Everything Is A Trade-Off

Posted on May 15, 2010 | 3 comments

Looking at a business as ‘black or white’ is a common problem.  The decisions that you make never produce guaranteed results.  If such certainty existed on a regular basis than all businesses would thrive.  Being in business means seeking optimization over absolute.  The top business owners and leaders of industry understand this difference.

As a business owner or leader, a continuous stream of decisions is forced upon you throughout your day.  Big decisions and little ones present themselves.  The threat and associated worry of making the right decision or a wrong one will place unnecessary stress upon you (and burn you out over time).

Your challenge is to begin to view business and your role within it as a single component that makes the entire system work.  Whether you are a business owner, an executive, hourly worker, or contractor, you play a vital role in optimizing the performance of the business system.

Each component within a system is required.  Try to take away a tire from the car or truck that you drive.  How about pulling a wire out of the wall of your home and then trying to turn on your kitchen light.  How about this pool that I’m staring at right now?  Take away the salt tablets that were just dropped into the filter and all of a sudden the pool system will function at less than optimal capacity.

What few people realize is that everything in business is a trade-off.   This means that your decisions are mired in complexity.  People, decisions, actions, clients, customers, and other outside influences represent only a handful of the things that affect how your business performs.  Thinking that you have control over each of these items is ludicrous.

Rather than viewing business decisions as a 0 or a 1, right or wrong, or black or white…remember that everything is a trade-off.  Your role is to do the best that you can to optimize the overall business system with your actions, attitude, and decisions.

I challenge you to change your mindset and adapt this way of thinking.  When you think in terms of trade-offs rather than in absolute, you may find a more happy and stress-free you.  And so it is with life (but this is for a topic on another day).