Speaker 1: What's the first question you ask yourself or your team
Speaker 1: when you need to make a big decision? Do you
Speaker 1: double check your processes, weigh out the pros and cons
Speaker 1: meet up? CEO David Siegel wants you to ask one
Speaker 1: question before any others when it comes to important decisions.
Speaker 1: He says, you should ask yourself, is this a trapdoor decision?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 1: What is a trapdoor decision? And why do they matter
Speaker 1: so much when it comes to making better decisions. My
Speaker 1: name is doctor amanthe Imba. I'm an organizational psychologist and
Speaker 1: the founder of Behavioral science consultancy Inventium, and this is
Speaker 1: how I work a show about how to help you
Speaker 1: do your best work. On today's My Favorite Tip episode,
Speaker 1: we go back to an interview from the past and
Speaker 1: I pick out my favorite tip from the interview. In
Speaker 1: today's show, I speak with David Siegel about trapdoor decisions
Speaker 1: and we start with David telling me what on earth
Speaker 1: this type of decision is my.
Speaker 2: Term that I tend to use when I talk to
Speaker 2: my teams, is the idea of trapdoor decisions and non
Speaker 2: trapdoor decisions. A lot of times most decisions are non
Speaker 2: trapdoor decisions. So deciding to that you want to have
Speaker 2: a child, and having a child that's a trapdoor decision.
Speaker 2: You kind of really aren't going to unwind that decision,
Speaker 2: I hope, And that's not a reversible decision. Most people, however,
Speaker 2: overestimate how ir reversible something may be and underestimate how
Speaker 2: actually reversible something is. Oftentimes and you know, maybe not
Speaker 2: easily changed, but it certainly is more changeable than they
Speaker 2: may realize. Even a company strategy, which is so important
Speaker 2: for a CEO, you know, to not delegate and to
Speaker 2: own that again can be pivoted in many ways. So
Speaker 2: my first statement before going into delegation, which I will,
Speaker 2: is to say, don't assume that decisions are irreversible. Many
Speaker 2: decisions are very easily reversible. It just may take a
Speaker 2: little bit of time. That's point one. My philosophy on
Speaker 2: delegation as a CEO is the following. I hire functional
Speaker 2: experts who are all better than me in their functions.
Speaker 2: Our head of marketing a heck of a lot more
Speaker 2: about marketing than I do, and our head of content
Speaker 2: it was the same, or head of product of technology
Speaker 2: knows the same around tech. So the reason I hire
Speaker 2: them because they are the experts. So if there is
Speaker 2: any area that is a decision to be made that
Speaker 2: is a clear functional decision, then that is one hundred
Speaker 2: percent delegated all the time. Step one. Step two is
Speaker 2: if I believe that I am the one and only,
Speaker 2: uniquely best person to make that decision, which is by
Speaker 2: the way, extremely rare maybe one or two percent of
Speaker 2: the time, and I can go into what those are,
Speaker 2: then I should be making that decision. But the other
Speaker 2: ninety eight percent of the time someone else should be
Speaker 2: making that decision because they will do a better job. Now,
Speaker 2: my role is to challenge the decision, is to question
Speaker 2: it if I think rol's questioning, but certainly not to
Speaker 2: make that decision. So then, per your question, what are
Speaker 2: the things that specifically a CEO should be most focused on?
Speaker 2: Here they are, so number one is as Jim Collins said,
Speaker 2: first who, then what? In his book Good to Great,
Speaker 2: focus on who is on the bus, who your executive
Speaker 2: team is, Who are the people they're going to be
Speaker 2: leading the company underneath you, and make sure you have
Speaker 2: those right people. Don't start focusing on what the right
Speaker 2: strategy is until you have the right people in place.
Speaker 2: That's probably the number one most important decision that you
Speaker 2: have and agonize, agonize over who those right people are
Speaker 2: and make sure that you're not afraid to make changes
Speaker 2: if they're not the right people. That's top priority decision one,
Speaker 2: Top pritory decision Number two is what I like to
Speaker 2: talk about, which is key strategic processes to enable smart
Speaker 2: decisions by a company. I know that's a mouthful, sertly
Speaker 2: explain what that means. What that means is I don't
Speaker 2: believe that I should decide the strategy, because I think
Speaker 2: it needs to be a collaborative process between me, the
Speaker 2: executive team and also input from lots of employees. But
Speaker 2: what I should decide, however, is what processes do we
Speaker 2: want to set up within the company. And it could
Speaker 2: be OKAYRS, which is a common process that are used
Speaker 2: which sense we're objectives and key results or what other
Speaker 2: And it could be quarter it could be annually, it
Speaker 2: could be monthly reviews, whatever those processes are to make
Speaker 2: sure that you're developing what the strategy of the company
Speaker 2: should be, and also more importantly, how you're pivoting and
Speaker 2: how you're adapting that strategy as you gain additional data
Speaker 2: and additional information, and that you're not constantly making changes
Speaker 2: and pupil's heads are all over the place, But you're
Speaker 2: also not stuck in and doing things when data and
Speaker 2: other information proves otherwise. So actually building that almost strategic
Speaker 2: process infrastructure is to be really, really important to enable success.
Speaker 1: I hope that you are feeling a bit inspired to
Speaker 1: define the types of decisions that you and your team make,
Speaker 1: how many of them attrapped or decisions, and if you
Speaker 1: manage other people. I wonder whether you could be delegating
Speaker 1: maybe a few more of your decisions to your team.
Speaker 1: If you're looking for more tips to improve the way
Speaker 1: that you work, I write a short fortnightly newsletter that
Speaker 1: contains three cool things that I've discovered that helped me
Speaker 1: work better, ranging from software and gadgets that I'm loving
Speaker 1: three to interesting research findings. You can sign up for
Speaker 1: that at Howiwork dot code That's how I Work dot co.
Speaker 1: How I Work is produced by Inventing, with production support
Speaker 1: from Dead Sets Studios, and thank you tomt Nimba, who
Speaker 1: does the audio mix for every episode and makes everything
Speaker 1: sound so much better than it would have otherwise. See
Speaker 1: you next time.