How To Make Decisions Like A CEO

Ever wonder how successful CEOs make quick, confident decisions? In this episode, we’re sharing the top decision-making strategies that set effective leaders apart. Learn how limiting your options can lead to faster choices and why building a strong, supportive team is crucial for business growth.

If you want to lead with clarity, purpose, and confidence, this episode is for you. Tune in to discover how you can start thinking and acting like a CEO today!

Mentioned this episode: 

• 1-3-1 Framework for creative problem solving

🏁 Connect With Us On Instagram!

• Not Nice Clever
• Candice Carcioppolo
• Kat Torre

📣 Amplify by Not Nice. Clever. is the ace up your sleeve. It's a hands on, workshop style delivery full of replicable frameworks, and actionable strategies that you team can put in place right away.

Find out more HERE.

🎙 Book Kat and Candice to speak at your next event, summit or workshop HERE

Transcript

Hi, I'm Kat, marketer turned brand storyteller. And I'm Candice, educator turned entrepreneur. And you're listening to Not Nice, Clever. As CEOs and leaders, it's your job to always have the answers. But sometimes you need a little help. Leverage, if you will. We get it. This is the place for you. So wherever you're listening, 530 AM club at the gym, on your way to your next meeting or putting out today's fire, let's get into it.

In today's episode of Not Nice Clever, we are talking about how to make decisions like a CEO, like the CEO that you are. You have to step into that role. And I've learned a ton about making decisions as a CEO by watching some of my favorite leaders and entrepreneurs in this space and my friend group. I've really been able to assemble a friend group that are a bunch of badass CEOs that I get to watch and

learn from all the time. so Kat and I thought it would be cool if we brought you some of the tips that we have learned along our journey and we are keeping it to just three. We promised ourselves to keep this short and sweet for you today. Yes. And as you just said, like assemble a team of CEOs or a friend group of CEOs. In my mind, I was like Avengers assemble, but we won't go down the marble rabbit hole. course it was. Tip number one.

probably the most important one, trust your instincts and your team. Often in that order, what we found in having conversations with our friends who are also building businesses and by building our own brands and businesses is that your first instinct more often than not is the right one. And by learning to trust yourself and trust your gut instinct, you are able to make quicker, more nimble decisions.

and not have those moments, right? When you would take a test when you were younger and you would go with the first answer and then you would go back at the end because you had extra time before the test time was up and you would scribble out the initial answers and then scribble in a new one. And then those were the questions that you got wrong on the final test, right? So like, we don't want that situation. So super important to trust your instincts and also your team.

Because Candice, let's share with the people, are we successful all by ourselves? Are we doing all the things all the time? Definitely not. We definitely do not do all that it requires to run our podcast even by ourselves. We have a full team of people who help to support us and position us in the way that we want to be seen.

And so if you are a solopreneur right now and you're listening to this and you're like, that's the dream. I wish I had a team of people to support me. and I were also in those spaces as well where we were solopreneurs doing everything. But we understood that to grow and scale and have the business and like the time freedom that we wanted, we did have to add people to our team.

Now there's a lot of lessons that we learned from adding people to our team and things that we maybe wish we would have done differently. But in hiring people to the team, we also were able to recognize what gaps we still had and ask better questions on that next hire, right? So we learned a lot in the process of hiring. So don't be afraid to hire people and also don't be afraid to let people go.

because you have your own vision for what you want to be true in your business. And you also likely have an idea of who needs to be on your team to support that vision and help you move forward. So if you assemble the right team, you absolutely should trust them and trust that they're able to execute on whatever it is that they're trying to execute on.

Trust is huge in being able to scale. It's probably one of those metrics that's not easily measurable, but that does make a difference in building a sustainable foundation upon which you can build. And this leads us next to our second tip that we want to share with you, because we see a lot of people really struggle to know what is the right decision, what's the best decision, what's the correct decision. And for us, what we have learned in making decisions like

a CEO does is that CEOs always have very clear, unequivocal, unapologetic priorities. They know what their vision is. They know what to focus on because when you know what to focus on, it becomes a lot easier to know what to say yes to and to know what to say no to and to not feel bad about it either, right? I feel like that kind of really clouds and like drags down making quick decisions.

Yeah, if you want to make quick decisions, you definitely have to remember where it is that you're trying to go because we've all gotten lost in shiny object syndrome at some point and that is still something that happens, right? someone says doing this, I should do that, even though it might not be aligned with where you're going or aligned with the plans that you have. And so I would say definitely have those clear priorities, write them down, put them in front of you.

And in addition to that, when you do feel like that shiny object syndrome is coming on, I would just make a list of things that you're also kind of interested in. So that way it exists somewhere and you can go back to it, but you're not acting on it in that moment. That's also a great thing to do when it comes to your team, because I know sometimes my team comes to me with ideas and I want them to know that I value their ideas and I'm glad that they're thinking about

ways to do things differently, but sometimes it's not aligned with exactly where I'm going at the moment. And so what I do is like, I'll keep a running spreadsheet of things that they've mentioned to me. So they know that I hear them, I see them, and they also know that when it's time, I can go back to that and be like, you know what, remember you brought this up last month? Actually, now's the time where you brought this up last year even.

Like I think now is the time this was a good idea and I want to act on it and not act like it was my idea, acknowledge them. So that has really helped me to build communication with my team as well. So I can still make the decision that makes sense right now in this moment, but I can hold onto that idea for a future decision. It's so funny that you do that because this is the first time guys, think that Candice,

specifically shared that you do that with your team. Maybe we've talked about it in passing or in other conversations because we've had thousands of conversations at this point. But I do the same thing. I call it our kind of idea parking lot. Like great idea. Not great for right now. Who knows? It could be great in the future. Like that's the other thing too.

Just because an idea is not great in the moment doesn't mean that it can't just like go into a vault or go into the parking That's not a great idea. It's like literally could be a great idea. But right now with this, this and this that's happening. Right. doesn't make sense. not possible. doesn't make sense. Yeah. So parking lot, vault, scratch pad, spreadsheet, whatever it is, have a place so that you can still acknowledge and validate the creativity and support your team's giving you, but not derail.

the entire company because then that doesn't do anybody any good. Yeah. That's so important. Okay. Lastly, it's limit your options. So I learned this from, course, I'm not going to remember his name, but I heard this on a podcast not that long ago and I really liked it. What he said was when his team members would run into a problem, he'd have them send him a specific email in a specific format, say like, this is the problem. Here's the research I did.

With that being said, these are the three ways I'd like to solve it, or I'd propose that we solve it. And from these three ways, I like option two the best. So it's very specific formula. It's like problem, research, suggestions, which one the team member likes the best. Then from there, the CEO then says, okay, great. Like I trust you go with your instinct, let's do number two. And kind of takes the decision making.

away, but he's still being a swift decision maker because ultimately he's the one that's giving the green light. Yeah. But also he didn't have to do a lot of the backend work and he's demonstrated to his team that he trusts them to pick the right path. And every once in a while he says he'll pick something that is not their number one pick or offer an alternative. But since there are limited options, it really helps to make that decision quickly.

So I obviously took a page out of your book, Candice, and I Googled it while you were talking about it. And this is the 131 method that we heard about from Dan Martel, which by the way, we did a mini on this. So we'll put a link to that episode in the show notes because it's a great refresher. And if you're listening to this and you're not yet a CEO, you can start by embodying the idea of one by thinking and acting like one and by

looking at any problem that arises. Cause what I've found is that people will often get lost in the drama of a problem and they'll like want to pitch about it. They'll want to gossip about it. They'll want to just like, it's like, that's wasting time. Identify the problem, three solutions. What as you being an expert in identifying the problem in the first place, would you recommend and just move forward? Just remove the drama. That is so.

key to remove the drama. it's something that I've learned to do over the last few years. It's like, this thing that's happening is not a reflection of me as a human being. It's just a thing that's happening. And the best way that I can move this along is by just taking the next right step in this moment. And so if you are thinking like a CEO, CEOs are always just thinking about, yes, the big picture and where they're going.

And what's the next right step to get them to that big picture while removing the emotions of it. If you could do that, you're just going to be a happier CEO as well. Yes. Happier and more successful. That's real winning. That is the win. The Venn diagram of those two things. There you go. So we hope you've enjoyed this episode, this mini episode of Not Nice Clever. Before we wrap, we want to give a shout out to

our dear friend, Tim Reagan, who left an amazing review for us. He titled it, A Must Listen. He says, I love a good podcast. This one is flipping fantastic. You can also swear, Tim, you know the rules here at Not Nice Clever. These women share some amazing entrepreneurial nuggets all while having great energy. I feel like I'm in conversation with them as I listen. Great stuff and I highly recommend. Kudos to us, great show. Thank you, Tim. We appreciate your support.

You've been an early supporter, probably Clever Crew member number two, if not number one. So thank you, Tim, and we'll catch you on the next episode. Thanks for joining us on Not Nice, Clever. Remember to follow Not Nice, Clever wherever you listen to audio. And if you haven't already, drop that five star review. Share your takeaways. Tell us your story. We love to hear it. Signing off, you're not so nice, but so clever besties that mean business. See you soon.