The speed of business can be lightening fast. You cannot always afford to take all the time you want to make the decisions you must make. Sometimes you have to take the info you have on hand and make a call – for good or bad – and move on.
There are times, however, when you are better off delaying plans a bit (if you must) in order to make the right decision. Today was one such occasion.
Our team received an email mid-afternoon from an agency we work with frequently. It was regarding artistic designs and text copy needing our approval for a social media campaign our department is planning. The email indicated that final approval of the copy was needed by the end of business today – only a couple of hours following the receipt of the email.
As we looked over the copy and discussed it, we all had several questions and were definitely not ready to give approval. We made the decision to set aside some time tomorrow morning to get together and discuss it in order to make the best decision. This may or may not mean the dates of the original campaign will have to be moved back a bit, but that’s OK. We know that it is far more important to do this well than to do it quickly.
That is a lesson I have seen businesses fail to learn way too often, perennially going for the quick decisions to push things out the door rather than the right decisions to do quality work the first time. I’m confident we’ll feel a lot better about our decision after tomorrow’s meeting than any of us would have under an unexpected rush today. In this case, 24 hours and pondering the decision overnight will boost our confidence and better guarantee success of the campaign.
Leap year lesson #268 is Don’t rush into the wrong decision.
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