Want to take on an intriguing personal challenge for the week?
What I am talking about is trying to embrace more Level 5 decisions this week.
In his book, “The End of Marketing as We Know It,” (affiliate link) Sergio Zyman, former Chief Marketing Officer at Coca-Cola, discussed the five levels of the decision making process he used relative to his team.
My boss, Greg Reid, read the book by Sergio Zyman and employed four of the five levels of decision making with our team:
Some co-workers found the five level decision making process difficult, but it proved very freeing since you knew ahead of time what type of input or approval you needed to keep an initiative going.
While there were very few Level 1 or Level 5 situations with Greg, I have tried over time to embrace more Level 5 decisions. The key has been not necessarily caring about things less, but caring intensely about fewer things. Now I try to focus on only being an influence on decisions involving what matters strategically.
If nothing else, experience has demonstrated on many occasions that even when a small thing does not go as I wanted, everything still works out and frequently works out in some other unexpected positive way.
I invite you to join me this week to see if there are decisions you used to make or try to shape that can be left to other people. Rather than being nerve racking, as I’d expected, embracing more Level 5 decisions has mainly provided a lot of peace, relief, and importantly, growth for those I work with as they get to exercise their own strategic decision making skills.
So, what do you think about this decision making process? Are you ready for more Level 5 decision making without your influence this week? – Mike Brown
The Brainzooming Group helps make smart organizations more successful by rapidly expanding their strategic options and creating innovative plans they can efficiently implement. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can deliver these benefits for you.
