How to Make Sound Business Decisions

"Business is all about decisions-decisions you make as an individual, a team member or a team leader. There are considered decisions that come with the luxury of time, like marketing plans and budgets, and then there are other decisions that are thrust upon you and have to be made instantaneously.  Every decision can be important to your business-and your career."

• Before you make a decision, carefully weigh the risks and rewards. Don't act, or react, without giving thought to the consequences. You want to make thoughtful decisions, not reckless ones.
• Don't let your emotions influence your decisions. Too often, such decisions will be wrong-and regretted. After you have spoken, you may find yourself either backtracking or trapped.
• Seek balance and moderation in your decisions. You don't want to be known as someone who is indecisive or is impulsive. Colleagues expect decisions to be made-it can be frustrating not knowing what course to take-but they also respect someone who listens and weighs information before making a decision.
• Make decisions for the right reason. If you are in a position of strength, watch that one of your subsequent decisions won't actually diminish your power. Don't jeopardize yourself or your team out of bravado or to impress others with a grand gesture. Make decisions for the right reasons-weighing a fleeting moment of glory against the long-term consequences. Picture the worst-case scenario.
• Compensate for your personal decision-making biases. Are you a 'numbers' person or a 'big picture' person? Do you look for the quick-fix or a long-term solution? Improve the quality of your decisions by better understanding yourself.
• Practice the 80/20 rule. Recognize that 80 percent of the information you will need to make a good decision generally can be assembled in a relatively short time. Don't wait for the remaining 20 percent-in most instances, it isn't likely to change the situation.
• Develop quiet confidence in your decision-making ability. The more decisions you make, likely the better they will be. Most professional decisions don't require Solomon-like wisdom, but they do require that you weigh the facts and understand the individuals involved. When you make the wrong decision, you need to be flexible enough to change direction.
• As a leader, you are expected to make decisions. Teams need the clarity that decisions bring...even if the leader's decision is to postpone one for awhile. Team leaders often make the strategic decisions and rely on team members for the tactical ones.

PASS

• Role clarification. Kelly, leader of the men's team (Mosaic), provided clear structure and order for his team, showcasing his military leadership experience. He began by establishing defined sales and flavor-selection teams -- with team members assigned based on individual talent and skills -- brilliant!
   
• Marking and celebrating short-term wins. Kelly, who looks to be one of Trump's stronger candidates at this point, expressed public gratitude for the good work of his team. Celebration and acknowledgement is critical to long-term success in high-performance teams.
   
• Developing a unique selling proposition.Mosaic's team collectively developed their unique selling proposition (a must for successful sales!) by tying in their breakfast and dessert (ice cream laced with doughnuts) concept with profits to benefit a charity. This cause-related marketing strategy was a creative and effective way to boost sales and inspire goodwill.
   
• Leadership can emerge from anyone on a team. Meanwhile, on the women's team (Apex), there was a leadership vacuum created by Ivana's incredibly poor leadership. Bradford stepped in to fill the void. He modeled positive attitude, high energy and creativity for the struggling, disorganized and inept Apex sales team at a time when they needed it most.

  FAIL

• No facilitation skills by project managers. The candidates in "The Apprentice" continue to fail in demonstrating facilitation skills to effectively lead project teams. These basic skills are not rocket science; they are fundamentals. There are effective methods to lead a productive brainstorming session. There are also effective team facilitation methods to analyze, prioritize and evaluate potential project ideas that, if executed properly, will result in an effective plan for a team to follow. Yet there is no evidence of this methods being utilized by "The Apprentice" candidates. Apex spent far too much time on their ice cream flavor idea and NO time developing an actionable plan. And forget about a backup/contingency plan.
   
• No direction or clear expectations of team members.  The Apex project leader, Ivana, did not provide clear structure, direction, control or order (leadership) for her team. Team members did not understand their team role or what was expected of them. Trump was astounded to find that the "best and the brightest" spent three hours wandering the streets of New York trying to find the other half of their team -- valuable time lost wandering the streets aimlessly by a major portion of Apex's resources. On the Mosaic side, why did it take four team members to buy the doughuts? Hardly a good use of team resources, talent and skills.
   
• Poor sales aptitude and attitude.  Pamela demonstrated her lack of sales ability or charm by flatly selling ice cream with little or no affect. Her lack of sales energy on the streets will not be tolerated -- Trump has clearly dictated his demand for high energy and self-confidence. You can't get the most out of the "best and the brightest" if their basic needs aren't met.
   
• Team basics 101: Provide the necessary resources for your team members to be successful. It shouldn't take a play book to point out that John's refusal to pay team money to purchase food for his team, including hypoglycemic Raj, was just plain dumb.
   

• Think before you speak. Keep your mouth shut. And don't underestimate Trump. (Take the cue from his two lieutenants, Carolyn and George.)  Perhaps the biggest lesson from the second episode was what happened to Bradford. In case you missed it, here is the instant replay: Bradford gambled, and in a grandstanding and impulsive (dumb) move, waived his immunity from being fired. End of story, as in, "You're fired." Bradford fumbled the ball, could not recover and gave the game away.

The Report Card	Team Apex Team Mosaic
Protege: Effort -- Performance -- Creativity --
Versacorp: Effort -- Performance -- Creativity --