How to Cut The Tail Off of a Dog – Making Tough Decisions

Now before you all get mad at me I am not a supporter of any form of animal cruelty. In fact, as I write this post “Riley Rose” our almost 8 month old golden retriever puppy is under my desk having a grand old time with a chewy toy – so use my title as a story to help get a very important point across.

Some often delay making tough and important/critical decisions on a timely basis because we fear the outcome. So, to avoid this “perceived” result, we either make a series of small and less effective decisions or, we take no action hoping the matter will take care of itself. When we do this we actually do more harm because we are prolonging a bad situation and in many cases making it worse. This approach can be a fatal error for a business leader or business owner where success sometimes hangs in the balance of making tough decisions based on not-so-perfect information.

There was an old saying that my former boss would use when we faced an important and (usually tough) unpopular decision – “when you have to cut the tail off of a dog, you go right to the butt (he used the 3 letter version of the dog’s anatomy) and cut it off”. If you try to cut it off a piece at a time (little less effective decisions) all you are doing is making that dog angry (i.e. making the problem worse) and, every time he sees you coming at him with a scissor, he’s going to get angrier. One day that dog is going to strike back at a time when you least expect it.

So when you have a tough decision to make, understand the outcome you want to achieve and take deliberate and focused action. Get the decision behind you so you can focus on moving forward. It sometimes takes bold action to achieve bold results.

Here are some proven steps you can follow when a problem or chaos causes you to make a tough/important/unpopular decision

1. break the problem down into smaller pieces
2. determine the desired outcome
3. identify the obstacles
4. determine 1 to 3 optional choices
5. pick the best way forward
6. decide – and do it; don’t look back

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