Making Better Decisions When Decision Making is Hard.

Have you ever watched a game and saw the referee make a call against your team, when a nearly identical play was a no-call for the other team? As an avid sports fan, I can tell you that there isn't much that's more infuriating than inconsistency in refereeing, and all the fans let them know it! As a leader, we are the referee of the office, and there's no quicker way to having an unruly office screaming "not fair," than inconsistency in how you make decisions.

So how do you make decisions? What's your process? Who and what is involved and how do they factor into that decision? There are a multitude of questions you might ask yourself when making a decision, but the truth of the matter is, the more factors that play into the decision, the cloudier the decision becomes, and the more likely you are to be inconsistent from "one play to the next."

It was early 2015 and I was recently promoted to Regional Vice President. As a newly appointed RVP, I agonized over making tough decisions, not because I didn't want to, but because I was too early in this new position to make the wrong call, I needed to be perfect. I was faced with one such difficult decision, whether or not to let a young man go. A top producer, I certainly didn't want to let him go, we needed the production! Well liked and received around the office, I didn't want a lot of "drama and noise" surrounding this decision. I knew him on a personal level as well, with him recently confiding in me that he was going through a rough patch with his girlfriend back at home. As great as this employee was, he had snapped at a client one afternoon, told him to "go fly a kite" (I'll leave it to your imagination what he actually said).

This was a great kid, who was going through a tough time at home and made a mistake out of frustration, who couldn't understand that? Still, the way he treated that client, regardless of the excuse, was unacceptable. Conflicted in what to do, I turned to my mentor and leader Graham. I asked him, "What do I do here, how would you handle this?" Rather than give me an answer, he asked me "how do you make decisions?" I told him, "This was bad, but he is a good kid, a top producer, and I don't want to make major waves on the sales floor this early into my RVP career..." Graham cut me off, "So I'm hearing you say you don't have a process."

He proceeded to grab a dry erase marker, and drew a triangle with 4 segments on it on my whiteboard wall. The top he wrote ME in the top quadrant, INDIVIDUAL in the next down, TEAM below that and COMPANY on the bottom.

1.) Me - Is the decision I'm making right now the best thing for myself?

2.) Individual - Is the decision I'm making the best thing for the team member?

3.) Team - Is the decision I'm making the best thing for the team?

4.) Company - Is the decision I'm making the best thing for the company?

Graham elaborated on what he had drawn. He told me "Usually people make decisions from the top down. We think about ourselves, then we think about the individual, then the team, and lastly the health of the company with respect to our decision, if we even make it that far down the pyramid. Following this path, most people are making the wrong decisions." He ran that progression against my current decision to be made. Is letting him stay easiest for me? Sure is. Is it best for him? He keeps his job, yep check that one off. The team and his team leader keep their top producer? You bet, check check check. Here's where Graham dropped a bombshell on me. "If you keep him and he does it again, only this time someone records the conversation and it goes viral. The whole company suffers a massive black eye and it continues to haunt us for years, is this the right decision for the company?"

I looked down at my feet, I knew the answer now, and he was right...we needed to let this young man go. As good as the kid may have been at his job, as much as I wanted him to be employed and in a good position, or for my own selfish reasons of keeping the peace, if he'd done this before, it's only a matter of time before it happened again and I could not jeopardize the company over an individual. It wasn't about the individual and his livelihood at this point, but the entire 15,000 employees who counted on the company having a sterling reputation in client service. No individual, team, or even myself are more important than the health of the company....the company always has to come first, without exception.

"The last piece to this pyramid and using it? Make sure your people know this is how you make decisions. Now you know how I'll make decisions with you," Graham said. When you make a difficult decision, even an unpopular one, if everybody knew how you arrived at that decision, and you're consistent in making those tough decisions with the same methodology, they'll at the very least accept the decision and understand why you made it, even if they don't like it.

Whenever facing a difficult decision, I encourage you, run it through this pyramid of decision making, starting at the bottom and working your way up. Ask yourself, "Is the decision I'm making right now the best thing for __________." Give the greatest amount of consideration to the company because its health and standing is of the upmost importance, and because "leaders eat last," yourself the least amount. Simply taking the time to think about the ramifications of your decision and how it impacts these varying levels will guide you to the right decision with certainty. It might not always be the decision you WANT to make, but it will always be the decision you NEED to make.