How To Easily Become Happier About The Decisions You Make

Are you happy with the decisions you own?

It’s the number one complaint I get when someone is dissatisfied at work. Ever thought you owned a decision and then found out you didn’t? - Do you get stuck in a never-ending cycle of deciding and un-deciding? Do you have peers who think they own decisions that you actually own?

I’ve had endless leaders tell me that this is one of the most impactful and universally applicable tools in my book Rapid Growth, Done Right,  so I am sharing it here for you all.

• First, create three columns on a piece of paper.

• Next, under the first column list decisions you want to own, you might own them today or they might be ones you wish your boss would let you make versus needing to consult with them.

• Then, under the second column, list decisions for which you are confused about who owns what, who cares about them, and who needs to be involved.

• Finally, use the third column to identify the decisions you are currently making that you want to give to someone else. This could be on your team or in another function.

Now go and talk to your CEO, your boss, your team, and get them to complete the same exercise. This will unlock great capacity for you personally and for your team because we fall into common patterns and habits and don’t always stop to think if this is the best use of time. This Deliberate Your Decisions tool can be found below. You will create the same clarity you get when you finally have your windows cleaned – you will wonder how you were ever able to see clearly before! Your role in leading rapid growth is to create remarkable decision-makers around you.

This just one of the 9 decision-making tools available in Chapter Six of Rapid Growth, Done Right. (- at the time of writing this - Amazon in the US is running a promotion with a 32% discount!)

I heard nutrition guru Robb Wolf speak once and he offered a surprising piece of parenting advice that equally applies to leading rapidly growing companies: You need to raise good decision-makers. Because your kids will make the most impactful decisions when you are not there.

His words didn’t just apply to teaching your children to eat well, nor did they just apply to parenting. They equally apply to leading teams. You have to teach your team to make good decisions when you are not around.

• Is everything falling into your lap?

• How can you remove single points of failure today?

Dedicated to growing your business,

Val

P.S. I hope you enjoyed this week's VAL-uable Insights, sign up here to get them in your inbox each Monday morning: http://valwrightconsulting.com/newsletter-sign-up/

How To Increase Your Performance, Pace, And Progress

At Xbox, my boss Don Mattrick used to ask this question every time we met: "Val, did you make more than a week’s progress last week?"

He would want to know what he could do to speed up how I delivered my goals, what was in the way that he could help move, whether there was anything at risk of not being completed on time, and what else I needed to do to improve the probability of success.

Ten years later, I have never had an executive tell me "We are moving too fast!" It is always the opposite.

The question is how to shift time to your advantage, given your exponential growth goals. Too often executives treat two-way-door decisions like irreversible one-way-door ones.

During my corporate days at Amazon, I learned that’s how Jeff Bezos categorizes decisions: either they are one-way or two-way, irreversible or reversible. It’s easy to ruminate on two-way door decisions when it is easier to just move on and experiment.

You have to assess your Performance Progress Pace (The Triple P) across your creative, technical, and business initiatives so that you and your executive team can have a realistic view of the probability that you will achieve everything you have promised your board and shareholders.

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Here’s the tool I use with successful executives around the world, you can read more about it in my book Rapid Growth, Done Right: Lead, Influence, and Innovate for Success. Kogan Page, May 2020. It has already hit the Porchlight Best Business Seller List at #7 and various Amazon top ten bestseller lists in many countries.

Where do you have the greatest opportunity to strengthen your Triple P?

Dedicated to growing your business,

Val

P.S. I hope you enjoyed this week's VAL-uable Insights, sign up here to get them in your inbox each Monday morning: http://valwrightconsulting.com/newsletter-sign-up/

Why This Is The Best Year Yet For Roadtrips

We have seven summers left with our three daughters all at home before our eldest daughter leaves for college and summer jobs, holidays with friends, and other commitments might take priority.

I wrote about How to Make The Best of This Unusual Summer last month and how we are planning our seven summers. Now I am delighted that finally, the Wrights escaped our house after four months in lockdown.

…and the Wrights are on a road trip! Have you planned an escape yet for this summer?

We found a delightful horse ranch in Penn Valley, CA where horses, sheep, chickens, donkeys, miniature horses, and the odd rattlesnake rule the place, and part two will be at a beach cottage in Carmel. The perfect escape.

I’m hearing that many people are avoiding vacations this year, some for understandable health precautions, but other reasons are more concerning. Don’t hold back taking a vacation because you are worried you need to “stay present” for your company. Don’t hold back taking a vacation because you are concerned about potential lay-offs, reductions, or any other negative reaction from your CEO, board, or company. Here’s what I have been telling my executive clients:

Take A Vacation. Before September. Be a role model for your team. Encourage your team to take a vacation too. It can be a brief escape. Change your location. Remote work can happen anywhere. Your remote classroom doesn’t have to be in your usual home. Change your view. House swap. Rent an RV. Go camping. Use Silvercar to have a sanitized luxury rental car delivered to your doorstep.

I didn’t realize how much we all needed a different view until we pulled up the long winding driveway into a picturesque horse ranch in Northern California.

The novelty of a different car, in-car WiFi (kids' minds blown!), personal home delivery by a socially distanced suitably cautious delivery driver made the road trip from LA all the more delightful. Even with two ten-year-olds and a twelve-year-old to entertain!

How and where are you going to escape?

Dedicated to growing your business,

Val

P.S. I hope you enjoyed this week's VAL-uable Insights, sign up here to get them in your inbox each Monday morning: http://valwrightconsulting.com/newsletter-sign-up/