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The Everyday Millionaire and Mindset Matters Podcast
Mindset Matters - Episode #227 - The Leadership Decision Most People Avoid
00:15:12
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Foreign.
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Welcome to this episode of the Everyday Millionaire Mindset Matters podcast where I'm joined by my wife, Olympic mental performance coach Stephanie Hanlon.
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Francie.
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In these episodes, Stephanie and I have a conversation about the different aspects of what we refer to as Mindset Matters because we believe that for those who are awake, we are living in and through the most impactful time in history. Your view of the world is the filter for how you will experience the evolution and changing dynamics of it. Our intention is to provide you with ideas, nutritious food for thought, and some tools that you can use to help you in being your greatest self and living your best life. Listen in. Enjoy.
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So what's the decision you already know that you need to make, but you've not yet made it. And it's frustrating because it's not that you lack information or because you haven't thought it through, you have, but it's because you know it's going to upset someone, or maybe it's even going to upset a lot of people. Welcome to the Everyday Millionaire Mindset Matters podcast. I am flying solo today. Stephanie is traveling. She'll be back for the next episode. Okay. But I've learned the hard way, both personally and professionally, as well as from many conversations with other leaders. Guests on the Everyday Millionaire podcast over several years now, is that most people don't fail because they're uninformed. They actually fail because they can't make a decision. It's a big topic. Often I get asked about making decisions. Okay, let's go back. Let me explain what I mean here. I recently had a conversation with a business client of mine that actually captures this thought process, I think really well. He asked me how he should tell his team he wants them working back in the office on a regular basis, five days a week. The problem was that he'd already floated it's not a problem, but he'd already floated the idea out to the staff and feedback was varied. But he had one employee said she'd quit if it became mandatory. Another had actually said that he'd just go to a competitor and they even had one that said, listen, you know, my brother in law or whatever, sister in law, is a lawyer. And when I floated it past them, they were saying, you know, this may violate your contract. You might want to do something about that. So all to say that from his perspective, it was easy to see how this whole thing, this whole decision could blow up. As we worked through it, there was a question that he had not asked or hadn't been asked. And what we got to is, what happens if you decide not to bring them back? So as we worked through that process, his answer was, I don't know. The reality of it is that maybe we keep growing the way we are. Maybe nothing changes at all, or maybe the culture slowly erodes. Maybe innovation, creativity starts to suffer. There's a lot of uncertainty to work through in this particular thought process. And that uncertainty is where most leaders, most people in general, actually get stuck. We might call it paralysis by analysis, or a term I often use is simply spinning our wheels. The thing is, is that when the pain actually appears obvious, your mind treats it as being real and immediate. You can actually imagine, in this case, a resignation letter ending up on your desk. You can actually picture someone walking in your office and then walking out. You can calculate the cost of replacing them, and it all feels very tangible. But the slow erosion of your culture, of your values, of the operation, is not as tangible. You know, the loss of spontaneous collaboration, the decline in accountability, the lowering of standards over time, those things are harder to define because they're harder to picture. Your brain treats them as less urgent, if you will, even though you know they may be more urgent in the long run or more dangerous, more costly in the long run. And these are where it gets challenging. Okay, so first off, this isn't really about remote work. It's about decision making under pressure. And most leaders don't struggle with knowing what they believe. They actually struggle with the consequences that they see themselves experiencing. You know, social pressure, peer pressure, financial consequences, all of it acting on those decisions. So they're not confused. They're more uncomfortable. And there's a big difference between confused and uncomfortable. When you're uncomfortable, your brain starts negotiating. It overweights what we feel emotionally and then underweights what compounds or actually digresses quietly over a period of time. The pain of an employee quitting feels certain because you can imagine it, and it is a pain in the moment. A slow cultural decline feels negotiable because you actually can convince yourself that you can adjust it later. But let me give you an example of back to his staff walking out. What we've learned over the years, you can have this all star salesperson. I've had this scenario on more than one occasion. All star Salesperson. You know, 2x3x is the sales of everybody on the team. But that person is toxic. They're arrogant. They don't get along with the rest of the team. They just want to do it their way. They don't want to follow systems they want to do it their way and it's all justifiable because they're getting these great results. And then the toxicity within the team and the culture builds up and you've got to come to a decision to in fact let that person go. Perhaps you've had conversations with them. It's not working. The point is this. You can see the pain. The team can feel the pain. Oh my gosh, we're going to lose a top salesperson. That's going to hit our top line. It's going to hit our bottom line. But here's the reality of it. It's already doing that. That person and the toxic behavior, the toxic way is actually lowering the productivity and the performance of the rest of the team. They're not stepping up because they're frustrated. They're going, why are we putting up with this guy? The reality of it is that letting that person go could in fact and almost always does create space for somebody better to show up. And as well, the minute that person leaves, the rest of the team just seems to pick up the slack and all of a sudden their game goes up because they're in a better culture, a better working. So the short term versus the long term, because if you look five years out, you have to ask what is more probable? Is it more likely that losing one person will cripple your organization? Or that compromising your values, your standards, will cost you more over that time? Here's the thing. Business rarely rewards ambiguity and neither does a high performing team. Indecision is not neutral and it's a decision that ultimately defaults to the status quo. So if you do not choose, that's the other side of it. Time will choose for you. Standards start to soften, performance starts to soften, accountability becomes far more vague. And the loudest voice in the room, the squeaky wheel, starts to set direction. Your best people may not make a dramatic exit. What happens is worse is they just quietly disengage. They lower their standards over time. And then what you start to notice down the road is that the financials are getting a little weaker, clients are complaining a little bit more. Your sales cycle is getting longer. It doesn't happen in one dramatic moment. It happens gradually over time. The thing is that most avoided decisions are not about choosing between good and bad outcomes. They're about choosing between pain now and pain later. Pain now is uncomfortable. It might or it likely will cost you something. But it usually has an endpoint. Pain avoided does not disappear, it compounds. So I'm going to give You a couple of of different examples, but let me start with this one. Several years ago, 20 years ago, call it, we owned a few properties that had roughly tripled in value. Now, based on where I believed we were in the real estate cycle, my thesis was clear. The plan was to sell, take the gain, and then redeploy the capital into the next opportunity. And then I second guessed myself. I didn't hesitate because I actually lacked information. I hesitated because of the noise. Other investors were convinced that the market would keep running. And then opinions started to creep in. I began second guessing my own thesis instead of executing on it. And so I held. Well, fast forward 15, 20 years. Those properties today are barely worth what I originally paid for them. And yes, tenants paid down the mortgage and there was years of great cash flow, so there's still equity, at least on paper. So it's not a loss, but that's not the right way in my world to measure it. The real loss was the opportunity cost. The loss. Opportunity cost. If that 300 grand. I'll use 300 as a number. If 300k. If that gain had been redeployed and compounded at 10% over 15 or 20 years, it would not still be 300,000. At that rate of return, it would have grown closer to probably $2 million. So that was the cost of hesitation or of second guessing a decision. At the time, it didn't feel that dramatic. In fact, it actually felt safe. You know, I chose not to sell into a hot market, and in my world, I was avoiding the possibility of watching those prices go up another 20, 10, 15, 20%, which they did, by the way. And then it would have gone higher without me if I would have sold. So what I didn't account for was the invisible cost of holding on to an illiquid asset in a down market. And that's just how indecision works. The visible pain feels riskier than the invisible one. So if you choose the pain that lingers instead of the pain that ends, you have to take all of that into consideration. So the same pattern shows up in leadership decisions. You know your values, or hopefully you know your values. You know the kind of organization you want to you, what you want to build, what you want to work for. But when pushback shows up and when the potential follow becomes personal or, and definitely immediate, you begin negotiating with yourself. And that's why the deeper question is not whether to mandate a return to off the office. In this case, the deeper or better question is what kind of organization are you building? And what are you working backward from? So if you say you value collaboration, you value creativity, speed, accountability, high performance equals low tolerance. So you're valuing excellence, then your decisions have to align with those values. At the end of the day, values are not just mission statements or decorative statements. They're actually the filters that you need to make decisions through. So if your decisions consistently avoid discomfort rather than uphold your standards, uphold your values, then those around you, including your team, start to notice. And they may not call you on it, they may not confront you directly. But over time, credibility starts to erode. And that erosion is more expensive than losing one employee. Leadership is not about avoiding pain. It is about choosing the right pain. And as a top performer and as a leader, you don't get a pain free path. That's just not going to happen. It's just not an option. What you get is a choice between discomfort now or more discomfort later. Said another way, along the lines of an old commercial, you can pay me a little now or you can pay me a lot later. So if you procrastinate in your decisions, circumstances will eventually force a decision for you. And that's not philosophical, it is in fact reality. Markets move, teams change, opportunities close, time keeps going, whether you act on it or not. So clarity creates momentum. Because once you decide, energy then has a direction. Even if the decision is difficult, it actually frees up attention and allows you to move forward. Avoidance, on the other hand, creates a lot of friction. It's a time drain. It drains your time, it drains your energy, and it ultimately will start to erode your confidence. Avoidance is really costly, not only in dollars and cents, but in your time, in your focus, in those opportunities. So when you're facing decisions that feel uncomfortable, don't ask how to eliminate the pain. Ask which pain you are willing to accept and which one you are not. Look into the future and ask yourself. The question is, will this be the right decision in two, three, five years from now? Then choose the one that ends the pain the soonest. Hope this has been helpful. Thanks for listening. That was fun.
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Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening. If you found value in the podcast, please take the time to rate and review and share with others. Share with your friends as it is my goal to always improve and to provide the highest value for you, the listener. If you have any comments, suggestions or questions you'd like answered, please email me at cell raincanada.
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Com.
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That's CEO@reincanada. Com. I look forward to hearing from you and until next time.
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Patrick.
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Oh,