{"id":3407,"date":"2013-10-03T20:27:50","date_gmt":"2013-10-04T01:27:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottcochrane.com\/?p=3407"},"modified":"2013-10-03T20:50:37","modified_gmt":"2013-10-04T01:50:37","slug":"3-vital-questions-to-make-sure-the-right-decision-isnt-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/2013\/10\/03\/3-vital-questions-to-make-sure-the-right-decision-isnt-wrong\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Vital Questions to Make Sure the Right Decision Isn\u2019t Wrong"},"content":{"rendered":"

QUESTION: When can a right decision be the wrong decision?<\/strong><\/p>\n

ANSWER: When the leader hasn\u2019t asked all the necessary questions.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When it comes to decision-making, \u201cleadership 101\u201d asks, \u201cIs this the right decision?\u201d But more effective leaders go further and ask at least three more vital questions.<\/p>\n

For example, a church I visited a few years ago had seen a good decision blow up in their face because they hadn\u2019t asked these questions.<\/p>\n

As part of an information strategy a decision had been made to purchase a dozen large flatscreen television monitors. These would be strategically placed as information kiosks throughout the facility.<\/p>\n

But from the time the decision was reached it took several months before the monitors were ordered, delivered and installed.<\/p>\n

During that time a lot had changed.<\/p>\n

The economic downturn had hit, many in the church had lost their jobs and investments, giving in the church plummeted, and several key staff were laid off.<\/p>\n

And then the television monitors turned up.<\/p>\n

And so, in an environment of discouragement over the layoffs and concerns over the church\u2019s finances, the congregation showed up for church and were greeted by a dozen new large screen plasma televisions.<\/p>\n

The congregation was outraged, and the church leadership suffered a credibility hit.<\/p>\n

Was the decision to buy the monitors the right one? Probably. But that\u2019s besides the point.<\/p>\n

Important decisions need to be run through a filter of three vital questions.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Specifically,<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Is this the right timing for this decision?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Many a correct decision can go horribly wrong if the timing and circumstances change. Effective leaders pay as much attention to the timing of the decision as they do the decision itself.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>What are the optics of the decision?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Optics matter. Effective leaders obsess over how a decision is perceived and they\u2019ll go to great lengths to make sure the optics of a good decision are properly managed.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>How will the decision be communicated?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A decision like this needed to be over-communicated weeks in advance. Simply having the congregation show up to see these monitors already installed was just asking for trouble. Effective leaders know that the bigger the decision, the more important the communication strategy.<\/p>\n

The next time you face a key decision, ask your leadership team to wrestle with these questions.<\/p>\n

Otherwise you may indeed find that the right decision turns out to be very, very wrong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

QUESTION: When can a right decision be the wrong decision? ANSWER: When the leader hasn\u2019t asked all the necessary questions. When it comes to decision-making, \u201cleadership 101\u201d asks, \u201cIs this the right decision?\u201d But more effective leaders go further and ask at least three more vital questions. For example, a church I visited a few…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,738,478,7,579,705],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church","category-effectiveness-2","category-featured","category-leadership","category-ministry-2","category-strategy-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3407"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3407\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3414,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3407\/revisions\/3414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}