Leading Growth

5Decision-Making

IT'S NOT UNCOMMON for a leader to acquire the unhealthy habit of avoiding decisions, especially difficult ones. A worse habit is dodging a decision because it requires one or more difficult conversations. But any serious effort to grow your revenue forces you to rectify problems, address challenges, and remove obstacles that prevent revenue growth—and the timing of these decisions is critical.

Once you make a decision, immediately take action.

This chapter will explore some of the decisions you'll need to confront, as well as some strategies to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of your decisions—even if you occasionally make mistakes.

Prioritizing Big Problems

Most sales leaders are comfortable handling day-to-day, routine problems with their business, like when a prospective client pressures one of your salespeople for a discounted price, or when you provide a salesperson with strong direction on how to move a deal forward. Let's call these transactional decisions. While troubleshooting deals and giving advice often makes you feel productive and important, it also lets you avoid dealing with the larger, more difficult decisions you must make.

To grow your revenue, you must prioritize strategic decisions over transactional decisions. Here's a simple test to tell them apart: Will avoiding this decision have a negative impact on your ability to consistently increase your revenue? If so, it's most likely a strategic decision—especially if leaving it unaddressed ...