While watching the football playoffs during the past few weeks, I could not help myself from turning inward and wondering how difficult it must have been for the Green Bay Packers management team to make the decision to trade Brett Favre.
It was obvious in observing Favre that there was still “tread on those tires”. Yet at the same time, Aaron Rodgers had a very nice year at quarterback as well. I do not pretend to know what would have been the ‘best’ decision for the organization to make. And I am sure the handling of Brett Favre will continue being a conversation topic for many years to come.
But where I ‘camped for a while’ watching the Saints-Vikings game was on the ability of the Packers’ organization to make a difficult decision and continue to move on. There was the need for drafting new players, holding the various mini-camps, bringing in new coaches and the preparing to play a new season of football.
The part I admired most in observing this all play out over the past two years was that once the decisions were made, the key leaders and players continued moving forward and were not immobilized by the external pressures and feedback of their peers or consumers.
Oftentimes in working with business owners, I see them ‘emotionally stuck’ when facing difficult decisions. This is especially true when it comes to employee decisions.
One of my favorite mantras is this: what we tolerate we have an inability to change.
How this plays out oftentimes in business is that we avoid making a difficult personnel decision because we are concerned about the employee or customer backlash that may occur with what appears to be an unpopular decision.
Let’s take a page out of the Packers’ playbook. Difficult decisions are a part of being a good manager and business owner. Sometimes we have more than one good option available to us. We have to make the choice about what is our best option given all the data surrounding us, make the decision, and then move forward boldly. We won’t know what awaits us until we move forward with our decision.
