Ever felt like you're stuck at a crossroads, unable to make a move? In the latest 1st Lead U episode, John Ballinger and Douglas Ford get to the heart of why some leaders freeze in the face of choices and how to cut through the hesitation to make decisions with speed and precision. John and Douglas explore the necessity of staying cool when the heat is on and how maintaining composure can help you earn your team's unwavering trust.
If you've ever marveled at the instinctive reactions in the animal world, you're in for a treat. John and Douglas take a walk on the wild side, drawing unexpected but enlightening parallels between the animal kingdom's split-second survival decisions and the high-stakes calls leaders have to make. This promises to shift your perspective on rapid-fire leadership.
To wrap things up, John and Douglas take a deep dive into the ecosystems of decision-making and how leaders can craft a road map for agility. It's not just about picking a direction; it's about understanding the terrain, plotting the course, and even having a detour ready just in case. Join the 1st Lead U team for these rich insights, and arm yourself with the mental agility to lead with confidence and speed when it counts. Here's to sharpening your decision-making prowess – let's grow together!
Ever felt like you're stuck at a crossroads, unable to make a move? In the latest 1st Lead U episode, John Ballinger and Douglas Ford get to the heart of why some leaders freeze in the face of choices and how to cut through the hesitation to make decisions with speed and precision. John and Douglas explore the necessity of staying cool when the heat is on and how maintaining composure can help you earn your team's unwavering trust.
If you've ever marveled at the instinctive reactions in the animal world, you're in for a treat. John and Douglas take a walk on the wild side, drawing unexpected but enlightening parallels between the animal kingdom's split-second survival decisions and the high-stakes calls leaders have to make. This promises to shift your perspective on rapid-fire leadership.
To wrap things up, John and Douglas take a deep dive into the ecosystems of decision-making and how leaders can craft a road map for agility. It's not just about picking a direction; it's about understanding the terrain, plotting the course, and even having a detour ready just in case. Join the 1st Lead U team for these rich insights, and arm yourself with the mental agility to lead with confidence and speed when it counts. Here's to sharpening your decision-making prowess – let's grow together!
Speaker 1:
The majority of business leaders and executives make decisions based on what's called the 8080 rule. They want to use 80% of their team to get them 80% of the information in order to make a decision.
Speaker 2:
Welcome to First Lead U, a podcast dedicated to building leaders, expanding their capacity, improving their self-awareness through emotional intelligence and developing deeper understanding of selfless leadership.
Speaker 1:
Hello America and welcome to First Lead U where we believe selfless leadership is essential. America is suffering a leadership crisis. Self-awareness and emotional intelligence is the key to developing selfless leaders.
Speaker 2:
Now here is personal growth coach John Ballinger.
Speaker 1:
Hello, I'm John Ballinger and this is First Lead U. I'm here with my trusty sidekick, mr Douglas Ford.
Speaker 3:
John, how are you this week?
Speaker 1:
I'm great. I think we may have mentioned on our previous episode that this was going to be another probing episode in leadership development. The name of the episode is the speed of decisions.
Speaker 3:
Interesting Speed of decisions so have a definition. Yes, you do.
Speaker 1:
We said we're going to have to.
Speaker 3:
We're testing out the sound effect.
Speaker 1:
We'll see if it works out. Our definition here's the definition of speed, because, remember, it's the speed of decisions. The topic the rate at which someone or something is able to move or operate.
Speaker 3:
Share that again.
Speaker 1:
The rate at which someone is, someone or something is able to move or operate. Have you ever known someone that when you came to them and asked them to make a decision, they just looked at you and it was like they were paralyzed. They're thinking like through like a thousand things to make a decision and then they don't make a decision, and it just looks like it's frustrating, like would you make a decision. So we're going to be talking about not only those people that get paralyzed by making decisions, but, in leadership, how do you increase the speed of your decision making so that the team can move forward in a timely fashion and the company can move forward in a timely fashion? We've also got the word of the day.
Speaker 3:
I know, I just realized I played the sound effect too early, so let's do it again. Word of the day.
Speaker 1:
Word of the day. So the word of the day is when we're going to play the.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I think we'll. Yeah, I just got overzealous there and it was a definition. We just We'll just try it out.
Speaker 1:
We get excited about definitions of learning people. I don't know if they've noticed that yet. So the word of the day is calm. So we're talking through the 25 character traits that leaders need to have in today's society. Being calm Matter of fact, that was one of the top three things that employees said they were looking for in a leader was calm under pressure. Remember that survey that we did.
Speaker 3:
Absolutely. That was across a kind of a wide section of industries and team member types. I mean that just from blue collar, white collar, all in between we talked several different groups and that came out as one of the top three amongst every group.
Speaker 1:
Right, so can I read the definition of calm.
Speaker 3:
Yes, I'm not playing the sound effect this time.
Speaker 1:
I wanted to hear that applause. Yeah, I thought it was cool.
Speaker 3:
It was one. There you go. It was a short burst.
Speaker 1:
Not showing or feeling nervousness, anger or other strong emotions while making tough decisions.
Speaker 3:
I think that bears repeating.
Speaker 1:
Not showing or feeling nervousness, anger or strong emotions when making tough decisions.
Speaker 3:
That's easy for you to say.
Speaker 1:
You and I have talked about this, where, when you get into a situation where you're having to make a tough decision or say something, your bodily, bodily, bodily emotions, actually, like you, start getting red.
Speaker 3:
Sometimes that's true.
Speaker 1:
And we've talked about that and like they're like how do I stop that? Well, you can, but it takes effort to be able to do that because it's your body's reaction to something that's happening. And when it's happening, guess who sees it? The other person, the other person, the team that's sitting there like dang. What's going on with them? So that's our word for the day Learning how to remain calm in the heat of the battle as a leader. So when we talk about the speed of of decisions, I want to use this maybe kind of gross to people, but I want to use an illustration that I thought about as we're talking about this and I brought it to you and Amy Amy's my assistant and I said I need to ask you all this. Is this going to seem weird?
Speaker 3:
And we said, yes, probably, but it's effective. And once you hear it you'll think, well, okay, well, that's that worked out better than it sounded like it was going to.
Speaker 1:
But just so you know my team, when I come to them with things, they they look at me like, oh my gosh, this is another Johnny ism or or this is going to be weird, but my point is, knowing that this podcast was going to be about to see the speed of decision I was actually dealing with uh, my daughter has a rabbit and that rabbit is house trained and has a litter box Weird, you know. That lucky rabbit, like your rabbit and the, the uh litter box is, is filled with, uh, a specific type of shavings, not just any type of shaving, these are specific shavings, just for animals, potties, okay, and I was getting these. Uh, I was getting the shavings for the rabbit and a wood roach jumped out of the, the shavings and I mean it was just like going all over the place in my garage. I mean it was just like and I was watching it, it was like it literally looked like it couldn't figure out what to do. It was just like going around in circles just running a hundred miles an hour and it just hit me.
Speaker 1:
That's what our brains are like. Our brains are processing so much information today through social media and society, being as fast as we, we live in and the kind of the microwave society and the pressure cooker and microwave society that our brains are just processing all this information and when we're hit with something quick, it's like we were moving around, like that, that cockroach which then led me to think about most people are afraid of cockroaches- A lot of people are yes.
Speaker 1:
And then I thought well, but my sir, the same way. Mr Ford, if, if you've been out and you know seen a month, I mean a mice would act almost identical. If you surprised it, like the cockroach was when I was getting the shaving, the mice will be the same way. And how? How big is a mice to a human? You know size wise it's rather small but we're afraid of it.
Speaker 1:
We are truly afraid of a mouse little video thing that's moving at warp, warp speed around us, trying to get away from us, just like that cockroach. That cockroach isn't looking to attack us. That mouse is not looking to attack us. It's trying to figure out where's a hole, where's the escape to get out of this place because of us. So we were looking up statistically about the speed with which a mouse moves compared to the speed of an adult. Could you do you care to share that?
Speaker 3:
Sure. So I thought this was interesting because if the mouse would just run in a straight line it wouldn't really seem that fast. But it can go up to eight miles per hour. But the interesting part of that is, and then kind of kind of while that kind of freaks us out a little bit, I think if you made that equivalent to the speed that a human moves and kind of did the, the ratio and the math and all the things that I went to journalism school for so I didn't have to do, it's 160 miles an hour. So if you took the equivalent human speed, we would be able to move it 160 miles an hour. So you know, seeing the mouse at eight miles an hour, darting around as small as they are, that's what kind of freaks us out is. Like it's moving so fast, like we don't know where it's going, we don't know what it's going to do and we don't want it to get on us. And so imagine seeing a human moving around six hundred and sixty miles an hour. That would really freak us out.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely. Now think about your brain processing when making decisions and all the neurons firing people looking at you. What do we do? You know what's next. You know the lines down or this is broke, or we had this accident, or this is bleeding or whatever.
Speaker 1:
It is that ER doctor that's in the emergency room, that's something's coming through the door that they have no idea. All they've heard from the inbound ambulance is GSW gunshot wound this male, whatever age it is, they still. They still got to wait for it to get there and still figure out what to start doing. Think about the speed that that doctor's brains have to move in order to save that person's life. So what we're, what we're attempting to do for leaders is help you with your speed of decision or speed of thought, so it's not just even decisions. We want to help you to speed up your brain in order to think quicker, faster, better for yourself and your team every day. So putting that into perspective with the cockroach and the mouse and the speed with which they're moving in regards to the size the human is, and think about you moving at 160 miles an hour, mr Ford.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, that's pretty quick. I don't think I've ever traveled that fast in a vehicle before, so being able to do that without the vehicle would be a little scary.
Speaker 1:
So what we're going to go into in this next stage of the podcast is now how do you increase your decision making ability? That's one of the topics that I think the listeners in the past have. Have they started drilling down into the house of leadership? One of them has been how do I make decisions faster, quicker or accurately, so that the day that's coming at me very quickly, I'm trying to just like is there, like bullets, I'm deflecting on making the right decision, going to the next bullet, the fact that I'll make the right decision next bullet. So we're going to go in and we're going to take a break and we're going to go into how you increase your decision making abilities.
Speaker 3:
Welcome back to FirstlyDue. Today we're talking about the speed of decision making and the speed of thought and we had an interesting illustration before the break about the mouse and what's going on in the mouse's mind when they're surprised or when you walk in on them. Or, in John's personal incident, the cockroach that was running around all over the place. But it really is a good illustration if you think about it in terms of what does your mind do, what happens in your mind when your face will make a decision quickly. Is that a calm process that you're going through or you kind of running around like that crazy mouse in your brain when you're trying to make those decisions? So we've done a little extra research. John went back to some of his old psychology books and found some information you want to share with us about actually the process that goes on when we have to make those decisions.
Speaker 1:
You know, and what's crazy, mr Ford, is that when I started reading these, I thought I do that every day. I mean these three things that I'm going to talk about to the leader, to the listener, I do these so easy that it's just second nature. And when I started reading them, I thought, well, everybody does that, don't they? But I think what we're going to find out is we don't. So I'm going to dig into the. And these are three, these are just three things, and we can post these.
Speaker 3:
Yes, we can include them in our show notes.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I think it's important. The first thing to do when making a decision is determine the environment that you're around, and this is the social environment. Am I in my office with another team member by myself who they've just brought me a problem? Am I out on the sales floor around people and customers and team members, or the manufacturing floor? I mean, think about your social environment, because how you act and react in that social environment has a big impact on your decision making, on how it's perceived by the team member. I think that is extremely important. A lot of times we just react the same way, no matter where we're at, without thinking about what's the environment we're in for making that decision.
Speaker 3:
So you should make an intentional, conscious effort to recognize the environment you're in.
Speaker 1:
It should be so second nature that you just know. In this environment, I need to operate like this when making the decision.
Speaker 3:
Gotcha.
Speaker 1:
Number two what needs to be accomplished by making that decision? So, while you're thinking about the environment, you're automatically thinking about what needs to be accomplished. Do I need to stop the bleeding? Is this something that needs to be done? Because it's a competitor that I'm having to deal with? Because it was just brought to me that our competitor has stolen, you know, one of our products and duplicated it, and now they've launched it and it's all over the internet. I mean, what decision? What do I need to accomplish by the decision I'm making?
Speaker 3:
What's the goal of the decision?
Speaker 1:
Right, that's number two. Number three now determine how to accomplish that decision. What's the action plan? You'll find yourself one, two and three intermingling with each other, because whatever the environment is social, environment, impacts, how do I want to accomplish this? And what's the plan of action? And then, once the decision is made and this is a critical piece from a leadership standpoint you have to do what I would call the fourth portion of the decision making process, which is, if that decision fails, have you already mentally, through steps one, two and three, come up with plan B? So we're at it. So think about that. That mouse's brain is kind of scurrying as a leader. One, two and three are going on. You're thinking about what if four? And you're coming up with plan B at the same time. Now, for most people, just for, that's not an easy task, leader or not, that's not an easy task for them.
Speaker 3:
Right Now I'm going to go back and touch on something you said. So you say you do that second nature which I've witnessed and seen, that your speed of decision making is rather quick. Has it always been that quick?
Speaker 1:
No, absolutely not. I want to go way back to going through a jet engine repair school when the instructor was walking down beside us and whispering in our ears when you make mistakes, people die. Those can cause you to make very slow decisions. Right, because you're almost overthinking every decision you make on that aircraft engine or on that aircraft because your second guessing did I do that correctly? Did I get every tool off that aircraft after we worked on it? You're seeing that aircraft take off and thinking did we inventory? Was there a wrench? Where ever boat?
Speaker 3:
Wasn't there a hammer left in the engine recently?
Speaker 1:
Yes, there was. Well, think about all the doors that are flying off and the wings that are falling off aircraft and you're thinking what's going on out there, and I think a lot of this is there's. There's there's so much stress and pressure to perform and get things done quickly because of whether it's overtime or pay or whatever. It is profitability that will. And let me tell you, aviation is not a place you want to do that.
Speaker 3:
No, take all the time you need.
Speaker 1:
So I want you to think about that. As a leader, I wasn't always adept at the speed of decision-making, speed of thought. It's something I had to train my brain into and I continually train my brain and when I fail at it, I actually come back and I troubleshoot myself and say I, what out of those three things, what did where did I fail at? Was it two, was it one, was it three? But I do assess the decisions I make, especially when there's a failure and plan B is enacted, because I'm also, you know, I say it all the time what's plan B?
Speaker 3:
Yep, you do say that all the time.
Speaker 1:
So and I've heard this before and I'm going to tell the audience, can I use the word? Who he on the radio.
Speaker 3:
Sure, yeah, we're not on the radio, but this is who he.
Speaker 1:
If somebody tells you that by having a plan B you're expecting plan A to fail, that's who he. Because in the world of business and I learned very, really quick and aviation you better have a plan B because plan A may be out of your control, could be weather, it could be someone else's fault that the occurrence took place, but you better have a plan B in the event that Mr Murphy's around or things just go wrong. So don't listen to that nonsense that having a plan B means that plan A at your expecting plan A to fail. That's who he, mr Ford.
Speaker 3:
That's good advice.
Speaker 1:
So um, so I want you to think about that as, as a leader, I want you to think about those three steps. And then I want you to assess and say what am I doing or not doing? That's slowing my speed of decision down when it comes to those three steps. And then, after you've kind of processed through that, then I want you to take number four and say am I willing to step up as a leader and knowing a decision wasn't the right decision and I'm going to have to enact plan B? Cause here's what's going to happen when you admit to that was a bad decision but you've already got plan B in place. What does that do to the team? A trust standpoint.
Speaker 3:
Now, that increases trust If you're able, if you're able to move quickly to the plan B.
Speaker 1:
Yeah and admit, hey guys didn't work, but here's what we're going to try. And a lot of times that plan B may have more input from your team and they will look at you and say, well, now that my leader is listening to me, because they they use the information that they had made the decision. You know they didn't listen to these three things and now, because this one didn't work, they actually entered in these other three things and hopefully, with that plan B and listening to your team, uh, things move forward in the organization. Now to do that and we've talked about this on an episode in the past the majority of business leaders and executives make decisions based on what's called the 80 80 rule. They want to use 80% of their team to get them 80% of the information in order to make a decision. But guess what, when you've got a lot of decisions to make during the day, what's that going to do?
Speaker 3:
It's going to eat up a big part of your day.
Speaker 1:
Cause you're constantly looking for a lot of information, a lot of your team members, in order to make a decision. And we talked about narrowing that down into the 30 30 rule, where you're getting 30% of the information needed to make a decision from 30% of the people in your organization and it's allowing you to, as a leader, to make decisions much more rapidly with better information, because you know the 30 that you need from the 30 that you need to get it from in order to make decisions. And that's knowing your team, because you don't want to make this a a whole sale. Let's everybody give an opinion about what decisions being made so that everybody feels like they're included. Narrow your decision making, which determined that could be determining your environment.
Speaker 1:
Who do I need to go get to help make these decisions? Don't make all the decisions by yourself. Use the team that was built, that you built, around you in order to help you make decisions. So people ask me all the time how to go from 80 80 to 30 30. It's going back up to the beginning of this and understanding who you are and what's in pay in pating excuse me, in pating your decision making ability, especially in steps one, two and three, so so just to go back over that again.
Speaker 3:
So, first of all, the thing I'm going to consider is he's around me. Secondly is what's my goal? And third is uh, what's my plan? What's the plan? And then, if that doesn't work, I need to have a plan, b plan.
Speaker 1:
B, that's correct. And as a leader, I mean actually write that out and say where, where am I the fastest at and where am I the slowest at when it comes to my decision making process? Cause you may get hung up in the planning phase, cause you don't know, like I don't know, how do I plan this effectively and efficiently and then communicate the plan to the team. That may be where you get caught up at and it may be in you know how. How do we want to comp what, what needs to be done to accomplish this decision? And that is, how do you get the team around you that you need to make that 30, 30 rule work? And and then you know the environment things always kind of a.
Speaker 1:
It's a strange one, because you actually have to be considering that while the events going on around you cause it may be worth the, the, the process has come to you and your environment, and now you're being led into an environment out of the environment you're in. So you've got to consider all of that where they've come to you and say, hey, we need you because this has gone wrong and you've left your office environment and now you're walking into the fire, so to speak. So all those need to be considered when it comes to where am I fast, where am I All right and where am I just slow at decision making. And we've talked to executives and leaders in the past that have said they've got burnt quotation marks burnt before and so they are really slow with this point of the decision making process because they were burnt there and so they will overthink the plan, rethink the plan, overthink the plan and guess what they do? That don't make a decision on an action plan.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I mean, that's something we talked about earlier. What was the idea of who's influencing your decisions and that may be intentionally influencing your decisions or unintentionally influencing your decisions by comments that they make or attitudes that they have? People are in your head, so to speak, when you're starting to make that decision and you're letting them influence those decisions. They may not even actually be in the room, but they're having an impact on what you're, how you're making decisions and what your, what your plan is. So the idea of finding the right voices to speak into the decision making process is essential, and stopping people from unintentionally influencing your decisions.
Speaker 1:
Well, it also goes back to the previous episode where we're talking to the leader about learning how to trust themselves, like you have to trust your decision making abilities. So you think about how I said in that episode, like this next episode is going to go a little bit deeper. In order to trust yourself with your decisions, you have to know that the decision you're making you've put time and effort and thought into, and so that trust and those decision makers they start going hand in hand, because the entire time your team's looking at you. Then what's next? How do we fix that? What do you want to do?
Speaker 3:
And, as we've talked about, with the book that we've referenced quite a bit the speed of trust. The more trust that you have both in yourself or the team has in you or that you have in the team, the faster those decisions can be made Right.
Speaker 1:
So challenge the leaders you're going to put the three things with the fourth under it you know from the plan B standpoint on our blog, on our websites and things like that and again, challenge the leader to learn how to make better decisions, quicker decisions, and how to affect a plan B and implement that if the decision doesn't plan out well. So I've enjoyed this episode, yes.
Speaker 3:
It was a good episode of quick decision making.
Speaker 1:
And we got to talk about cockroaches and mouses. We did, didn't we See you can I can go back and tell people that we talked about animals on one of our podcast episodes. We talked about rabbits, mouses, mice, mice and cockroaches. About that, mr Ford? Yep, well, thanks for being here.