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Difficult and unpleasant decisions happen not just at work, but also in life. Breaking ties with a fair-weather friend.It’s hard to speak up, especially when you fear the consequences, but you know that channelling your inner whistleblower is precisely what is needed. It’s never easy to let someone go, but when you’re a manager and you’ve been dealing with poor performance for a while and there have been no signs of improvement, you absolutely know what the right decision to make is. Unpleasant decisions can be emotional rollercoasters but lack the intellectual rigour of difficult ones. On the other hand, difficult decisions call for Sherlock Holmes-level analysis, data-crunching and intense discussions before reaching a verdict. With unpleasant decisions, the right answer is crystal clear, but you need the courage to face the music and dance. You simply have to execute the decision and deal with the unpleasantness. You don’t have to spend time analysing data or having long discussions to agree on the best way forward. The main element that differentiates unpleasant decisions from difficult ones is that they don’t require the same amount of time or brain power, because you already know the right answer. He knows what the right answer is, but because these types of decisions trigger the same kind of stress as difficult decisions, they are easy to confuse. But they are not difficult or hard decisions to make. They might be unpleasant because they will cause someone else (and often himself) discomfort. These are decisions that can feel scary or anxiety-provoking. “I ask myself, ‘Is it hard?’ or, ‘Is it unpleasant?’”įor Libin, the vast majority of decisions are unpleasant decisions. “Whenever I think to myself, ‘That’s a really hard decision’, a little red flag goes off,” Libin says. Phil Libin, the co-founder and ex-chief executive of technology giant Evernote, discovered a nifty trick to tackle decision-making.Įxecutives need to distinguish between difficult and unpleasant decisions.
HARDEST DECISION TO MAKE FULL
Life is full of decisions: from the mundane, such as choosing between a pumpkin spice oat latte or a long macchiato with a dash of almond milk to the critical, such as taking a leap of faith in your career.
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