One of the biggest mistakes we make as leaders is, we think decisions are complete once we’ve made them. The fact is, they are only beginning. Decision making takes place in contained environments such as offices, conference rooms, conference calls and videos. On the other hand, decision execution happens all across your organization. If you make the decision to let an employee go or if you decide to hire an employee, the decision is made by you, but it affects everyone else in the company. The decision could be made by the executive team, but the execution of that decision affects many others in the organization.
The person who is on board or offloaded will probably touch the majority of the other people in your organization who had no influence or input on that decision. They will be joining the team, so everyone will need to get to know them and learn how to work with them. Also, if they are leaving, there are adjustments to be made in emotional terms and the remaining roles that fill in the gaps and holes left by the person leaving.
Many leaders ask me to school them on being a better decision-maker, and that makes sense because we feel the pain more intensely of the bad decisions than the good feelings of the good decisions we have made. At the same time, we have to realize we can’t let the execution of how our decisions are carried out fall completely on others’ shoulders. If you have a lack of understanding of how the execution of your decision is going to be carried out, you are opening yourself up for disaster. Letting them “figure it out” is not a good strategy.
The biggest idea of this article is this: don’t assume that, because the decision has been made, the execution process will be smooth. Spend more time developing your execution strategy. This will, in fact, save you so much in time, energy and productivity. This way, your great decisions will be even better because execution is smooth. Your bad decisions will be called out sooner because the execution strategy is clear. Make sure your decisions are impactful in a good way and are long-lasting and memorable because you have spent an equal to greater time on the execution plan. Try to remember going forward, your decisions are never complete without it.
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