Difficult Decision Making

As professionals who own or lead a business, it is inevitable that you will be confronted with making some tough decisions.  For me personally, they are the ones that can't necessarily be decided by following morals and or ethics but by those gray decisions that leave me stuck at times.  But as a leader, you have to make the call and live with the decision and of course the judgement that will come with it.  So how does one approach these situations? 

(1)     Decide that you can live with the risk associated with the decision: your course of action, the individuals it will impact.  Do you come out positive after looking at the whole and not just the parts? 

(2)     Look past economics.  Of course you have an obligation to the business to ensure its vitality but you also serve a community, therefore, consider the cost benefit analysis on how your business and those around you will strengthen or weaken by the decision.

(3)     Trust your gut.  Some things can’t be quantified and your intuition is actually based on years of experience but use it in the right context

As leaders it’s easy to reach out to a mentor, colleague or partner to tell us what to do but in those situations where it sits completely with yourself, I hope these steps provide some assistance to you as they do for me.