Member-only story
Leadership and decision making
I bumped into an old friend last night who had recently been appointed the Deputy CEO of a mid-sized FMCG company. As we caught up standing in line to pay for our purchases, he was “lamenting” how busy he was with chock-a-block meetings every day. I say lamenting in quotes as I could sense the pride he had in being busy.
To be honest, I am not impressed.
This is because, as the senior management of a large company, being in meetings all day only tells me he is making too many decisions. And, if a person at his level makes so many decisions, he is making all the wrong decisions. At his level, he should only be making strategic decisions and if an organization has to make many strategic decisions daily, then the organization is in serious trouble.
As Jeff Bezos said: “he gets paid to make a small number of high-quality decisions. If he makes three good decisions a day, that’s enough, and they should just be as high quality as he can make them.”
If you are a leader, this is something to think about. You are paid for the quality of your decisions, not the quantity.
