Do you know how to discern your best yeses and say no to the rest?

As a leader, you cast the vision, pace, and direction for the organization. You make a thousand decisions every hour and decision fatigue is real. Each decision you make has implications beyond the initial yes or no.

I often refer to them as threads. Have you ever had a string on a shirt that starts really small and you think you can just casually wrap your finger around it and pull to break the thread and get it over with quickly? Did it happen that way or did the thread continue to spin out of control and potentially break a few other threads that busted loose in the process? Leading a company or operation can feel a lot like that. What seems like a simple thread to manage soon unravels a slew of other decisions and projects. Before you know it, you’re sitting in a tangled mess wondering how best to get out of the predicament.

Does this sound familiar?

If so, I’ve been in your shoes. When I first began leading an operation, my m.o. was to say yes to everything and figure it out later. I didn’t want to miss out on a great opportunity, a future partnership, or a way to generate revenue. What I didn’t realize until six months later was that I had significantly overcommitted. My team was exhausted and distracted. I had pulled them away from projects that would move the needle forward in our organization because I had said yes to lesser things. I was overwhelmed because I suddenly couldn’t honor my word to everyone, and that wrecked me mentally and emotionally.

I knew this couldn’t continue, so I created a guide to help me discern if something was worth my yes or if I needed to say no to it. I showed my team my decision-making tool as I asked for their forgiveness for putting us in that situation and to my surprise, they asked for access to it too. It became a tool we all referenced when we were unsure if a decision was our best yes or not.

This matrix paired with an operational board that showed us our month-over-month priorities helped us synch our best yeses and prioritize projects each month. Not only did it help streamline our operations, but it also created more efficiency and effectiveness in what we did say yes to.

I’m now sharing this Discerning Your Best Yeses guide with you, for free. If you need help taking your operations to the next level, let’s connect! Leading doesn’t have to be so stressful, there is a better way.