Transcript

Hey, everyone. Hope the video finds you well, as always. And I hope you’re off to a great start in 2022.

Just yesterday, I was having a conversation with a friend who asked me about my decision-making process, and I kind of laughed and said personal or professional? Because personally, I’m not really sure I have a process. I usually just make a decision, but at work, that’s something different.

So, I started with identifying the problem. Hey, we’ve got an issue. And for most of us, those usually bubble up or sometimes they are emergencies, but we’ve got a problem.

So the first thing we do is identify we’ve got a problem. And then the second thing we do is gather as much information about it as we can. How did this happen? Why did it happen? Is this a systems issue? Is this a people issue? Is this a money issue? Right. Let’s gather as much information as we can.

Then we start seeking alternatives. What are our choices here? One choice we all have is to do nothing. Well, that might be a good choice. Maybe it isn’t. But what other solutions do we have? What other alternatives do we have? Let’s start research. And usually we’ll put a time frame on that research so that there’s some sense of urgency, and then I assign those to somebody so that there’s some accountability.

Now we’ve gathered up all this information. Let’s start taking a look at the alternatives, and we’ll start analyzing the pros and the cons of each one. Then we’ll make a decision. All right, let’s put this in place. We’ve identified it. We’ve researched why it’s happening or why it’s not happening. We’ve looked at all of all alternatives and our solutions.

Now we’re going to choose one. Now let’s choose it, and let’s work with that for a while. And finally, probably the most important step, which is, I think, where we break down the most, how did we do? Now that we’ve made the decision,we’ve implemented it, did we make the right one? Oftentimes it’s yes, and I’d hope it’s yes all the time. But I know that that’s not always the case.

So when you did mess up have the ownership and accountability to say, you know what, we probably made the wrong alternative, chose the wrong solution. But more importantly, let’s analyze it. What do you do that’s different?

And I wish you luck.