Archive for the ‘Decision Making’ Category
Friday, January 1st, 2021 by Troy Schrock
Most organizations rarely experience a shortage of good opportunities. What is not rare, though, is a shortage of attention span, time, and resources. Despite these limitations, leaders hesitate to keep resources focused on developing the opportunities already in process and say NO to new opportunities.
We get excited and over-value potential returns of the new opportunities. This reveals the flip-side – we under-value the harvest to be gained by bringing our current BEST opportunity to fruition. Fully invest in the opportunity selected as BEST for now until it is mature. Once it is harvested, plenty of new opportunities will be waiting.
“The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes.” Tony Blair
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Friday, May 1st, 2020 by Troy Schrock
Some trends move slowly and then, BANG, a significant event radically shifts the arc of the curve. A “new” reality emerges as people quickly adjust their decision and behavior paths in response to the major event. Surprisingly, it is easy to get caught off guard with the accelerated trend shift even when the underlying change was happening for years. We became comfortable with the “old” rate of change and assumed it in our plans. Now we must assume the old change rate is gone. Are you examining existing trends for accelerated shifts to help your organization adjust to the new?
“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence – it is to act with yesterday’s logic.”
Peter Drucker
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Thursday, January 31st, 2019 by Troy Schrock
A perfect option does not exist for many choices we make. Rather, the decision involves a trade-off between a set of upsides and downsides; advantages and disadvantages. We try to balance the trade-offs. Oddly enough, though, we sometimes become concerned when the expected downsides occur. Hoping for a better solution, we work to amend the negative trade-offs without realizing we may miss the full benefit of the positive trade-offs in the process.
Don’t waste energy on the downsides if you want to maximize decision trade-offs. Identify the trade-offs. Get comfortable with your decision path. Enjoy the upsides of the trade-off!
“There are no solutions; there are only trade-offs.” Thomas Sowell
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Thursday, November 1st, 2018 by Troy Schrock
Success anomalies are difficult, if not impossible, to replicate. Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop leaders from attempting to repeat a success without first verifying a pattern exists. This over-confidence can result in large investments that don’t return. Organizations can have success anomalies and then stumble as leaders try to repeat past performance in important areas such as:
• Entering new markets
• Hiring senior level people
• Making acquisitions (statistically, the majority fail to deliver expected results).
Make significant investments only where there are clear patterns of positive outcomes. In other cases, make guarded resource commitments since you could be building on an anomaly.
“Everything has its limit – iron ore cannot be educated into gold.” Mark Twain
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Tuesday, May 1st, 2018 by Troy Schrock
No, this message isn’t about using time wisely. The hourglass is a metaphor of something passing through a bottleneck. Specific to leaders, one chokepoint is our need to weigh in on too many different issues and decisions. This desire to review and provide input leads to final approvals stacking up in our inboxes. Speed of execution slows. There is an inverse correlation – the greater the amount of decisions and issues piled up on our desk, the less amount of work our teams are accomplishing. Determine where you can pass on decision authority. This will widen the neck of your hourglass.
“So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.” Peter Drucker
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Friday, August 2nd, 2013 by Troy Schrock
Leaders should step back to analyze success or failure at the end of a project or goal period. “Did we achieve the objective?” “Have we identified root causes?” “What role, if any, did fortune play in the final results?” The simple rigor of capturing lessons learned improves future decisions and actions. Debriefs often prove to be our most fertile ground for adaptive learning.
We neglect debriefs because we are:
- Forgetful… sad, but true.
- Too Busy… we think.
- Too Excited… by whatever new objective lies ahead.
- Avoiding Reality… it’s difficult acknowledging failures.
Instead, nurture a debrief discipline for your future benefit.
“Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.” (Benjamin Franklin)
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Reminders of simple, practical disciplines for leaders who strive to build great organizations.
