Too Many Choices

Business leaders can be gun-shy about making decisions – big and small, important and minute –when it comes to both their business and their brand.

The abundance of scenarios about the unknown can easily feel overwhelming. But effective leadership hinges on effective decision making. And it’s impossible to choose a direction when you’re trying to please everyone and do everything.

To Compete, You Have to Decide

At the end of the day, there’s no room or time for slow decision making in today’s competitive, fast-paced landscape. In fact, businesses and brands in every industry are struggling to become more agile and move fast enough to gain and maintain competitive edge.

And this kind of agility requires quick, streamlined, confident, decision making. Trying to make a decision with too many stakeholders involved will only stall your business from moving forward. This ‘hurry up and wait’ mentality can be crippling to how your business progresses.

So how do you create an environment that fosters quick, informed decision making?  

Because of the accelerated pace of business today, businesses need a strategy for decision making.  The most important thing is to make a decision and stick to it.

Being afraid to put a stake in the ground is only going to hold back your brand and create frustrated, confused costumers, employers, and investors. Bottle-necks are antithetical to brand growth. In the end, following through and rallying everyone around the direction you select is what matters most.

Don’t let perfection stand in the way. It doesn’t exist. There are always going to be alternatives to the biggest and smallest decisions you are tasked with making. But the most meaningful, and powerful choice is a direction you actually follow. And if you have a good team and a good product to back you up, you can build your brand and business in whatever direction you choose.

The best leaders are comfortable making decisions using established, agreed-upon practices and then align the subsequent brand and business paths accordingly.

That’s why a solid brand promise is key. With it as your North Star, everything from your brand’s position to its look and feel will have a clear path to guide your decision making. With your promise well articulated and shared, you are better positioned to empower employees to make their own decisions in line with the direction of the business.  Giving employees this power gets rid of the bottleneck that often accompanies the decision making process (or lack thereof!).

Flexibility and Focus

Effective decision making requires a balance of flexibility and focus – honing the prize, and leaving room to shift along the way, within degrees of reason. It is not possible to please everyone or predict exactly what the future will bring. So choose a direction and go with it. You can always readjust the brand. Being a smart, swift decision maker and empowering others within your organization to do the same can ready your business and brand for whatever lays ahead.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco brand strategy and design agency.