Upon becoming a head coach for the first time, I was immediately inundated with decisions to be made. It felt like a fire hose of constant choices and questions landing on my desk, waiting for my action and answers.

Quickly, I was overwhelmed and felt underprepared. When I work with other first-year leaders, many of them feel the same. While time and experience assisted in handling the many choices of leadership, I still desired to have a system that would help in dealing with making consistent and quality decisions.

That's when I stumbled across the Eisenhower Decision Matrix. This process was what Dwight "Ike" Eisenhower used as a military general and ultimately as President of the United States. President Ike broke decisions down into four components and ultimately four action steps based on the category the decision fell into.

The four categories are:

He then came up with four action steps based on the category:

When we first take over in a new role or responsibility, it seems that every decision is important and urgent, however, that is simply not the case. By filtering these decisions, we are able to:

First, identify what should be removed completely. what we can transfer to someone who either needs the experience, or is better equipped to handle that specific issue. Also, we give ourself permission to take time and think about an issue, and finally, we recognize that there is a choice we must make and we are encouraged to attack that decision with urgency.

My own personal experience is that a lot of decisions can be removed completely.

For many other decisions, there are people around me can benefit from having the opportunity to make those decisions. I've also found that to be incredibly empowering for young professionals, and it is a great training ground for handling more complex and significant issues down the road.

I've also discovered that the vast majority of meaningful decisions are important, but not necessarily urgent, and we can have our most significant impact by focusing on that category.

Finally, when important and urgent decisions come to your desk, it is okay to close the door, stop all other distractions and focus on making the best decision you can with the information you have available.

As you lead your teams and organizations this week, I encourage you to filter your decisions in an intentional manner. You'll save time, preserve energy, grow other leaders and make an impact by making quality decisions.

Strive for Excellence!

Robbie

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