When you decided to give the whirlwind of entrepreneurship a try, you were probably making lots of hard and fast decisions in your business.
You had to right?!
In order to figure out if your business was worth pursuing you needed data and in the early stages making lots decisions and collecting any kind data about your audience or customers is critical.
The real question I want to get to the heart of today then is:
Are you now making good decisions in your business?
Or, have you found what feels like a rhythm but has revealed to be a rut? I bet I know why your business feels like it’s just spinning its wheels in place and before we dig in there is a quick disclaimer.
This is not an intellectual exercise in the different models of making decisions – it’s the real-time actionable decision making that I want to talk about.
Let’s really start by calling it like it is, you’re hoarding your freedom aren’t you?
Hoarding your freedom is when you value the ability to make choices so much that it actually prevents you from making any choices. It’s like the friend who never commits to anything because he or she is waiting to see if any better plans are happening. Hoarding the freedom to make choices is a terrible thing. You are constantly burying yourself in the extremes of opportunity costs and for good reason...so you think.
Resources are scarce even for businesses that seem to be thriving, that’s always a barrier you will bump up against. Making bad decisions and hoarding freedom of choice can actually do more damage to your business than making decently-informed-probably-not-perfect choices.
In as actionable and fluff free a way as possible let’s make you a more decisive and effective decision maker.
Before we get into the actionable bits let’s bust a few decision making fallacies. Fallacies are the things that will eat up lots of time, energy, and produce more stress than your body should probably be handling. I don’t have to tell you that making decisions isn’t always easy. Something I want you to keep in mind through all of this and to help get you out of the indecisive stupor is realistically thinking about the worst possible outcome. If you aren’t an evil scientist out of a comic book then accidentally blowing up the Earth is probably not an issue for you. So what’s the worst thing that can happen? Probably nothing you couldn’t bounce back from with a little extra work and maybe even a pivot in your business. What I’m getting at is that a bad choice is temporary – even when it feels like it’s not.
Fallacy Busting 101
First is the Information Mud Pit.
Feeling like you need as much information as possible from as many different experts, gurus and web-sites is like having your car stuck in the mud while you just hammer the accelerator. Sure it’s going to make lots of noise, throw lots of dirt around, and maybe even start to give you some forward motion but eventually you are just going to overheat your engine, breakdown and still be stuck. Don’t let your brain throttle about in the mud and then breakdown. All those expert sources are just people and they may not be in exactly your situation. Do those people have the same values, personal/professional experiences, or even biases that you do? Work on gathering enough information to cover any of the possible outcomes you can predict (there will be some you won’t be able to predict) and move from there. Just like getting out of the mud in your car it’s going to take a little patience, finesse, and the right tools. Not all the tools ever made – the same goes for research.
Next is being too busy.
Everyone is busy so that excuse can’t cut it anymore. What you are doing is finding new and different (read: easier) things to deal with that can give you some satisfaction from safe handling the things on your to-do list that can be completed with the least amount of energy and work. The other part of the being too busy is trying to multitask a little too much. When your attention is always diverted in lots of different directions the choices you make tend to be less informed, less qualified, less efficient, and just chock-full-of-mediocre. So no more excuses! They will just keep stressing you out as your list of decisions won’t be getting smaller.
The last fallacy I want to kick in the face is that you can’t get what you need done properly because there are always little fires that need your immediate attention.
The problem isn’t that you are constantly in a flurry of micro-emergencies it’s that you have failed to set your priorities. Decision making effectively takes a little work and a little prep time. It’s in the prep time that you should be stripping out your perceived opportunities for making decisions and reorganizing them in a way that reflects their relative importance. There is a lot of importance in building momentum in getting things done but you shouldn’t front load your decisions will all the easy stuff. You won’t be taking advantage of the momentum and flexing your decision making muscles the best way unless you prioritize.
Now that we busted a few fallacies let’s get to some action steps help make you a lean, mean decision making machine.
1. Are you actually making the decision? Sounds like a silly question to ask but it’s important to think about whom really has the final say. If you are a solopreneur it may very well be you. But are you part of a team or have a partner you have to run this by? Decide who is going to be making that decision and then move forward with purpose.
2. Set the stage. Very few decisions you make will only affect you. So it’s important to consider how your decision is going to affect the rest of your business and stakeholders. Make sure that everyone is comfortable with what’s going on and understands at least a few of the major consequences of those choices.
3. Make every decision (even the tiny ones) part of the big picture. Remember when you started your business you put a whole bunch of time and effort into your values and mission. Yeah, those still exist. So make sure that your decisions are in line with what you want your business to continue to be and to be perceived being. Everything from color pallets, paper supplies, and even how you package your product will all impact how your brand is perceived.
4. Do your research. At this point I would like to direct your attention up a few paragraphs to the part about hiding behind information. You want to make sure that when you are making your considerations you are using good information. Good information in hopefully leads to good decisions out. Keep your information lean and relevant. What that means is that you do not necessarily need to be an expert on how paper products are manufactured and distributed to pick a new coffee cup vendor.
5. Consider solutions, side effects and possibilities. You want to make sure you try to anticipate as many probable outcomes as possible. It’s important to be aware of how your decisions will interact with the rest of your business environment. Your goal should be to get the most out of whatever your resources are all the time. That and making sure the different departments continue to play nice together to make your business perform as best it can.
Your business’ integrity is more than just making sure that all your decisions are in line with your business mission. It’s about allowing your customers and stakeholders to trust your business. It’s trust in you and your brand that will keep your customers coming back. You get to being a trusted resource by continuing to make decisions (for your offerings and how you manage your business) that continue to improve the experience for the customer and client. That includes how you manage your finances, how you handle bad customer experiences, and even how you choose to interact with your community.
Integrity Pro Tips:
1. Always do your best to meet your commitments – saying no is ok.
2. Treat everyone with respect that includes your competitors and even naysayers.
3. Always be honest. If a delivery is late, you’ve made an error, or shipped the wrong product out - your customers will always appreciate you being open and upfront. Their compassion and respect for you because of that honesty might actually surprise you.