choices Archives - Dennis E. Gilbert

09
Aug 21
-

Data Decisions and Having Enough Information

Tags : choices data decision making information overload

Are you making data decisions? Where is the happy medium between not enough data and too much?

Information overload is a popular topic. Many people think that there is too much. Too much to read, consume, or otherwise process.

Digital video uploads to YouTube are happening faster than any one person consume. Interesting to think about, but it’s also important to remember that a big chunk of that data may never matter to you.

If you like buying and selling antiques, you may not care very much about the best way grow plants in a high-rise apartment. If you love sushi recipes you may not care about the 10 best guidelines for mountain climbing. Some data just doesn’t matter to you.

Data from news sources many be important, or they might be considered garbage. The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) will give you ticker data, does that matter?

What data do you really need to make good decisions?

Data Decisions

Finding the sweet spot for data quantity and quality will always make a difference. In research methods, the question is often asked about data validity and reliability. Good data or bad data?

In some decisions, there are people who will want to refute or refuse any data that doesn’t align with the intended direction of their decision.

More data than we can observe or view only serves to stall a decision, for better or worse.

Better to take a reasonable sample and be timely, than to stall on something without a good reason.

A project that starts late is much more likely to fail when compared with a project in motion that has an option to adapt.

Everyone knows time can work for you or against you.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

08
Jul 21
-

Decisions Are Stackable, Like It or Not

Tags : choices decisions outcomes stackable strategy

Are you making good decisions? Is every decision, every choice, a good one?

People often blame outcomes on a decision. A choice to move forward, step back, or perhaps go side to side.

Most fortunate, or unfortunate circumstances are not the result of only one good or one bad decision.

That’s because decisions are stackable.

You may be familiar with a decision tree. Perhaps a flow chart, or a graphic that helps illustrate the steps between the first and the last. Steps are stackable.

When you make a decision to enter the ice cream shop, your next decision is likely going to involve calories and sugar.

Sign up for a gym membership, and you’re probably in for buying some related footwear and clothing, then supplements.

Buy a camera and you’re going to need lenses, filters, and software to improve your images.

All of these choices and decisions are stackable.

Stackable Decisions

In the workplace or for your business, department, or team, decisions are also stackable.

It may come in the form of a good hire, or a bad one. It may be about the choice of a logo, a physical location, or the market segment you’ll focus on.

With a different twist, it could also be because you haven’t selected a logo, decided on a location, or because you’ve positioned your market approach too wide.

In some cases, you may be able to identify a single decisions that started a chain reaction. In others, it may be difficult to identify just one single choice as the culprit.

Lucky decisions or unlucky decisions are also often evaluated. The truth is, what happens next will have the most impact. Good or bad. The reason is, decisions are stackable.

You may be quick to blame a decision, yet often it is the continuous actions, behaviors, and choices that result in what you might call, the final outcome.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

22
Apr 21
-

Falling Down Often Starts With a Choice

Tags : choices decisions falling down options persistence

Lots of things are the result of a decision or choice. Falling down happens. It happens to nearly everyone and everything in one capacity or another. What are your choices?

By now you’ve probably heard all the rhetoric.

Don’t look where you don’t want to go.

A backup plan means you’ve already failed.

Analyzing alternatives is a lack of focus.

While there may be some valuable nuggets to consider in this type of rhetoric, it may also be helpful to know when enough is enough.

You guessed it, finding the magical balance between persistence and quitting while you are ahead is ideal.

Have you ever experienced the feeling of falling down?

Consequences of Failure

The consequences of failure can be huge. With some hard work, persistence, and a little luck you might land a high-paying job or get a business rolling that yields substantial wealth.

Can it all come crashing down? Yes, and everything seems to have a beginning and an end.

Great jobs, great businesses, and great communities. They rise and they fall.

Giving up too easily is problem. Holding on too long is also a problem.

Then there is the case where you had no choice. The plug was pulled. The carpet ripped out from under your feet without any fault of your own. This too happens.

Falling Down

All or nothing is a gamble. Anything without risk has little or no reward.

Digging deep matters. Acceptance that no one is coming to bail you out might spark the fire in your belly that you need to persevere.

You made a choice where to start. It may be obvious or it may require some deeper thinking to discover the moment the decision was made. You can make a choice about where and when to stop too.

In the case where failure hit by no fault of your own, you make a new choice for a new beginning, or to crumble down in the ashes.

It’s is funny how many things happen after someone says, “There wasn’t any other choice.”

Make your next decision with eyes wide open about the consequences.

At some point, the cavalry is not coming.

Hearing this may make a difference. Experiencing it is a game changer.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

01
Apr 21
-

Workplace Scarcity Causes More People To Act

Tags : choices decision making outcomes psychology of work scarcity

“It was important because it seemed like it was our last chance.” Sound familiar? Workplace scarcity often drives people to action. Is that a good thing?

It seems like the U.S. economy is thriving on the concept of scarcity. Everything from home appliances, to building materials, to canning jars. Nearly every day someone has a story to share about something that they wanted to buy only to find little or no supply. I think it all started about a year ago with toilet tissue.

Fear compels people to do irrational things. It encourages quick decisions that are sometimes thoughtless and reckless.

When it comes to sales, the principle of scarcity is not a stranger. Sales teams often thrive on the principle of scarcity.

You can even observe it in television shows such as American Pickers and Pawn Stars. These shows often illustrate that the price increases when there is a belief that the item in question is scarce.

Does it affect behaviors and decisions in your workplace?

Workplace Scarcity

Almost everything is a rush. There is a race against time to produce faster, newer, fresher, and always be the first to ship. It doesn’t matter if it is services or products, it is a race.

The pace of business today often results in a lack of patience for decisions. Patience is not the same as procrastination, and a lack of patience is often created when there is a feeling of scarcity.

We need to hire someone fast.

Stock up, there is going to be a shortage coming soon.

Rumors are that the only supplier on the east coast may go out of business.

Through advertising we often see things implying scarcity.

Hurry, last one.

Limited collector’s edition.

This item won’t last long.

Is scarcity working for you or against you? Are there issues connected to trust when it comes to scarcity?

Have employees been scared into hasty decisions so many times that they are immune to the thought? Does it create a failure to act when action is required?

Acting fast is often important. Acting right now, may imply a different spin.

Scarcity can be both a sword and a shield. It can be the difference between saving a situation or costing you dearly.

Awareness of how scarcity springs people to action is important. It is as important as trust.

Leaders are role models for behaviors. How you communicate, advertise, and make decisions will become part of your culture.

If you’re thriving on selling with scarcity tactics you can expect the same with your team as they make decisions and choices for what happens next.

One thing often follows scarcity.

Buyers remorse.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

23
Oct 20
-

Meeting Decisions May Be The Hold-Up

Tags : balance choices decisions meeting management time

Is your workplace culture caught up in meeting decisions? Decisions that are always contingent on holding a meeting?

Meetings often feel necessary and certainly, many of them probably are. Meeting effectiveness matters because too many details, a lack of fact-finding, or the wrong people at the meeting can derail even the best intentions.

Most of the best work that you do comes when you find the right balance. The balance between too much and too little, too authoritarian or too relaxed, and even too fast or too slow.

Size Matters

In the smallest of businesses, the owner makes the decisions. There is a time to contemplate and study, and also a time to act. The owner can, at his or her descrestion, act fast.

Big companies have different hurdles. The decision-making process is often slower, seemingly more calculated, and often tied up with too many people having a hand in the pot.

Decision quality is often a concern. One side believes the decision was made too soon and without enough information. The other side believes there was analysis paralysis and too many details.

Who really suffers?

Meeting Decisions

Ultimately, it is likely the customer who suffers the most.

They have to deal with delays, less quality, and often rising prices.

Who has the bigger advantage? The big company or the small company?

While the big company has more market share and thus exposure and reputation, the smaller company is nimbler and more flexible. Decisions mean outcomes and outcomes mean action.

Your next decision and the time it wastes or maximizes may not only be holding you up, but it may also be holding you back.

Are you surfing the status quo or are you blazing a trail for future success?

It’s probably a balancing act.

Ending the meeting or holding one will help you find the right balance.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and corporate trainer. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

20
Aug 20
-

Workplace Options, For Better or For Worse

Tags : choices options perfect workplace decisions

What are the options? Many people in the workforce are often considering their workplace options. Not only related to their career, but related to business decisions, employee decisions, and the directional decisions of the organization.

In the United States, we are in a presidential election year. Many people chatter about the presidential campaigns currently underway, and to generalize, my best guess is that somewhere around 50 percent of the population will agree on one of the candidates.

As in any election cycle, a question to consider is, “Who isn’t running that should be?”

It matters because the voters are really only voting on the best option.

Always the Best Option

Frustrated hiring managers are faced with hiring the best available option. There may be many people better suited for the job opportunity, but they either didn’t apply or perhaps the compensation package didn’t fit.

Marketing and advertising managers have to make the most of a budget. A Superbowl commercial may be effective to boost sales, yet it may not be affordable to most small businesses. Instead, they set direction best on the best available options within their budget.

Job seekers look for options. A computer science graduate may be able to earn a substantial income in technology hot spots throughout the United States, yet he or she may choose to live in a small rural town in Montana. Other options exist, but they are not suitable for their personal framework of choices.

Workplace Options

People and organizations are always living with choices. They are living with choices based on finding a balance within options.

The elected official is the best option out of those seeking the position. A candidate who gets the job is the best of the options. Advertising options are the best value within the budget. Career pathways somehow weave their way into existence as the best option within the framework of the individual.

In the workplace, there may not always be a perfect option. Waiting for one may be the biggest mistake of all.

For better or for worse.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

30
Jun 20
-

Personal Choices Reflect Professional Brand

Tags : career choices image professional brand

Is it personality or is it about choice? Perhaps, it is both. Your personal choices for workplace behavior will illustrate your professional brand.

In the meeting, you hear what you perceive as unfavorable news. Perhaps, even threatening for your job role.

The night before you didn’t sleep well. You feel cranky.

You make a mistake but decide to blame it on the circumstances.

It’s all about choice.

Personal Choices

You have a choice regarding your behavior. It is not about the choices that others make, it is about your choice.

You can choose to learn more, do more, and give more. Giving more works for knowledge, empathy, and patience.

You have talents and abilities that you’ve acquired through years of devotion and commitment. Will you share or selfishly hoard?

Have you made a conscious choice to build things up, or are your actions and behaviors more about tearing things down?

Do you jump on board when someone starts to criticize others, or do you move towards some constructive action, search for solutions, or offer a different perspective?

Is the path you choose one of comfort and ease or is it more about overcoming obstacles, exceeding a personal best, or being willing to explore something new?

Professional Brand

If you make a conscious decision to stop learning, stop growing, or to always seek the easiest path, you’ve made a choice about your professional brand.

Someone will always try to beat the system, take a shortcut, or achieve something better at the expense of others.

That’s not a brand you want to represent.

That isn’t you.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

23
Jun 20
-

Navigating Difficult People Is Seldom Easy

Tags : choices difficult people navigation

Have you ever faced the challenge of navigating difficult people? What did you do?

Workplaces are filled with challenges. They’re also filled with emotions, bias, and mistrust.

A Few Basics

There are a few general practices that can help guide people in most situations. One of the first and perhaps the most fundamental is to recognize that it is often your own behavior that you can control, not the behavior or personalities of others.

There is a difference between navigating peers and navigating your boss, or perhaps even the boss of your boss.

What about all of the picky people, the perfectionists, or the boundary busting critic?

Then there are the annoying people. The loud, the rude, and the obnoxious.

When we recognize that we have a choice for how we react to every situation it makes navigation a little easier.

Some of it is based on your own expectations.

What are the expectations of others? Are they too high, too low, or inappropriately aligned for the circumstances?

Once again, each person has some ability to gauge their actions and reactions.

Navigating Difficult People

A picky person may feel difficult, yet when we realize and develop a greater understanding of their expectations, their values, or beliefs, we can better navigate. We can change our interactions and lower our expectations on his or her behavior.

On the other hand, a truly difficult person may enjoy being difficult.

If you suggest blue, they want green. Show them green, and it should have been orange. Tomorrow or next week, it all changes.

In some cases, you have a choice about who you interact with, in other cases you must find a way to navigate when interaction is required. Even when it is uncomfortable.

Improving your own situation starts with thinking about the choices you’ll make and how you’ll choose to interact.

Having big expectations for others that they should change is probably unrealistic.

You can change, just don’t expect it from others.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

09
Jun 20
-

Better Leadership Makes Things Better

Tags : choices commitment decisions future leadership

Sharp turns, bumps in the road, and dead-end streets. It’s easy to give metaphorical expressions for navigating the rough spots. Maybe what we really need is better leadership.

Everyone has a chance to lead. It’s an opportunity that awaits although many don’t often pause long enough to see it.

Conditions for Leading

Busy is a condition, it’s also a great excuse. People can be too preoccupied and that can detract from their focus.

Often effectiveness is missing.

Listening matters. We hear sounds or noises. True listening involves spending the time and energy required to comprehend or understand what you are hearing.

The truth often is, people are lazy listeners.

If you’ve been in the workforce for a while, you’ve seen a thing or two. If you’ve been in the workforce even in the past few years, you’ve encountered a lot.

We’ve went from a raging, fantastically exciting economy, to getting knocked to our knees by the threat of a virus. Now, violence and disruption have hit our streets and shattered our communities.

Anyone can lead, and now is a great time to be involved.

Better Leadership

Better leadership is an opportunity. It is an opportunity that is needed now, and it will be continuously needed in the future.

Leading, listening, and understanding the difference between busy and effective are all leadership challenges.

Transformation surrounds everyone. The choices you make today will impact your contribution to what the future looks like.

Everyone needs to move on, move forward, or move out of the way of progress.

Lead in your workplace, your community, or for a cause that you care deeply about.

Make things better.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

01
Jun 20
-

Precious Workplace Resources and Using Them

Tags : change choices decisions pivot

Marketing is a struggle spot for many businesses. So is making great choices about talent. What are your most precious workplace resources? Are you using them effectively?

Technology and automation are both king and queen in many operations. Business strive to scale. They strive to attain the most efficiency and balance it with low cost.

Time is always a factor. How much, how fast, and how great is the quality? It’s true for both goods, and for services.

Focus is a factor when it comes to resources. Focus on nothing and you’ll likely get nothing.

Businesses and people sometimes focus too broad, or the opposite, too narrow.

The broad approach is often labeled, spray and pray. You throw a bunch of stuff out there and you see what sticks. It’s often the concept of spam.

Too narrow, and opportunities are missed. Product value is weakened or doesn’t fit like it potentially could. Services don’t provide enough depth.

Precious Workplace Resources

In the workplace it is often easy for people to appear busy. Busy is not proof of productivity, efficiency, or effectiveness. It may be proof that motion is occurring, but motion in most instances is not the point.

You can walk or run on a treadmill, yet you aren’t going any place. The argument may be that your improving fitness, and that may be true, but you haven’t changed your location.

It’s true for rocking in a rocking chair, it’s true for writing a book and never publishing it. Unless your goal is that act of doing, you’re not going anywhere.

Effectively using your most precious workplace resources has several important aspects. You should figure out where you’re going, monitor progress, and pivot your plan as appropriate along the way.

Both change and utilization are about decisions and choices. Those opportunities start with awareness.

If you think a lot of motion in the rocking chair will get you across town.

You’re mistaken.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

Tag Archives: choices

Aug 21

-

Data Decisions

Jul 21

-

Stackable Decisions

Apr 21

-

Consequences of Failure

Falling Down

Apr 21

-

Workplace Scarcity

Oct 20

-

Size Matters

Meeting Decisions

Aug 20

-

Always the Best Option

Workplace Options

Jun 20

-

Personal Choices

Professional Brand

Jun 20

-

A Few Basics

Navigating Difficult People

Jun 20

-

Conditions for Leading

Better Leadership

Jun 20

-

Precious Workplace Resources

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