You’ve made some good decisions, and you’ve made a few lousy ones. Welcome to the human race. But what can you learn from your personal history to improve the ratio of good to lousy?
You know the decisions I’m talking about. You needed to meet a goal or quota, so you did the wrong thing by the client. You thought the client and your boss wouldn’t notice. That didn’t work. You violated your value of always doing the right thing by the customer, and a bad result was your reward.
You had to get home early to meet with friends, so you didn’t double-check that project before sending it out to the client. You lost the deal because you didn’t uphold your value of quality work. Again, bad result.
You were in a pinch to fill a position, so you hired someone you knew just didn’t share your values. Twenty-four hours after the start time, you knew you had a problem.
In each of these cases, you made a decision that deep in your gut felt wrong before you even made it. That sick feeling was all you needed to know for certain that you blew it. And in the long run, you know it will catch up with you. And it’s not going to be pretty when it does.
Pay attention to that feeling, and do the right thing.