S1: One of the most important things that nobody really talks
S1: about when it comes to growing and scaling a business
S1: is how does the leader make decisions? So this is
S1: gonna come across as harsh, but hear me out. People lie.
S1: Data doesn't. How are you using data as the basis
S1: for the decision? Because emotion has no place in making
S1: decisions in business. I know it's easy to get emotional,
S1: and every once in a while when I am really
S1: passionate about something, when I feel strongly about something, I'm
S1: gonna I'm gonna have some sort of reaction. I'm going
S1: to fight hard for my point of view. I'm going
S1: to really try to get to the bottom of something,
S1: but I'm not going to use my emotion to make
S1: the decision. I'm going to use facts and data to
S1: make the decision. Think about two businesses that are in
S1: the exact same industry. Business a has somebody at the
S1: helm that is strategic, that is able to make fast decisions,
S1: that is able to move things along in a way
S1: that helps scale and grow. Whereas business owner B has
S1: the same opportunity, is literally in the same industry, but
S1: doesn't have a framework for how to make decisions. And
S1: so they flounder while the other one is flourishing. Well,
S1: if you just knew what it took to make better
S1: decisions so that you could be more like business owner A,
S1: it's going to help you grow your business. One of
S1: my recommendations would be, how are you expecting inside your
S1: environment that you're being presented with data, true factual data.
S1: Are we talking about five clients who gave this piece
S1: of feedback that would cause you to change your product,
S1: or are we talking about 50 clients? Five clients? You
S1: might not make the change. If it was a significant investment,
S1: 50 clients, you would likely make the change. So when
S1: somebody is giving you a piece of information, the way
S1: you actually implement this is you ask who or how many.
S1: You don't just take in data and then make decisions
S1: off of whatever somebody has chosen to give you. You
S1: have to have the framework as the leader of okay,
S1: I need to get specific so that I can properly
S1: respond to what you're asking me. And if you don't
S1: have this already in your culture, this sounds like people
S1: coming to you making all of these statements about why
S1: we need to do things differently, why we need to
S1: keep things the same. Well, until you actually understand the data,
S1: it doesn't really matter what somebody is thinking, because you
S1: need to understand the exact numbers of people that is
S1: being impacted by whatever the decision is that you're making.
S1: The next thing that is critical for making great decisions
S1: inside your business is setting up the responsibility structure correctly,
S1: the net net of your business. You have a responsibility
S1: of you are fully responsible for the bad customer engagement
S1: or the bad process, or losing money. You're totally responsible
S1: for all of those things, but there are other people
S1: around you who do have responsibility and should have responsibility.
S1: So how have you communicated what they are specifically responsible
S1: for because as you're making a decision, it is so
S1: easy as a business owner to just take on all
S1: the problems because you know that you're ultimately responsible. If
S1: I know that Jenna or Sarah or Joe or Bob
S1: in their job description, I clearly laid out to them, hey,
S1: you're responsible for these things. You need to send this
S1: on Fridays. You need to hit this number. This metric
S1: needs to be handled. I'm super crystal clear on their
S1: areas of responsibility, and then they don't do it. It
S1: would be a shame for me to say, oh, you know,
S1: I'm taking responsibility for the fact that you didn't do
S1: those things. No. That's ridiculous. Who is responsible? And more
S1: often than not, when you find that something is failing,
S1: a decision that you're making, a project that you're working
S1: on isn't going the way that you want it to.
S1: You might be caught up in all sorts of confusion
S1: in the decision making process, because you don't actually have
S1: one person who is responsible. So we're not talking about
S1: shared responsibility here. We're not saying everybody in the department
S1: or everybody in the project has equal responsibility. One person
S1: has to be responsible for one specific thing. And the
S1: more you can get clear on who's responsible for what,
S1: you can empower them with their decision making to make
S1: better decisions, or to take accountability for the bad decisions
S1: that they made and coach them, give them feedback so
S1: that they start making better decisions. I want to share
S1: with you my favorite question to ask that helps me
S1: make better decisions. And that question is what are you
S1: running into? You see, I've had many experiences where I
S1: will just bolt into somebody's office, start being accusatory of,
S1: you didn't do this, you didn't think about this. Why
S1: is this happening? How come you let this take place
S1: when in actuality there was logical reasons for all of
S1: those things? And yet I came in emotionally. I came
S1: in really heated because I didn't really have context. And
S1: so when you ask somebody in the frame of what
S1: are you running into, you're not placing blame yet. You're
S1: not coming into the conversation with the ego of saying, like,
S1: I know you did something wrong because there's a potential
S1: that it wasn't on them. There's a potential that they
S1: didn't know that it was their area of responsibility. Going
S1: back to the previous point, if they didn't know it
S1: was their area of responsibility, of course they're not going
S1: to be able to make that thing work, right. Maybe
S1: there's a personal situation going on in their lives that
S1: prevented them from following up. Maybe they were on PTO.
S1: I didn't know they were on PTO because the communication
S1: lines got switched. Maybe they did send the email. I
S1: didn't see the email. There's so many different things that
S1: could happen where instead of being the type of leader
S1: that just comes in hot, you ask for enough context
S1: and then when you get the context, you get what
S1: they ran into. You can determine, okay, is that acceptable
S1: that they ran into that, that they got stopped along
S1: the path of hitting the target? And okay, how do
S1: we handle that versus I'm not good with that as
S1: an excuse, but at least you're opening the door in
S1: a way that doesn't minimize your ability to be a
S1: really great leader. And this question is useful for me
S1: in one on ones. This question is useful for me
S1: in team meetings where somebody might not be able to
S1: articulate off the bat that they're running into an issue.
S1: They just keep talking about that there is an issue,
S1: but they're not saying, okay, well, what am I running into? Oh,
S1: I'm actually running into the fact that Bob won't get
S1: back to me. And that's why this has hung up.
S1: So instead of me talking to this person, I could
S1: probably do a little bit of coaching on how they
S1: could better handle Bob. But then I'm just going to
S1: go straight to Bob and be like, Bob, why are
S1: you not getting Joe with the information that he needs?
S1: Because this is hanging the whole thing up, and it
S1: makes decision making so much faster inside the environment. This
S1: is a non-negotiable. This is the one that you've been
S1: waiting for since the beginning of the video. The best
S1: way to make better decisions is to make lots of
S1: decisions very quickly. The more you add time into a decision.
S1: Should this person be the spokesperson for the event? Should
S1: we pay this person or should we pay this other
S1: person and hire a different candidate? Every decision that you
S1: are supposed to be making inside your organization, think about
S1: it as I'm on a timer, I got to make
S1: this decision super quickly so that I can go to
S1: the next decision. And when you get in the process
S1: of making quick decisions rapidly, you're setting an example for
S1: your team that they shouldn't just be sitting on information
S1: for a week just because they think that it it
S1: should take a week to make the decision. You're also
S1: showing that you can be wrong. If I'm able to
S1: make a decision really quickly and tell somebody a direction
S1: and then find out the next day, oh shit, that
S1: didn't work very well. We need to pivot. We need
S1: to do something different. The feedback mechanism is going to
S1: be much faster, because they're going to know that they
S1: can come back to me and be like, Natalie, this
S1: didn't work and be like, okay, great, what's the next decision?
S1: So this is what I want you to do. I
S1: want you to find one area in your business today
S1: where you have held back on making a decision. For
S1: whatever reason, you just thought it should take more time.
S1: You wanted to sleep on it. You wanted to consider
S1: it or talk it over longer. I want you to
S1: not do all of those things and to make a
S1: faster decision today, right now. And bonus points for if
S1: you choose something that you know that you're a little.
S2: Bit.
S1: Uncertain of that. You've maybe might have a little bit
S1: of embarrassment if it's the wrong decision, because what I
S1: like to think about when I'm doing decision making, when
S1: I'm going through the process of trying to determine the
S1: right action, is I'm going to take Natalie's ego out
S1: of it. If I have to be wrong, I'm willing
S1: to be wrong. Let me be wrong. I'm going to
S1: take the hill. When I take on that responsibility. It
S1: actually makes me do what I need to do faster
S1: to figure out if my direction is the right direction
S1: versus the wrong direction, because I don't really want to
S1: be wrong. But if I'm willing to be wrong, okay,
S1: that means I have to throw down and understand this
S1: is the context around the decision. I feel strong about it.
S1: I'm going to make this decision quickly. If I'm wrong,
S1: I'm wrong. That's okay. And the whole thing speeds up. See,
S1: businesses stagnate because decisions aren't made quickly and people just
S1: add time and opinion and emotion into something that should
S1: be very straightforward so that they can make more decisions,
S1: grow faster and scale faster.
UU: Keep fighting the fight.