{"id":7181,"date":"2021-03-29T21:58:34","date_gmt":"2021-03-30T02:58:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scottcochrane.com\/?p=7181"},"modified":"2021-03-29T21:58:34","modified_gmt":"2021-03-30T02:58:34","slug":"how-to-avoid-the-common-decision-disaster-that-trips-up-leaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/2021\/03\/29\/how-to-avoid-the-common-decision-disaster-that-trips-up-leaders\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Avoid the Common Decision Disaster That Trips Up Leaders"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you want to avoid a decision disaster, you need to be clear about who is holding the key.<\/span><\/h2>\n

As a leadership mentor told me years ago, \u201cIf you\u2019re not clear who is supposed to be holding the decision key, things will get very fuzzy, very fast.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several years ago\u00a0the organization I was with had partnered with another organization\u00a0to present a leadership conference.<\/p>\n

The schedule was set to go all day Friday and all day Saturday. But noticing that there was nothing scheduled on Friday evening, a leader from our partnering organization said we should program a concert for that time-slot.<\/p>\n

I disagreed.<\/p>\n

And there we stood; standing at the door of the decision, not sure who held the key. Who was supposed to make this decision? Neither one of us out-ranked the other. How were we to navigate this; flip a coin?<\/p>\n

Ultimately I deferred and allowed our partner to program a concert for that evening. It turned out to be a disaster. It was very poorly planned and executed.<\/p>\n

But the real learning happened Monday morning. The disaster had absolutely no lasting impact on our partner. But I was digging myself out of this mess for weeks afterwards.<\/p>\n

Because at the end of the day, the programming for the entire conference, including Friday evening, was my accountability. Not his.<\/p>\n

And because I held the accountability, I held the decision key. But I gave it away, and paid for it dearly.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve been in a similar situation. So how do you proceed when you\u2019re reached an impasse?<\/p>\n

1. <\/strong>Always be clear who holds the decision key<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Whoever is ultimately responsible makes the call.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 Remember that y<\/strong>ou can\u2019t share the key<\/strong><\/h3>\n

As I\u2019ve written before, there are no \u201cteam decisions\u201d<\/a>. One person makes the call, because one person is responsible.<\/p>\n

3. <\/strong>Never give away the key<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Just because someone demands the key is no reason to give it up.<\/p>\n

4. Know that while k<\/strong>ey-holders should be collaborative, they ultimately stand alone when making the call<\/strong><\/h3>\n

At the end of the day, leadership is all about making decisions. But before you can make the call you need clarity on whose call it is to make.<\/p>\n

So take a lesson from my experience.<\/p>\n

Because when you know you hold the decision key, leadership doors start to open. And you can avoid those decision disasters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you want to avoid a decision disaster, you need to be clear about who is holding the key. As a leadership mentor told me years ago, \u201cIf you\u2019re not clear who is supposed to be holding the decision key, things will get very fuzzy, very fast.\u201d Several years ago\u00a0the organization I was with had…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6739,"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":[1018,738,478],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-decisions","category-effectiveness-2","category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7181","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=7181"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7183,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7181\/revisions\/7183"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}