Indecision is a Terrible Thing. Or is it? I Can’t Decide.

Following up my post on the 3 Ds of great leadership, I wanted to delve a bit more into the first of the the 3 Ds – Decide.

One of the things I have seen in my corporate career that has baffled and frustrated me far too often is when leadership can’t or won’t make a decision. I know you’ve seen it too. 

I rarely saw this in my Navy career. 

But in the corporate world, that was one of the first things I noticed – leaders afraid to make a decision. So, knowing that I came from a more regimented culture, I asked around to find out why.

I was told many things: 

People’s jobs are on the line. 

Or, politically, that person does not want to make the decision to go in a certain direction. 

They are afraid to disagree with someone. 

They are afraid of the potential dangers of a certain decision. And the list goes on. 

I was astonished. I thought that making a decision was, in part, the job of a leader. 

I can tell you that in the Navy there was never situation like ‘Oh, I don’t know, Admiral, I just don’t know enough about the target area to decide on the best way to attack it’. 

That would have gone over like a submarine with screen doors.

Leaders are supposed to make decisions. That's why they were put in a leadership role.

They make decisions on how to grow their business, what their business strategies are, whom to hire, whom to fire, whom to promote, which companies to partner with, which opportunities to pursue, etc. 

But as I said, far too often I have seen decision paralysis seemingly be the norm, and I’ve seen it at all levels of the food chain. This is one of the areas, as an executive/leadership coach, that I work with my clients about.

If you’re a leader of anything, you have to make decisions. 

Sometimes those decisions may be that there is not enough information to make a final decision. 

Then make the decision to gather the required information and set a time to get back together and factor that new information into a – Decision.

Here’s a simplified way to go about doing this. 

Define the issue that needs a decision. 

List your options. 

Discuss those options and take the inputs from your team. Make them part of the process. 

You probably didn’t get to the position of leadership because you were stupid, so use your intelligence and that of the team that surrounds you. 

Now weigh the possible outcomes. All decisions will have consequences good and/or bad. 

Once you have done all of this, make the decision you feel is best. 

Then go with it.

Not every decision will be right. You will make incorrect decisions and your people will too. 

But as leaders, you have to get away from the Zero Defect mentality that seems so pervasive. 

You know, one mistake and you’re gone! I've seen that happen all too many times. And good people were sacrificed at the altar of perfection.

I’ve learned more from the mistakes I’ve made than the first-try successes. 

Let your people learn from them too. I am not talking about gross or willful negligence, but we can all learn from honest mistakes.

So make a decision and monitor your progress. If the information you have changes, then adjust course where/when necessary.

Don’t let indecision paralyze you or your business. 

There is an axiom that was true in the military and it is just as true in the corporate world….

Lead, follow or get out of the way. But make a decision!

For more information about how The Cobalt Group can help you with leadership development, or any business or leadership challenges you are facing, Contact us.

We want to hear what you think. Leave a comment and let’s start a discussion.

Copyright © 2014 The Cobalt Group, LLC. All rights reserved.

The 3 Ds of Great Leadership

Leadership is such a rich and vast topic. There are countless books and experts out there that will tell you what good leadership is. 

It is hard to put a single quote or sound byte that encompasses good leadership.

I want to take you beyond good leadership and talk about great leadership.

I've seen poor leaders, good leaders, and great leaders. I've learned from them all. 

But the great ones shared a common set of traits. They understood that great leadership, in part, can be boiled down to 3 Ds. 

Decide. Delegate. Disappear. 

I learned this concept many years ago as a young junior officer in the Navy. It set the framework for my approach to leadership since. 

Although this is a very rich topic, I will do my best to keep it within the constraints I established for the length of my blogs, even though I feel that it warrants much more space. 

So here we go...

Decide. Your job as a leaders is to make a decision and move forward with it. 

If you have to get something delivered to the corner of 4^th and Main, look to the people in your organization that know the streets. Take their inputs on which roads are the best to travel. 

Some may be one way streets and others may have construction happening. The point here is that getting the input from those that actually know the lay of the land is important. 

When people are given a voice in the decision making process they will take more ownership of the outcome. And when they feel like they have more of a stake in the outcome, they are more motivated to see it succeed. 

So after you have taken all their inputs, make the decision on what the path will be. It may be that you chose your own route, their suggested route, or a blend of the two.

And now YOU, the leader, will own that decision. If the delivery is successful, you give praise to your people. 

If it fails, YOU take ownership. 

After all, YOU made the final decision on the route chosen.

Next, you...

Delegate. Once a decision has been made, delegate the responsibilities to those that are actually going to accomplish the tasks. 

In our scenario, that means letting the people that are going to make that delivery do their jobs. Define the parameters under which they are to operate, then trust them to work within those confines. 

If you trusted them enough to take their input when deciding how to best reach your destination, trust them to do their jobs the right way. 

They want to know that you have confidence in them. They want to know you trust them to do what you asked them to do.

And then you…..

Disappear. This doesn't mean go back to your office and close the door. It merely means that you now let them do what you have asked them to do. 

If you have clearly defined the parameters within which they should operate, and have delegated the responsibilities to them, stay out of their way. 

Don’t micro-manage them. 

Now, what that means to one person may be different than it does to another. 

What this is to me is simply…don’t be a helicopter leader that is always hovering above them. Stay engaged, offer assistance and support, get status updates, but don’t be in the way. 

Your people are your experts. 

Trust them to do their jobs and trust them to come to you when they need you. 

Train them to do that. You will have a much better and more successful organization if you do.

This frees you up to do what you are there to do, LEAD!

As I said at the beginning, this is a topic that deserves much more time and space than I allot for my blogs. It could actually fill books, I am sure. 

So as you look to improve your leadership abilities, and thereby set the example for those you are leading, remember the 3 Ds and live them.

Decide. Delegate. Disappear.

For more information about how The Cobalt Group can help you with leadership development, or any other any business or leadership challenges you are facing, Contact us.

We want to hear what you think. Leave a comment and let’s start a discussion.

Copyright © 2013 The Cobalt Group, LLC. All rights reserved.

Qualifying the Deal – Risk Assessment

There are many aspects to qualifying a business opportunity. 

Although each company has their own template, my experience is that about 90% of that content across companies is the same with the remaining 10% being specific to each company. 

One that should be in everyone’s template, that I often don't see, is Risk Assessment.

We often look at things like customer needs, solution fit, win probability, compelling event, etc. 

But how many times to we analyze the risk? Can we really do the job successfully? 

As a new sales guy one of the first mantras told to me was to "never confuse selling with implementation." I use it as a joke now but I never bought into it. 

Putting myself in the customer's shoes, I felt that if I want the customer to buy from me again there has to some trust and confidence in me and whatever I am selling. 

As a business development executive it was more important to do a risk assessment as part of the qualification process so that an opportunity was truly qualified and we weren’t just drinking our own bath water in our decision to bid/no bid. 

Here are a few things to consider in the risk assessment column before determining that you are the best choice for the customer:

•   Can you really do what you say you are going to do for them?
•   Can you really deliver it? What are the critical elements of your implementation plan?
•    Are they interdependent upon other things?
•    What could cause you to fail?
•    Can you mitigate that?
•    Can you really staff the program?
•   Have you ever done anything on this scope before?
•   From a cost perspective, will you be able to control costs and stay profitable over the life of the program?
•   Can you work within the contract vehicle type and deliver? (CPAF, FFP, etc.)

There are many other factors to address but the main point here to remember that risk assessment is as much a part of the qualification process as any other element. 

Winning is great, but being unable to deliver is not.

For more information about how The Cobalt Group can help you with the risk assessment of qualifying business opportunities, or any business or leadership challenges you are facing, Contact us.

We want to hear what you think. Leave a comment and let’s start a discussion.

Copyright © 2013 The Cobalt Group, LLC. All rights reserved.

The Promotion Conundrum

How many times have you sat around the water cooler discussing what is screwed up with those people in positions of leadership above you? I am guessing that only a few of us have not done this at one time or another. 

But here is something to think about the next time you sit around complaining about your company’s leadership at any level. We are responsible for placing them there.

I’ll use sales as an example. I have seen too many occasions where the #1 sales rep was promoted to be a Sales Manager (I hate that word). 

The thinking was, hey, he/she was the number one rep for me (maybe more than once) so they must be able to fill that Sales Manager job. 

Most of the ones I observed failed. Not because they were not good sales reps or were not good people, but in most of these cases they were not ready to lead, and when put into positions of leadership they were not equipped with the right training to even have a chance. 

I have talked with many of them afterwards and, to a person, they all freely admitted that they were not really ready for a leadership role.

If you want to fix the problem you perceive exists in the leadership structure of your organization, pay attention to how you promote or rank people. 

Promote people according to the entire package. Technical expertise at whatever job they hold does not equate to leadership. 

That is only one part of the package. But, if they cannot lead ants to a picnic then they are being set up to fail.

To get real leaders in place, promote the person with the total package. You know who can lead and who cannot (at least without some training). 

If you promote the ones that are better leaders you will get better leadership. Just because someone is the best sales rep doesn’t mean they will be a good sales manager. 

My financial advisor always says that past performance is not a guarantee of future performance.

So you leaders out there (and those of you that eventually get into those roles) need to start by grooming your replacements. 

By preparing those under you to replace you when you move up (or on) you are helping yourselves, your companies and your future leaders. 

Or, we can keep promoting those that are not ready so that we can have more people to talk about at the water cooler.

For more information about how The Cobalt Group can help you with any business or leadership challenges you are facing, Contact us.

We want to hear what you think. Leave a comment and let’s start a discussion.

Copyright © 2013 The Cobalt Group, LLC. All rights reserved.