Eric Jacobson

Archive for the ‘Making Decisions’ Category


Be A Manager Who Makes Decisions

In Company Culture, Effective Communications, General Leadership Skills, Leadership, Leadership Books, Leadership Education, Leadership Skills, Leadership Training, Making Decisions, Management on January 27, 2012 at 7:59 pm

A manager who can’t make a decision or who can’t make a timely decision will frustrate his/her employees. Equally bad, a lack of decision will impede the progress of the manager’s team.

Some managers make endless requests for data as a way to postpone their having to make a decision. Employees end up spinning in circles, slicing and dicing the information far beyond what is truly needed for the manager to make a decision.

Some managers are simply afraid to make a decision in fear of making a “wrong” decision. These managers don’t necessarily request needless data, but simply just never decide.

Successful managers gather the data from their employees, make any truly necessary follow-up requests (probing beyond what their employee may have researched/gathered on their own), and then make their decision…knowing that in virtually all cases most decisions are not black and white “right or “wrong,” but are the best decisions made at that time for the current circumstances.

Good managers know that most decisions can be tweaked along the way as their teams carry out their tasks impacted by the decision.


Leadership Skills: Be Decisive; Find The Truth; Send A Thank You Note

In Company Culture, Effective Communications, General Leadership Skills, Leadership Education, Leadership Skills, Leadership Training, Leading By Example, Making Decisions, Management, Motivating Employees on December 11, 2011 at 10:59 am

Be decisive

A manager who can’t make a decision or who can’t make a timely decision will frustrate his/her employees. Equally bad, a lack of decision will impede the progress of the manager’s team.

Some managers make endless requests for data as a way to postpone their having to make a decision. Employees end up spinning in circles, slicing and dicing the information far beyond what is truly needed for the manager to make a decision.

Some managers are simply afraid to make a decision in fear of making a “wrong” decision. These managers don’t necessarily request needless data, but simply just never made a decision.

Successful managers (true leaders) gather the data from their employees, make any necessary follow-up requests (probing beyond what their employee may have researched/gathered on their own), and then make their decision…knowing that in virtually all cases most decisions are not black and white “right or “wrong,” but are the best decisions made at that time for the current circumstances.

Good managers also know that most decisions can be tweaked along the way as their teams carry out their tasks impacted by the decision.

Find The Truth

If you’re a parent of two children you already know that when the two are fighting and child #1 tells you what happened, you then ask child #2 what happened, and most often the truth is somewhere in the middle of what the two children have told you.

Surprisingly, many managers, even when they are parents, don’t use this parenting “discovery” skill in the workplace. Instead, they often listen to only one side of a situation. Whether it is because of lack of interest or lack of time, they don’t proactively seek out the other side of the story.

The unfortunate result is those managers form incorrect perceptions that can often lead to poor decisions and/or directives.

So, the next time two employees are at odds, or when one department complains about another department within your organization, take the time to listen to all sides of the situation to discover the truth that’s in the middle.

Send A Written Thank You Note

Nearly all employees want to do both a good job and please their supervisor. When they succeed, send them a thank you for a job well done.

A short note (handwritten is particularly good) thanking them for a good job is extremely powerful. Particularly for new employees on your team. Or, for employees new to the workforce and early in their careers.

Include in your note a sentence regarding what they did especially well and how their specific action made a positive impact. Remember, be as specific as possible in what you write.

Be sure to send your note soon after the job was completed. If you wait too long (more than a week), the note will lose its impact.

Send your note in a way it can be easily saved by your employee. Even employees who have been on your team for a long time will likely save your note.

Finally, reserve your sending thank you notes for the big jobs, large projects, extra special work. If you send thank you notes too often they’ll lose their effect.


Assess Organizational Risk Across The 5 Cs

In General Leadership Skills, Leadership, Leadership Books, Leadership Skills, Making Decisions, Management on September 17, 2011 at 4:56 pm

Within the first 100 days as a new leader in an organization, you’ll want to assess your organization’s risk.

Authors George Bradt, Jayme A. Clark and Jorge Pedraza, in their book, The New Leader’s 100-Day Action Plan (third edition due out on October 10), suggest you do your assessment using the 5Cs:

  1. Customers:  First line, customer chain, end users, influencers
  2. Collaborators:  Suppliers, allies, government/community leaders
  3. Capabilities:  Human, operational, financial, technical, key assets
  4. Competitors:  Direct, indirect, potential
  5. Conditions:  Social/demographic, political/government/regulatory, economic, market

Use a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) as you examine each category if that helps.


70 Ways To Be A Better Leader

In Company Culture, Effective Communications, Employee Engagement, General Leadership Skills, Leadership, Leadership Education, Leadership Skills, Listening Skills, Making Decisions, Management, Mentoring, Motivating Employees, Soliciting Feedback, Team Building on July 9, 2011 at 4:57 am

This list of 70 ways to be a more effective leader is one I like to review every couple weeks:

1. Don’t micromanage
2. Don’t be a bottleneck
3. Focus on outcomes, not minutiae
4. Build trust with your colleagues before a crisis comes
5. Assess your company’s strengths and weaknesses at all times
6. Conduct annual risk reviews

7. Be courageous, quick and fair
8. Talk more about values more than rules
9. Reward how a performance is achieved and not only the performance
10. Constantly challenge your team to do better
11. Celebrate your employees’ successes, not your own
12. Err on the side of taking action

13. Communicate clearly and often
14. Be visible
15. Eliminate the cause of a mistake
16. View every problem as an opportunity to grow
17. Summarize group consensus after each decision point during a meeting
18. Praise when compliments are earned

19. Be decisive
20. Say “thank you” and sincerely mean it
21. Send written thank you notes
22. Listen carefully and don’t multi-task while listening
23. Teach something new to your team
24. Show respect for all team members
25. Follow through when you promise to do something
26. Allow prudent autonomy

27. Respond to questions quickly and fully
28. Return e-mails and phone calls promptly
29. Give credit where credit is due
30. Take an interest in your employees and their personal milestone events
31. Mix praise with constructive feedback for how to make improvement
32. Learn the names of your team members even if your team numbers in the hundreds
33. Foster mutual commitment
34. Admit your mistakes
35. Remove nonperformers
36. Give feedback in a timely manner and make it individualized and specific

37. Hire to complement, not to duplicate
38. Volunteer within your community and allow your employees to volunteer
39. Promote excellent customer service both internally and externally
40. Show trust
41. Encourage peer coaching
42. Encourage individualism and welcome input

43. Share third-party compliments about your employees with your employees
44. Be willing to change your decisions
45. Be a good role model
46. Be humble
47. Explain each person’s relevance
48. End every meeting with a follow-up To Do list
49. Explain the process and the reason for the decisions you make
50. Read leadership books to learn

51. Set clear goals and objectives
52. Reward the doers
53. Know yourself
54. Use job descriptions
55. Encourage personal growth and promote training, mentoring and external education
56. Share bad news, not only good news
57. Start meetings on time

58. Discipline in private
59. Seek guidance when you don’t have the answer
60. Tailor your motivation techniques
61. Support mentoring – both informal and formal mentoring
62. Don’t interrupt
63. Ask questions to clarify

64. Don’t delay tough conversations
65. Have an open door policy
66. Dig deep within your organization for ideas on how to improve processes, policies and procedures
67. Do annual written performance appraisals
68. Insist on realism
69. Explain how a change will impact employees’ feelings before, during and after the change is implemented
70. Have face-to-face interaction as often as possible


What To Ask Your Team Before Acting On Their Recommendation

In General Leadership Skills, Leadership, Leadership Skills, Making Decisions, Management on June 29, 2011 at 7:53 pm

There’s a great article in the June issue of the Harvard Business Review by Daniel Kahneman that includes a 12-question checklist that is designed to unearth cognitive biases of teams making recommendations that leaders take into consideration before they make their decisions.

The questions include those the leaders should ask themselves and questions they should use to challenge the people proposing a course of action.

Here are some of the recommended questions:

  • Is there any reason to suspect the team making the recommendation is motivated by self-interest?
  • Has the team fallen in love with its proposal?
  • Were the dissenting options within the team explored adequately?
  • Are credible alternatives included along with the recommendation?
  • Are the recommenders overly attached to a history of past decisions?
  • Is the recommending team overly cautious?
  • Where did the worst case scenario come from?
  • How sensitive is the recommendation to our competitors’ responses?
  • What could happen that we have not thought of?

And, here are some of the author’s other recommendations for vetting the quality of decisions and uncovering biases that may have distorted the reasoning of people who created the recommendations:

  • Review proposals to spot overoptimism.
  • Be cautious of an absence of dissent in a team addressing a complex problem.
  • As a good practice, insist that the team submit at least one or two alternatives to the main recommendation and explain their pros and cons.
  • Consider all recommendations as if you were a new CEO at your company.
  • When considering new investments, disregard past expenditures that don’t affect future costs or revenues.
  • Don’t influence a team’s proposals by choosing team members whose opinions are already known.

Kahneman is a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, and a partner at The Greatest Good.


The Leader’s Checklist

In Company Culture, Effective Communications, General Leadership Skills, Leadership, Leadership Books, Leadership Education, Leadership Skills, Leadership Training, Making Decisions, Management, Setting Goals, Strategic Planning on June 14, 2011 at 7:51 pm

Wharton Digital Press’ first eBook, The Leader’s Checklist by Michael Useem, goes on sale on June 21, but you can download a free copy between June 21 and 28 wherever eBooks are sold.   The book will ultimately sell for $6.99.  I recommend getting your free copy.

Because, within the 56-page book, Useem provides 15 core principles that will help you to develop the ability to make good and timely decisions in unpredictable and stressful environments. “When leadership really matters,” explains Useem.
The book helps readers to test, retest, refine and update their preparedness for almost any situation, and among the 15 core principles for building a customized clear roadmap are:
  • Articulate a vision
  • Think and act strategically
  • Act decisively
  • Embrace the front lines
  • Dampen over-optimism
  • Build a diverse top team
  • Place common interest first

Useem also suggests that leaders:

  • Communicate in ways that people will not forget; simplicity and clarity.
  • Build enduring personal ties with those who look to you.
  • Through gesture, commentary and accounts, make sure that others appreciate that you are a person of integrity.

To demonstrate the power and value of having a leader’s checklist, Useem examines accounts of extraordinary leadership, including the triumphant rescue of 33 miners in Chile last year.

Useem is the Director of the Center for Leadership and Change Management and Professor of Management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.  He previously wrote, The Leadership Moment.


How To Prepare For The Next Recession

In Employee Engagement, General Leadership Skills, Leadership, Leadership Education, Leadership Skills, Leadership Training, Making Decisions, Management, Performance Appraisals, Setting Goals on February 28, 2011 at 4:39 am

Even though the business environment is improving for some companies, don’t close the book on the recent recession until you’ve set a game plan for how you will lead your business between now and the next recession.  And, for how you will lead during the next recession.

Write down the lessons you learned over the past couple years and determine how you’ll apply each going forward.

You can also take note of the suggestions from savvy business leaders that offer this advice: 

  • You have to build trust with your colleagues before a crisis comes or no one will follow you when it does.
  • There is no substitute for preparation.   Access your company’s strengths and weaknesses at all times.
  • Conduct an annual risk review that encompasses both financial and non-financial risks.
  • When removing employees from your business, be courageous, quick and fair.
  • Pay attention to those who leave and those who stay.  And, for those who stay, remove work so the employees left behind don’t feel punished for staying.
  • Talk more about values more than rules.
  • Reward not only the performance, but also how that performance is achieved.


Thompson’s And Tracy’s Latest Book Provides Blueprint For Business Success

In Company Culture, General Leadership Skills, Hiring Great People, Leadership, Leadership Books, Leadership Education, Leadership Skills, Leadership Training, Making Decisions, Management, Mission Statement, Motivating Employees, Strategic Planning, Team Building on February 1, 2011 at 4:28 pm

When you start reading Mark Thompson’s and Brian Tracy’s latest book called, Now…Build a Great Business!, you may feel like you are reading 200 pages of Blog posts, but the bite-sized approach to providing tools, practical steps and ideas, rather than theory, is precisely the authors’ intended approach.

The book thoroughly explains the seven keys for how to achieve business success:

  1. Become a great leader
  2. Develop a great business plan
  3. Surround yourself with great people
  4. Offer a great product or service
  5. Design a great marketing plan
  6. Perfect a great sales process
  7. Create a great customer experience

You’ll find a checklist at the end of each step (each chapter) where you can write down your action plan for applying what you’ve learned.

Particularly interesting is the chapter on strategic planning, where the authors recommend you should ask yourself these important questions before you act to create or reinvent the direction of your organization:

  • Where are you now? What is your current situation?
  • How did you get to where you are today?
  • Where do you want to go from here?
  • How do you get from where you are today to where you want to be in the future?
  • What obstacles will you have to overcome?  What problems will you have to solve?
  • What additional knowledge, skills, or resources will you require to achieve your strategic objectives?

When it comes time to surround yourself with great people, Thompson and Tracy remind us that great people are:

  • Good team players.
  • More concerned with what’s right rather than who’s right.
  • Intensely results oriented.

And, great people accept high levels of responsibility for the outcomes required of them, and consider their company a great place to work.

Mark Thompson is an entrepreneur who sold his last company for $100 million and today coaches executives on how to lead growth companies.  Brian Tracy speaks throughout the country about the development of human potential and personal effectiveness. I thank them for sending me a copy of their book.  It’s a worthwhile read.


4 Ways To Be A More Effective Leader

In Company Culture, Employee Engagement, General Leadership Skills, Leadership, Leadership Books, Leadership Skills, Leadership Training, Making Decisions, Management, Motivating Employees, Setting Goals, Team Building on November 25, 2010 at 9:09 am

Roger Fulton’s book, Common Sense Management, offers these quick tips for how to be an effective leader:

  • Don’t Blame Others – When in a position of power, everything that occurs is your responsibility, even the errors. So, rather than spending effort in placing the blame on others, your job is to minimize the damage and to take the steps necessary so that the problem does not recur in the future.
  • Create Commitment – Supervisors supervise and managers control.  Leaders, on the other hand, create commitment and are absolutely essential in times of chaos, crisis or change.  In those times, leaders take charge.
  • Be Consistent – Don’t enforce the rules today and ignore them tomorrow.  Being inconsistent with rules will leave your employees unsure of what is truly expected of them.
  • Make Decisions – Make sound and timely decisions.  Gather all the facts you need to understand the situation.  Analyze the facts and review them objectively.  Formulate possible strategies and consider the consequences of each.  Choose the best strategy and make a plan to implement it.


Must-Read Book For Nonprofit Leaders

In Company Culture, General Leadership Skills, Leadership, Leadership Books, Leadership Skills, Making Decisions, Management, Mission Statement, Motivating Employees on October 2, 2010 at 9:13 am

If you lead a nonprofit organization, the one hour it will take you to read Peter F. Drucker’s book called “The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization” will be well worth it.

This book may fundamentally change the way you work and lead your organization.

Perhaps one of most challenging questions Drucker asks the reader is:

“Do we produce results that are sufficiently outstanding for us to justify putting our resources in this area? 

Because, Drucker argues that need alone does not justify continuing.  Nor does tradition, if your results are not sufficiently outstanding.

If you volunteer for a nonprofit or are seeking employment at a nonprofit, this book is also an insightful and inspiring read.

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