Blog Cover Image 1

When you have to make tough decisions

Posted by Carole Mahoney on 12/7/22 7:45 AM

tough decisions

When making tough decisions, do you consider the laws of social influence? For instance, the group's actions and attitudes of the whole become that of the individual. We rise to the lowest level of the people we surround ourselves with.

We almost have a responsibility to protect our team and ensure that we're keeping a level and standard of excellence in our teams where we support each other to be better than we were before.

You also have to think about the impact on the individual.


I know the last time I got fired was before I started my business.

And it was the best and worst day of my life.

It was the worst day because I got fired. How am I going to feed my family? We were in the middle of a recession. I have two mortgages.

But then, if I hadn't gotten fired, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing today. I wouldn't have taken the steps and risks to start my own business.

I think it was a blessing that I got fired that day. And that's precisely how the team member you have who isn't exactly performing, working out, and seems miserable, doesn't even realize yet.


Sometimes we have to make those tough decisions; it’s not just for the good of the whole, but for the good of the individual as well.


 And that's how it works in our personal lives as well. When there's someone you genuinely care about, sometimes the most challenging thing is to let them fail so that they can learn how to pick themselves back up again because you're not always going to be there to be able to save and rescue them.

The other thing about tough decisions:

How do we know if we're making the right ones? How do we know that it's not just our own biases that are feeding into these decisions?

That's why using science and data in sales is crucial. Psychology helps us to understand not only how others think but also how we think.

And when we can confront and address our biases and use data to help focus our decisions, not necessarily make them for us because we need the context. Then we're doing a service to our team and ourselves in making our decisions and making them fast.

So as we are at the end of this year and pondering the tough decisions we must make, how are you confronting your biases?

And are you looking out for the whole team or the individual or the number on the spreadsheet?


Attention Buyers:

I want to hear about your best experiences and your worst experiences. Let's see what our sales community can learn from those experiences.

So message me if you'd like to be a guest on the next buyer first, ask me anything where we can talk about that, and help to make sales better.

Follow me on LinkedIn as well!


Create the Kickoffs that count

Bring your team together with kickoffs to inspire and empower and set your team up for success in 2023 with instructional design best practices and a professionally trained speaker!

Contact Carole Mahoney today!

more information

Topics: sales leadership, sales hiring