A short first-person video by Chad Silverstein reflecting on leadership and decision-making. He discusses the emotional difficulty leaders face when decisions negatively impact others, contrasts different leader motivations (purpose vs. profit), and describes a team practice called the Experience Transformer (from Strategic Coach) used to capture mistakes, share learnings, and reduce repeat errors. The clip ends with an invitation for viewers to consider the bets and decisions they are making (Day 307 sign-off).
Chapters
Yeah. Being a leader, you're making decisions often, and a lot of times they can have ripples that, you know, go through other people's lives. And even though you may be making the best decision for what you believe is the most important thing, that may not be so good for other people. And so having to make those decisions, you know, can be very painful, and they can be hard. And a lot of times, as a leader, you're making decisions where no matter which decision you make, it's gonna impact someone negatively. And, you know, no one wants to hurt other people. And you could say business is business, but, you know, I guess that comes back to your core and what you believe and why you believe it. And so I think that says a lot about the leader. And, you know, not to say anyone's right or wrong, but there's definitely a stark difference between, you know, one person's belief and another who make decisions based on their priorities or purpose or profit or whatever it is that is their motivator. And if you're leading anything, you're making lots of decisions. So I think it's important to make sure that you learn from your mistakes. That's the best advice I can give any leader that is growing their company, is that you don't want to have mistakes that you repeat. And I think that was a discipline of mine that I built into my, you know, my way of working with my team. We used to have something called the Experience Transformer. I got it from the Strategic Coach program, where we would write down on a worksheet what happened, what we learned, what we would want to happen, you know, next time, you know, and then we share it. And so when, you know, we were making mistakes, we were multiplying the learning by letting other people in, being transparent about it. People. People really felt trusted, and they felt like, you know, they were part of the team. And we eliminated a lot of mistakes that could have potentially hurt our company. We were in a very regulated industry, so it was important for us. So think about it for yourself. What bets are you making? How many decisions are you making? How are you making them? And are you transparent? It's a loaded day. 307. See you tomorrow.
