Why Good Decisions Don't Always Lead to Good Results | Ep 10

You made the decision. You know what needs to happen. So why isn't it
happening? In this episode, Meagan opens a new series on momentum and
execution — the gap between deciding and doing. She explores why good
decisions stall after they're made, what the actual execution problem is, and how to
build the bridge between clarity and action.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hey everyone, welcome back to Amplify and Act. I'm Megan Van Wort. We've spent the last nine episodes talking about how to make better decisions. And today we start talking about something just as important. What happens after you decide? Because deciding and doing the thing you want to do are two very different things. So let's just jump right into it. Now you've made a decision and you know what needs to happen. So why isn't this happening? This is one of the most common, least talked about experiences in business. Now the assumption may be if I just decide that's enough clearly, um what I want to do, and the execution will just follow. I have an idea in my head around how I think I'm gonna go about this. And to be honest, some people don't actually even have the slightest clue on how to execute, and that's part of what today's about. But some have an assumption in their brain they know what they're gonna do, and they really don't know what they're gonna do. They've just made the decision. And the reality is that deciding and doing are completely different skills. Now we all know everyone's a different style business owner. We all have different levels of experience, and the reality is a really good one just to highlight because deciding what you're gonna do, maybe oh my god, it finally, I finally decided. Like I feel so good, I'm gonna move forward with this. And then actually taking action as a business owner, some business owners are really bad at. And you might be like, I am really bad at taking action, and that is so common. It is way more common than you think it is. And then some others may actually know how to take action. And I just want to highlight that it's totally different for everybody. And in this podcast, I'm gonna go through different ways of identifying like what are the reasons this is happening, and then an action plan on how to work through this. So let's talk about what's actually happening here when a good decision solves. When execution doesn't follow a decision, most people assume it's a motivation problem, that they didn't want it badly enough, or they got distracted, or they just need more discipline. And that's almost never what's going on. What's actually happening is a structural problem. And there are four specific ways that structure can break down. So let's talk through that together. The first reason is that the decision was clear, but the first action you're gonna take for the decision wasn't clear in your mind. So an owner decides to raise their prices. This is a clear decision, and they feel really good about it. And then nothing happens for six weeks. Not because they changed their mind, but the raise my prices just isn't an action. Maybe other things popped up in their business that distracted them. The first action is actually much smaller than you think. Take a moment to open a blank document and write down the new rate at the top of the page. Just that. Until you take the first step, the decision lives entirely in your head. Now, that first step, you can write down the rate, or you could write down more details on what additional actions you need to take. That is your choice. But you can do it. You see where we're going here. Another version for you to think about is an owner decides to stop talking on a certain type of client. Maybe it's a client who haggles, their scope creak, and they just drain your energy, and it's a solid decision just to stop taking on those types of clients. But two months later, they realize they've taken on two more. And why has this business owner done that? It's because the first action was never defined. It was write it down. Write down. It was write down three signals that tell you that this is a bad fit. And put them at the top of your intake form. Without structure, as simple as that, this decision has nowhere to land. There's no grounding or structure to it. Reason number two. So reason why you have not executed or taken action on your decision is that you did not communicate to anyone in the world outside of your partner or your friends that you have made this decision and you are energized by it. Zero action has been taken. An owner may have decided to restructure their entire service offerings in their mind. Maybe they're gonna be dropping two things and going deeper on one. And you've thought it through and through, but this lives entirely in their head. And we all do this, right? Like, let's have a real moment of that we all make these little micro decisions in our minds of like, I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do that, I'm going to prep my lunch this week, I'm going to make that kale and banana smoothie, which is also very good. And you have these ideas on decisions, but do you actually do the things that you want to do? Isn't that interesting to think about? Another uh reflection of this example is that if you haven't updated your service offerings, that maybe your team is still quoting old services, right? Uh maybe the website still lists everything as before. And this prospect asks about a dropped service and an assistant books it, a discovery call. Now, because this existing service offering still lives on your website, you haven't communicated the updated service offering on your website in your marketing, you have a prospect that reaches out to you about this service that you're supposedly dropping, and maybe you decide to proceed with it, or maybe you have an assistant and they book a discovery call for it. You made the decision, but it never became a plan for anyone else that could see or act on it that you were gonna be making a change. It's a really good one, and it happens to all of us. Another version of this may be the owner decides to stop being available after 5 p.m. Oh, I love this. We all love time management, right? It's really fun, and that's completely reasonable. We all have different lives, but they never told their team and never updated their auto reply, and maybe they never changed their calendar. So the 6 p.m. phone is still going off, and maybe you're still answering because the decision was never communicated, not even the to the systems around them. So a decision that lives only in your head is a private intention, but not a business direction. So you can see there when you make a decision and you don't communicate or execute on that. Now, the third reason why this is happening is that there's no accountability structure. And this is so hard. If you do not hold yourself or hold your team or hold your the workings of your business accountable to implement such change, nobody knows it's gonna happen. So maybe an owner has been putting off a hard conversation with an underperforming team member. Maybe it's been going on for four months and they finally decide, they really decide on a Tuesday to have this conversation. Wednesday comes, Thursday, and that's next week. Maybe it's the following Tuesday. Nothing has happened. It's not because they forgot to schedule this important conversation, it's because no one else knew around them for you to be reminded to do the thing, right? To hold you accountable for doing the thing. There was no date, there was no consequences for waiting one more week. And that is something that delays a decision from happening and taking action, lack of accountability. Now, similar example. Let's take the same owner and the same decision about having a hard conversation, but maybe on Wednesday they they tell their business partner that I'm having a conversation with Jamie by Friday. Maybe Friday arrives and the partner asks how well the conversation went with Jamie. The conversation happens, same decision, completely different outcome. The only thing that changed was that someone else knew. So an offer is another version of you have a plan to launch a new promotion, and you're not putting the actual operational steps in place to make it happen. So you may be thinking of how you have made a decision in your head, and you're you're telling yourself, I have not held myself accountable to making this happen. And I was having a conversation with a business owner around using their own website, a custom design site, versus using an Etsy site. But there's work that needs to go into managing and creating a new website for a lot of content marketing and benefits, and we talked through those details. But there's accountability on the business owner's end to think through well, what do I need to do to manage and maintain this? I want to do this. I've made the decision of switching platforms, but what do I actually need to do? And we've actually discussed a strategy on how to do that, but they haven't committed to making a timeline to doing the work to make it happen. Isn't that interesting? So think about where that may fall. Now here's the bridge between deciding and doing. Are you are you all ready for this? Step one is define the action first. And if you want to grab a pen and paper, feel free to do that. Otherwise, you can just listen and formulate this workflow in your mind. Step one, define an action first. Not the goal, not the physical first step, just small enough, something to start today. It could be getting a pen and paper and writing down at the top of the page. It may be just journaling or writing out what this means for you. Like what are the next steps maybe in your mind that you need to take? They don't have to be right, but you are putting attention and thought to what could be next. That is a really easy thing you can do. It doesn't even need to make sense, right? Step two, put a date on it. Decisions without dates are wishes. So pick a specific day about the doing. And then step three, I want you to tell someone, even one person, the act of saying it out loud changes the structure entirely. It could be a best friend, it could be a coworker, it could be a virtual assistant, it could be your partner. Say, remind me, and don't let me forget to take action on this decision that I've made and hold me accountable. If you can have someone hold you accountable, they are gonna put that fire under you and check in with you. You could even be more deliberate versus just a date. You could say, uh, you know, for yourself, I'm I am going to start this work on Monday, and I'm gonna make progress by the end of day Friday that following week. And I'm gonna tell my friend to text me on whatever, June 20th, Friday morning, Friday at four o'clock, hold me accountable. Hey, Megan, how much progress did you make this week on that decision? And then you know that person's gonna reach out to you because you've alerted them. So if you wanted to do that, you could. I'm being funny, but it's actually a really fun thing to do and very effective. Now let's get into the the real details of this action plan. What I've learned from working with established business owners is that clarity is not the bottleneck. As often as people think, most stock owners have clarity. They lack structure and accountability. And the hardest thing to admit is that you might need someone else to hold you to do the thing you said to do, right? We just talked about that. And it's not a weakness, and that's actually how high performers work. They build an external accountability network because the internal motivation isn't always enough. You also may be distracted, you may have your hands full, you may be juggling new things and working on existing and building new, and there's a lot of decisions you're making, but this decision sitting in front of you is the most important. This is something you have committed to doing. You gotta have a plan in place, you gotta hold accountability for yourself to take action, even in small increments, is better than nothing. Isn't that powerful? No, I want you to take action. Now, I'm here to support you. And each of these podcasts are these tips and tricks for you to align these small actions and reflection points to move your business forward. I am here for you in that regard. So let's talk about what actions you can take to take the decision in front of you and figure out how you're gonna do it. Think about a decision you've already made in your mind that you have not executed on. And if you haven't made a decision, I encourage you to check out the Lead Domino podcast. It will help you identify which decision is top of mind for you. But take that decision and define the first action. It's not a goal, it's not a physical first step, but I want you to write down the first action you need to do to move this in the right direction. And I want you to include a date. Then I want you to tell one person what you're gonna do and by when. And you may be thinking of one or two people. You decide, just choose one. I want you to keep it really simple for yourself. Start with that. You've officially taken your decision and you are making progress, one action at a time. Now, another really cool thing to think about that you can do in following steps if you want to use the lead domino method of writing down all of the actions you want to take, maybe you don't know what action you need to take first, and this is very common, is you can write down all the actions you think you need to take, and then you can use the lead domino model of urgency and impact. I need to create a uh, I need to update the website. What is the impact of updating the website? Rate it one to ten. What is the urgency of updating the website? Well, updating the website's probably a big thing. So I would say the impact and the urgency are pretty high up there, you know? Think about doing I need to do a paid search campaign for my decision, right? Say you're updating your service model. Is the impact as high as updating your website? Probably not, right? So if you think about using the lead domino examples and work through to identify which actions are most relevant and why, you can use that as well. So lead domino is very effective, and you can use it in a lot of different ways. So I hope that's helpful for you. But I hope you enjoyed uh today's episode. I really enjoyed being here for you and getting you to think outside the box. And I hope you feel energized knowing that you can take the actions that you need to with a little bit of energy. I will always be here to motivate you and support you along the way. And until next time, I encourage you to continue to amplify your thinking and act on it. Next week, we're talking about accountability gap and why you keep stalling even after you decide when you have every single intention to follow through on it. It's gonna be a good one. I'll see you all then. Take care.