How Decision-Making Helps Determine Reputation Strength
Decision character + decision quality + consistency = reputation quality.
When you find scandal and crisis, the big reveal is the weakness of character negatively affecting decisions. Often, it’s not an isolated incident. Thus, the damaged and poor reputation emerges, becomes inflamed and painful.
That’s why it’s imperative to learn, understand, implement and practice the above equation in our lives, professionally and personally and when tempted to do something that goes off the rails, remember it.
It doesn’t take long to make a mistake or error, take a shocking hit, sometimes for a long while and suffer for it.
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently,” Warren Buffet has said.
He’s right, as history has proven and as most people have learned the hard way themselves. It’s common to be remembered most for moments and decisions that were not our best selves and did not reflect who we are the vast majority of the time. It feels unfair. That doesn’t change how people view our decisions and us however.
While we’re all capable of making smarter, better, quality decisions we might not be always be able to make the best decision, the critical one, by ourselves.
Nor should we commit, recklessly, to the idea of self sufficiency in such instances.
To conduct helpful risk management requires self-awareness, humility and looking outside of ourselves to someone credible for valuable or invaluable insight, clarity, wisdom, protection and assistance.
“If you don’t have the information you need to make wise choices, find someone who does,” Lori Hil (correct spelling) has written in 5 Gifts to Give Yourself.
This can be difficult at times or maybe always, depending on our personality and mindset because we assume, incorrectly, that we have the knowledge to make specific decisions. The reality might be that we shouldn’t be making particular decisions solo. When we do, we allow our ego to overwhelm intelligence, humility and what we end up doing.
Are we blind to our character and quality of decision-making? Maybe. In the case of scandals, personal or professional, definitely. Yet those people, I surmise, didn’t question their character of decision-making or the quality of them either.
This is why it’s vitally important to tame ego, stimulate curiosity and humility and benefit from the power of our mind and that of other, trusted people. If we do such, that will lead to more “wins” and less risk and consequences to reputation and our well-being.
With improvement in decision-making and consistency comes trust, credibility and greater, more powerful influence. It will be less necessary to use skills of persuasion yet when that is required, there will be an increased ability to do such, successfully.
Michael Toebe writes Red Diamonds Essays, the Red Diamonds Newsletter and Red Diamonds Features, all on Medium. He is a specialist for reputation, professional relationships communication and wiser crisis management. You can connect or contact him on LinkedIn.
