By Clark Twiddy
President, Twiddy & Company
Good decisions guide us to achievement, and bad decisions, when done with self-awareness and self-reflection, guide us to improvement.
If there is one thing we’ve all learned from the pandemic, it’s that in our business lives no matter our planning we’ll still always have to react to the unexpected. For many of us, making those rapid-fire decisions in the face of the unknown means we are bound to make mistakes--imagine, just for a moment, all the things we might do differently if we can have last year as a do-over.
Leadership guide John Maxwell has a thought on this; in effect, his thought is that the “bad stuff” around our mistakes guides us to strong learning both in our lives and in our businesses. Good decisions, in his words, guide us to achievement, and bad decisions, when done with self-awareness and self-reflection, guide us to improvement. Ask any experienced business leader--they will most likely tell you many of their most precious business lessons came not from success but from failure.
So, the next time you’re beating yourself up over a bad decision in the face of the unknown, resist the temptation to hope for a do-over--in fact, what you learned from the bad decision might very well lead you to a better decision in the future.
