What are good decisions? Could bad decisions in the short term end up being the keys to your future success? Could what looks like a great decision that gives you success in one area actually be your undoing down the road? Or is a good decision obviously a good decision and a bad one a bad one?
The key to this complexity appears to me to be simplicity. But as I've said over and over in my consulting work, "Simple does not mean easy." From my experience, businesses that have a clear purpose, a clear brand and a clear strategy derived from that clear purpose and brand tend to find more confidence in their decision making.
The result? Unfortunately, good decisionmaking doesn't always show immediate positive results. Often, change requires going through some pain to get to the gain (sounds a little cheesy but it's true).
Another truth is that what may have been a good decision at one point in time may no longer be such a great decision later on. The late Roberto Goizueta, former CEO of Coca-Cola said, "There are two constants at Coca-Cola. A constant purpose and a constant dissatisfaction with how we are accomplishing that purpose."
Again, unfortunately, it seems to be human nature that once we have success a particular way we get comfortable and don't look for better ways to do things until it's often too late. Warren Buffet found a more poetic way to say this, "The chains of habit are light until they are too heavy to remove."
Clarity and timing. Patience and action. Taking into account the future while living in the present. Simple... but not easy.
