Have you ever been in the position of ‘making’ an unpopular decision, but one you felt needed to be made, was the ‘right’ one? Uncomfortable, isn’t it? But sometimes you have to make decisions that are either unpopular or are ‘different’ from what others expect or want from you. Soooo… what do you do? Stand by your decision? Retract it? Try and make the decision more palatable? Explain? What will you do?
Actually is the point the ‘right’ decision? Attempting to take the emotion and expectations out of the equation, what was the ‘best’ decision that could have been made at the time it was made? Remember that subsequent information may play a strong role in the quality of the decision, at the moment the decision was made would you make a different one? And if the information now does impact, is there anything stopping you from changing?
Decision is made. You do believe in what you’ve done. Those around you have made it abundantly clear that they don’t like the decision. What do you do when you find yourself here? For me, after trying any number of responses to the ‘displeasure’, I finally found that if I acknowledged the feelings and tried not to get into my own vested interest, if I would take the time to discover the reasons it was unpopular I wasted far less time. Not always an easy task.
While the focus should be on the decision, typically all the attendant ‘issues’ consume our attention. And in that context, expectations of you by you and others play an enormous role. If you are tasked with the decision making role then you need to act based on this responsibility. Ownership by all is always crucial to effective implementation but if those involved will only sabotage the results, consciously or not, then you may have to make some other tough decisions. So….. now what?
( Just out of curiosity – were you surprised at the reaction to your decision?)
…but, what do you think? what do you believe?
