information on tonight's guest And thank you all for watching Smallish Chat
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  Live.
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  It is my honor privilege to be your small business lady, and the goal of Smallish Chat is
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  to end small business failure, and I will leave you with this.
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  You never lose in business.
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  Either you win or you learn.
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  Good night, everybody.
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  See you next time.
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  Thank you for listening to the Small Biz Chat podcast with Melinda Emerson.
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  For more resources and small business success strategies, visit succeed as your own boss.com.
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  Subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and join us next Wednesday.