“You gotta know when to hold'em, know when to fold 'em. Know when to walk away and know when to run.” Kenny Rogers - The Gambler

Decision making is the toughest skill to develop as a leader.

So many factors come into play when making a decision and too often we become overwhelmed. When faced with a tough decision, we have a tendency to ask ourselves questions without clear answers. “If I spend this money now, how long before it pays for itself?” “If I hire this person, will they deliver?” When we can’t answer with certainty, we resist making the decision.

“Every hand’s a winner and every hand’s a loser.”

We are becoming worse at making tough decisions, especially tough ones. Decision making is a skill that can only be developed by practicing. To get started, you have to first believe that making a bad decision is better than not deciding.

Making decisions during a crisis is actually easier because not deciding is not a choice. Growth decisions, investment for the future decisions, life-changing decisions are tough because they can often wait. For the last year and a half, some have allowed the COVID crisis to let our “proactive” decision making muscles wither. Because of this, we are stagnant. We are becoming dull and sluggish.

Let’s snap out of and decide what’s next and start asking ourselves the tough questions about what it will take to make it happen.

“And in his final words I found an ace that I could keep.”