Many decisions are made that affect people. People represent potential vendors, current clients, prospective candidates for hire, and even love interests. The decisions we make as leaders influence us and everyone around us financially, physically, and spiritually.
As a leader, It makes sense to slow down and resist the urge to have a knee-jerk reaction to an issue, especially if it is not a crisis situation.
We could flip a coin. Or, it may be wiser to use the following time-tested decision models for any particular cross-roads. It may facilitate that impulse buy at the yacht dealer, inviting a new member to the club, or acting/reacting to a poignant situation involving conflict or praise.
Let’s look at this situation and see if we can use it to help us measure success. Here is a common scenario. It will either be a recipethat is fit for a righteous celebration or a tactical party pooper.
Success Cake
These are our Success Cake peopleingredients: The Group Leader, who manages the Kitchen; a stable of Culinary Professionals; the order from our important customer is a request for a Success Cake. Not just one cake, but a Success Cake from each of the Culinary Professionals. The Success Cake must be made according to the established Kitchen recipe.
These are our Success Cake workingredients: Dedication, punctuality, teamwork, individual effort, leadership, best practices, meetings, feedback, output, improvements, and, of course, failure. Why? Failure in the past is what helps us remember what to avoid and what to prevent.
These are our Success Cake measurements: sufficiently increased brand awareness (chocolate), higher revenues (two layers), and an enlarged customer base (royal icing). If we can meet all three of these criteria, then aren’t we just doing our jobs?
We work together in a kitchen with Culinary Professionals whose experience ranges from a few months in this kitchen, but years in others, to professionals with many years in this kitchen and no other locations. What happens if there is an ingredient missing?
Ever wanted to give that all important communiqué to that ONE PERSON who needed an attitude adjustment, or just begged to be told the way it is? I am just not able to describe the passionate and righteous intensity of that process!
Sometimes that person is me. Sometimes I am the one who should receive that message. In either case, this type of message is not always delivered on time. Missing the opportunity to put someone in their place can be a really GOOD thing. A slow reaction to make this kind of response may be the BEST thing that ever happened to our Personal Brand.
We all know that there are certain people who don’t even know that they are foolish because their power and authority in business, or in our social hierarchy, protects them from getting their comeuppance.
Once upon a time there existed a civilization called the Mesopotamians. These people accepted the logic of the elements, the weather, density, weight ratios, and natural powers much mightier than themselves.
They accepted these things as the ingredients of their lives.
This was their “truth” in its basic and practical form.
Let’s take the cute “Weather Rock,” a charming little tchotchke often sold to tourists in the American west.
Change is not a skill to be mastered. Why? We can only escort it though our thoughts and deliver it unto our processes. Once there, we must learn to walk with it. As soon as we start making changes, we only have yesterday for a comparison. Nobody has to change. Something about us always does because of the situations we are in.
American writer Libba Bray writes about a character named Gemma Doyle. Doyle has a revelation in The Sweet Far Thing concerning change: “With this power, there is no telling what I can do to change what needs to be changed.”
What is that power? Electric, supernatural, or is it the will to do so?
