EntreLeadership - Make Objective Decisions

Episode Date: March 26, 2020

Tune in to hear Daniel Tardy and Sarah Sloyan respond to some business owners' fears around Coronavirus.   4 Steps to Make an Objective Decision: Click here to get your phased plan template   Get access to the EntreLeadership Weekly Report Tool for you and your team for 3 months FREE: Text TEAMHEALTH to 33444   Follow us on social media to stay plugged in to everything we’re doing to help the small business owner win: LinkedIn Instagram Facebook Twitter YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, this is Alex. I think one of the things that we're all realizing right now is that this whole coronavirus situation, it's developing so fast, like every single day, if not every single hour. And so we want to make sure we're doing our part to give you the most up-to-date information about how our company is handling this, but also how we see small business owners around the country leading through these uncertain times. So we're going to be releasing some bonus episodes where senior leaders, here within Entree Leadership and Ramsey Solutions, address some of the big topics and big questions surrounding the whole coronavirus issue. Make sure you subscribe to the Entree Leadership podcast to get these bonus episodes at the top of your feed. And here is today's bonus episode. Hey, guys, Daniel Tarty and Sarah Sloughion

with the Entree leadership team here at Ramsey Solutions. And we're bringing you some bonus content on our podcast this week because, you know what, we're breaking up the format, because the format of our whole country has been disrupted right now. And so we don't want to just do business as usual. We want to get relevant, timely answers and solutions to you guys because you're dealing with some difficult stuff right now. And we know that. And so we just want to check in and talk about it. And really, we want to acknowledge, like, we're in this with you guys. We, our last,

talk about our last few days. I mean, we've been doing a lot of non-conventional things. All of our friends went to work from home. And I feel very alone right now. It's a very weird feeling and I'm homeschooling. So there's that thrown in as well. It's wild times. And, you know, it's changed the way that we do business for all of us. And for some of us, it's going to change how things look in the business landscape for a long time. And this is difficult. You know, this is a difficult season, especially for entrepreneurs right now. There's a lot of questions. There's a lot of ambiguity. It's very normal if you're going, hey, are we going to make it? Are we going to survive? And our goal is to give you all of the things that we think you need.

to beat the odds, to really get through this, to not have to lay off people, to not have to close up shop and turn off the lights for good. We may have to do some really hard things for this season here to kind of weather the storm, but you can't just lay down. You can't just stay in bed all day and say it's all over because it's not over. We're still America. We're still problem solvers. We're still going to figure it out. And you may not feel like you have what it takes to do that right now, but I can tell you do have what it takes. It's just really overwhelming. And so we want to take all that overwhelming feeling and kind of walk alongside you guys and let you know, here's how we're making decisions right now. Here's how we're

prioritizing things and share with you a little bit of kind of what it's been like for our leadership team. Yeah. So like I mentioned, the last few days, we have a virtual team, and this has been really interesting. Those of you out there who have virtual teams all the time are laughing at us, I'm sure. We have rediscovered the teams, the Microsoft Teams application, and it's It's been really fun. I've actually enjoyed the challenge of doing things differently. And so we had a great leaders meeting yesterday where I asked everybody to go around and share, how are they doing? And then I asked for a fun win in their area because it was really encouraging for the rest of us to hear that things were continuing, even despite this feeling

so unusual and they're being changes, things are continuing to happen. What I've been super encouraged by is our team has this incredible drive. It's almost like they're on overdrive. because they're so passionate about helping you guys, and they are really worried about our friends out there. And so it's been interesting as we've been getting the reports in from you guys. You know, we have some people on the end of the spectrum who are really deciding, like Daniel said, am I about to have to lay people off? And then we have folks at the opposite end of the spectrum who are in IT or commercial cleaning businesses,

who their business is skyrocketing, and they're trying to figure out how do I accommodate all of this when my team was not used to this and we weren't set up to do this volume. And is that going to put me out of business the opposite way? You know, how do I find good people to add to my team? And so it's been really wild across the whole spectrum. Yeah, and I'll say regardless of which side of that equation you're on, I think what we all have in common is we have new problems

that none of us were anticipating and that none of us had a month ago. And these problems are real. These problems can be scary. These problems can cause us to really lose sleep at night and have a lot of worry and anxiety. These problems could include having to let people go or close up the business. And I just want you guys to hear, we care about you, we care about that. And we want to encourage you with some things that hopefully are going to help you beat the odds and weather the storm.

And the first thing is, you know, you really got to focus on what you can control. There's a lot of negative out there. There's a lot of things in the media that just because you can consume it doesn't mean you can control it. It may be interesting or it may be worth kind of. of knowing, read the summary of the end of the day, but if you put all your energy into just consuming the latest of what's going on, the opportunity cost on your time that you could be working on what you could control might make or break the difference of whether you get to stay open right now.

And so I know that feels a little bit elementary. We're adults, we're business owners. We're above, you know, wasting our time on things. But just check yourself and make sure you're not getting drawn into the space of wasted energy and adding to the drama and making it worse on things that you can't control. When you're doing the stuff that you can control, you're getting out of bed, you're communicating with your team, you're figuring out how we're going to navigate through all this stuff. We want to encourage you guys to make objective decisions. And what we mean is not emotional decisions, right?

It's so normal to react instead of slow down and respond. Yeah. On our last episode, we talked a little bit about one of our core values here at Ramsey is not making decisions out of fear. And I think that's what we're really talking about here. Let's look at the objective data and information and make decisions. off of that. That's how we're going to draft our plan, and that's how we're going to move forward with the team. Yeah, that's right. So there's really four things that in this objective decision-making idea, that really should be the place that you're coming from as a leader for your team, for your business.

You don't want to make big decisions that are reacting real quick to what's going on, because you might end up over-correcting. And Dave was telling the story this week about changing lanes on the interstate and going into another lane and there's a car in the lane, and he swerved back. and he said, hey, if I wasn't careful, I would have swerved all the way into the wall and had a wreck, not because of the car in my lane, but because I overreacted to a problem. So you don't want to overreact and you don't want to underreact. You want to show up. You want to be poised. You want to make wise decisions. And that's the first step is just check in and go, am I overreacting? And if you're emotional and you're stressed and you're angry and you're upset, if you make a decision

from that place, it's probably going to be the wrong decision. So Sarah, what do you do when we all get to that spot when we know we're emotional? How do we get unemotional so we can make an objective decision? I'm laughing because I told, I just shared with Daniel that I ate six fudge covered Oreos the other day. So if you think that we're perfect at this, we're not. We all like to eat our emotions, right? So yeah, I like to just go for a walk. I like to take five minutes. You know, most of us in these kinds of situations are wired to either go straight into action and just act out of the things that we're feeling. And, make rash decisions, or we shut down. And we can't make any decision. We feel so overwhelmed.

We're trying to get more information and more information, and we can't ever pull the trigger. And so I think one easy thing is get out in nature. Take five minutes. Go for a walk around the neighborhood, breathe, get back to your seat and go, okay, let me write down on paper what I have to make a decision about, and then the data points that I have about that thing that will inform that decision. Yeah, that's right. Just pause for a minute. You're going to make a better decision if you do because a lot of times we get into that our limbic system takes over. That's the fight or flight response. And as difficult as it may be, we want to get out of that so we can make good business decisions

for our team from a really solid place. And then the next thing that you can do and making sure we're not overreacting is really paying attention to making sure that all your inputs are truth and facts and data. You know, there's so much embellishment and drama and speculation out there. what if, what if this happens, this might happen. The feds about, they've been meeting all day, they might announce this. We don't know yet. And so what we've got to start with is what are the facts in front of us that we can anchor to to make wise decisions?

Definitely, definitely. And I think writing those things down to help inform that decision is key. There's something that is very objective about seeing things in writing and not just kind of continuing to over process them in your head. Yeah, we worked with our operating board yesterday. and we just wrote out some things of what we call kind of a phase plan. And phase one is these are decisions we're making right now in response to what's going on. Phase two, phase three, phase four.

You know, if it got really bad, well, then we would make phase two decisions. If it got worse than that, we would make phase three decisions. But what that does is it lets the team and everybody involved kind of go, there is a place in time to have this discussion that's this worst case scenario. But right now, we just didn't make this week's decisions. focus on executing those really, really well. And in phase two through four, they're kind of like an insurance policy. You want to have them, but hope that you never use them. And the odds are, you're not going to have to use them if you take care of phase one really well, because there's a lot

of opportunity and just shifting some things around and reprioritizing that really set your ship up to sail through the storm. And a lot of you guys are going to be fine and a lot of you're going to make it as scary as it might feel. What Daniel's really talking about is focus. And so I think in the absence of that plan on paper and the communication around that plan on paper, people go into this worst case scenario. And they spend a lot of worry and calories. They're burning them, trying to figure out what are all the possible things that could go wrong. And so when you start to organize these things on paper and tell yourself, hey, I reserve the right to get smarter. We will get new information every day. This is a living document and I will update it as we

get that additional information. But today, this is what I need to make a decision on. It really allows you to focus on just the things for today. And you can put in a separate column, the things that you're eventually going to have to make a decision on, but are not the most important things for you to worry about or focus on today. Yeah, that's right. So remember, when we're doing objective decision-making, first of all, you don't want to overreact or under-react. Second, you want to focus on making sure your inputs are truth and facts and data. The third is you're going to write a plan, have a plan on paper that you're going to operate off of. This is your battle plan. And then the final statement,

that's super important is to communicate this plan with your team. Communication is always important in business, but now it's at a premium. Yeah, definitely. I was talking to my leaders yesterday, and I said, you know, one of my biggest fears is that I am not going to do a good enough job communicating to the senior leaders who are then going to communicate to their leaders, who are going to communicate to our front lines, and it's going to be this game of telephone. And so I'm working hard to put our plan on paper so that that really eliminates the risk of it ending up, if you've ever played telephone back in the day in elementary school, you know, by the time it gets the end of the telephone,

it's a whole different message. So I think really spending time on that phase document and writing down in each phase exactly what you're making a decision on and what's going to happen, and then communicating that to the team and telling them, we're going to continue to update this as we know more. We had a great call with our team. There are 67 folks on our team,

and we all logged in to the Microsoft Teams app this morning at 830. and we said, hey, when we all left the office, you know, X day, this is where we said our priorities were. Things have shifted, and daily they're going to continue a shift. So let me go ahead and communicate to you. Here are the top four priorities for our team to be focused on. You're going to be hearing more about these from your direct leaders, but I want you to hear from me. These are the four things that we're going to push across the line based on the things that we know today. And we're going to have another group up on Thursday morning, and we're going to talk through that more.

So, Sarah, let me just proxy maybe where a small business owner could be right now listening to this. Hey, that's great. The idea of having a couple hours to sit down and plan, and sure, that's ideal. But you know what? I just came out of a meeting where I had to lay off five of my key people. I lost half of my customer base. I might lose the other half next week. I'm talking to vendors, and I don't know if I can pay them. Like, what do you mean to have a plan right now? How am I going to do that? I got the house is on fire, and you want me to have a plan? Yeah, definitely. I think stage one is a triage plan. It's sitting down and writing down what are the most on fire things right now. Because the longer you keep that in your head, the more emotional you're going to feel about it and you're just going to react. And you're not necessarily going to do what's best for your business in that moment. You're just going to be reacting out of this emotional place. So it is worth it. Absolutely. To sit down, even if it's 15 minutes and write down, here are the things that I have to triage today. And we need to make a decision on this. And if you need to pull in, count, on that, pull in counsel. Our coaches would be happy to talk to you. We're setting up free,

short coaching calls right now. We're happy to help with that. Or if you have a friend that is a business owner also, I would suggest get counsel from other people in this time. But absolutely, it is absolutely worth 15 minutes to sit down and create a plan of how you're going to attack these triage problems. That's right. So don't go out alone. And what Sarah is really saying is be scrappy. It's 15 minutes in a yellow pad. This isn't a full day strategy planning session. This is just getting it all out. And then, when you're communicating with your team, you know, Sarah, you talk about this. The power of the plan isn't to have a perfect plan, but it's to create alignment with the team. And it could

even be messy, but still create that alignment. Oh my gosh. Yes. Let me just relieve you of some pressure right now. I think all of us leaders want to know the most perfect plan. And the reality is, in hindsight, we'll know what we could have done better. But the best thing you can do right now is to be decisive, create alignment around this plan right here. It's not going to be perfect. You're going to change it as you learn more. And that's okay. You have to make decisions and you have to be decisive and you have to communicate that to your team in that way. Yeah, that's absolutely right. So just remember, you can focus on things that you can control. You can make objective decisions. That's going to help you beat the odds of weathering this storm.

Don't overreact. Don't underreact. Be relevant. Show up for your team. Make sure that your inputs are positive and truth. Put them on a paper, put them on a plan, and then communicate the plan with the team and do that over and over and over right now. Hey, by the way, we're talking about this idea of a faced plan. Well, our team actually has a template that's downloadable for you guys right now. Click in the show notes. There's a link. If you want to get kind of a template to go, what are you talking about?

What do you mean a face plan? It's not that sophisticated, but it's a little exercise sheet. If you want to print it off and give you something to kind of start writing out on this point in time, I'm going to make these decisions and then next and next. So be sure to download that. It's a free resource. Hopefully that helps you out when you're writing your plan on paper. And listen, we hear you.

I know it's really hard out there for. some of you guys. Some of you guys are winning and doing great. Some of you guys are really hurting and having to make really difficult decisions. And we feel that. And that is really not a fun place to be. But I do want you to know you have what it takes as a leader to make the right decisions. Hold on to your faith. Hold on to your entrepreneur spirit. As we said in our last episode, what business owners are in their nature is they are problem solvers. And you've got these problems that you're dealing with. But don't forget who you are. You know how to solve problems. you're going to figure it out short term.

It may really suck. It may be really, really difficult. And you might have to rebuild some things or rehire some team members later or go back and get some of your customers back once we get through all this stuff. But continue to have a vision to get through the storm and get to the other side and continue to drive for that vision every day. And if you need a little bit of encouragement, call our team. Because we're going to be doing everything we can to blow wind in your sales as you

push through to the other side. But we believe you can make it. We still believe in the entrepreneur. spirit in America and we're going to be continuing to fight to help all of these small business owners, especially you win and come out stronger on the other side.