Stop Shooting From The Hip

Refrain From Snap Decisions

Where does the beginning start?  How do we find where to start?  At some point in their life, all business leaders feel the need to make some changes.  That feeling comes on strong enough to capture the leaders attention but it does not usually come with a definitive description of where to start.  All we know is a change must be made.  So the business leader begins to search where to initiate that change.

It has been my experience that when this kind of thing begins to dominate the thoughts of the business leader it usually leads to an emotional decision.  The kind of change the business leader feels the urge to do usually comes right out of some emotional thoughts they recently experienced with a customer or an employee.  Those emotional thoughts felt strong enough to cause that business leader to think they need to move in another direction.  The business leader feels like changes need to be made.  When this kind of thing happens the business leader begins to work on that day to make some changes.  That leader jumps right in immediately and starts to tweak a few things here and there.  The strong feeling to change takes over.

Sometimes this kind of process happens to a business leader quite often.  Many business leaders have turned this kind of process into a pattern of habit.  They have stumbled up against a few things they no longer like to do in their business model and they immediately begin to change how they do what they no longer want to do.  They initiate some changes in how their business model does its thing.  They decide and go.  They do not wait for a committee meeting to tell them it is time to change what they are doing.  In most cases, they do not even tell their staff they are changing what they once did in their business model.  Instead, when the opportunity pops up to face the situation that the business leader wants to change, that is when the announcement is usually made that a change has taken place.  To the surprise of the staff, who had no idea a change had happened, the new way to process this situation becomes introduced from the business leader who decided to do it differently this time.  The change is done undefined.  The business process gets altered.  The new way has been initiated.

A lot of changes made to small business models come down in this fashion.  One day they just showed up because the boss wanted to do it differently.  That is how many business changes begin.  Did you know that this is likely the worst way to make effective changes in your business model?  Initiating change in a business model that stems from some emotional dislike is what they call, "shooting from the hip."  Shooting from the hip suggests that a quick decision is made at the expense of a quality move.  I see a lot of business owners practice this unproductive technique.  They expose their impatience often by firing away well before they concentrate on pulling the gun out of the holster before aiming it carefully at a target.  I watch many business leaders react this way.  They have the bad habit of allowing their situations drive their decision-making ways.  They permit their emotions to moderate the meetings in their minds.  It is an interesting approach to business leadership, not usually effective, but interesting.

Shooting from the hip is not the way great business leaders perform their most successful patterns.  In fact, it is usually the best way they destroy successful business patterns.  Unfortunately, there is not enough self-control within the business leaders mind to refrain from practicing this terrible technique for making business decisions.  Shooting from the hip becomes one of the more common ways serious business patterns develop.  In the end, leaders choose to do what they want to do.  They allow their emotions to control their situations and as a result, when a sudden situation surfaces they immediately shoot from the hip to solve what they do not like.  They shoot from the hip and make a decision to change what they were doing because they do not like what it is producing.  They alter how they want things to be done.  Self control is usually absent.  The emotional buttons are usually flipped on and the leader permits the mind to alter how the business model treats certain patterns of unwanted performance.  Quick decisions are made to remove what the leader does not like.  They shoot at the target directly from the hip.  It is a terrible way to target practice.  It is a more terrible way to operate a business model.

Eliminate Snap Decisions

If you shoot from the hip, stop it.  You are killing the art of good planning.  You may also be destroying your leadership and do not even see the deep damage you are injecting into the patterns of your working staff.  Stop shooting from the hip.  Get yourself under control.  Begin the serious work on controlling your emotions.  Do not permit those emotions to get away from you and dominate your efforts to develop strong leadership skills.  Remove your holster.  Set your decision gun down for a little while.  Begin the art of teaching yourself how to control your emotions better.  It is not wrong to have deep emotions.  However, it is not effective to have those deep emotions control your decision-making models.  The two functions must learn how to respect when and where they need to live.

I sat down with a business leader last year who described this interesting problem he was having.  We were talking about our past business lives with each other.  I was describing some of my worst decisions.  We laughed at a few of our terrible mistakes.  During the discussion on this subject, he described how he noticed everyone usually fled from the space he entered.  If a group of employees were gathered together chatting about something, they slowly split up to leave shortly after he entered the scene.  He said he noticed this kind of behavior, often.  He said he felt like he never really belonged in their circle of influence.  He said he noticed how his employees worked hard to avoid his presence.  They would split up when he arrived.  He asked me if I had that same problem.  My response to that query was, "How does that look like a problem to you?"  I continued, "I do not want my employees to gather around me and spend their compensated time chatting and socializing with me.  They need to be working.  They should split up the party and the small chit chat stuff when you arrive.  In fact, I would be more disturbed to notice they are gathered together, on the clock, having social time when I am not present.  Are you not more concerned about that pattern of activity?"  He starred at me in surprise.  In fact, he had a little bit of a frown on his face.

Sometimes we become business leaders because we feel the need to have people around us.  I prefer to protect my ego better than that.  I prefer to have people around me working on their productivity.  I have taught myself how to recognize these differences.  I also like to socialize with my staff.  However, I have also noticed they do not get as much done when the socializing part dominates the time clock.  I might feel good about chatting with them but my business model lacks the proper productivity to churn out better results.  I give up the need to socialize with them and focus more on getting the results to improve.  He and I discussed the difference these two elements provide.  I was surprised at his perspectives.  He wanted so much to be liked by his employees.  It dominated his most driving thoughts.  He had become very emotional about his leadership ways.

I have seen this same business leader fly off the handle at some simple frustration that suddenly showed up.  I have seen him snap hard and shoot from the hip when something wrong hit the scene, suddenly.  This business leader lacks self-control.  He works over-time on searching for ways to become more liked by his staff.  As a result, they become less disciplined in doing what needs to be done effectively and efficiently.  Once in awhile, their productivity hits a problem and it produces an unwanted situation.  When that occurs, his leadership snaps.  His lack of self-control flips on its 'shoot from the hip' mode and new decisions begin to fly out of his mouth.  These are the common reactions of a terrible business leader.  They are the patterns that eventually destroy the walk to success.  They are the permissions that support how a leader remains steadfast with how they shoot from the hip.  This lack of self control feeds the pattern that loads the gun.  Eventually, the business leader starts firing away from the holster instead of the upright, aiming position.  Planned decision making disappears.  The business model suffers.  The emotional business leader blames the others for the circumstances that continue to arrive.

When I left that table of discussion with that business leader, the one who noticed everyone split when he arrived, I heard him say...."Somehow I always seem to know what to do when they treat me like that."  Then he walked away.  Two months after that conversation, he was fired.  Quit shooting from the hip.  Learn how to control the emotions better.  Work on perfecting the decision-making skills that help the model win.  Control yourself.  No leader has any business leading a group of employees if that leader cannot control themselves.  It is simple stuff that needs to be addressed.  Stop shooting from the hip.

Until next time...