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Making tough business decisions

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Over the past two years I have been offering business advisory to some of my friends who own small businesses and lately some clients who read my articles on the blogs. Three weeks ago, this friend who owns a small manufacturing firm that falls under Micro and Small Enterprise (MSE) calls me, and wants to meet me immediately.

The firm had not been doing very well, they had tried reinventing their products but it still didn’t work; tried venturing into new markets and it didn’t still meet their expectations. So at the end, he settled on downsizing and wanted some of his partners and co-founders to leave. Now that wasn’t really an easy decision and he needed my counsel.

Decision making can be tough, really tough. In some instances we are faced with really tough situations at work or even in life that require us to make decisions. So how do you tackle such problems and how do you work with people to solve these particular situations. These are the kind of problems described as Gray Hair Problems.

Gray hair problems are those  situations you are faced with but you miss a lot of important facts. Unlike management which is all about thinking of the future yet the future is unknown, Gray hair problems come with things that you really want to know yet you do not know; you are never really sure about what the problem really is, you don’t know where the problem really is or what it really is. You are never sure whether the problem lies in Strategy, Finance, Marketing or even Administration.

Within a gray hair problem are missing facts, you don’t know where to frame it and you get these mixed feelings but as a decision maker you have to make a decision anyway; you are sure you don’t know what to do but the problem is really great.

When such situations come, you need to identify the problem, get to know the consequences of the actions that we may take, look at all the options available, check out how it will affect you and the organization or family and get to know all those who will be affected. After getting all the available options, get the consequence, get to know who are the winners and losers, as in who will benefit, who will gain, who will suffer and you look at it broadly and objectively.

In making a decision when faced with such situations you also need to look at the basic human duties that you need to meet as an individual and what the society expects of you. In this angle you will realize that some options are definitely out as they violate the basic human duties. 

In the elimination process you will also get to know what works in the current world especially given the turbulent times, the uncertainty and the ever fluid political environment. Such a decision therefore must be resilient and at the same time should not negatively affect those that depend on you. You need to at this stage put some creativity and give allowance for risk taking.

Also key for decision making in such situations are the values, and I am not talking about the values that organizations have put on their websites and nicely printed for each offices!  The very values that people around you, people you care about also care for, those particular things that make the people in the organization stay late at night for.

The last question you need to ask yourself as someone with responsibility of making these decisions is whether you can really live with the decision you are about to make? This basically lies on your judgement, can you live and account for it? Work through it first as a leader or a manager, get the best information you can, the best data you can possibly find, talk to experts and anyone you know with experience. Get all the concerns and analysis on the table and work through the problem as a manager but resolve it as a normal human being.

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GODFREY ETTAH
GODFREY ETTAHhttp://www.businesstoday.co.ke
Godfrey Ettah is a Management Consultant based in Nairobi. Twitter: @EGtwits Email: [email protected]
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