Choices

Life is about choices. Choices in our personal life – what to eat for breakfast, what color shoes to wear with this dress, or how to speak to a child about a challenge they are confronting. We have choices every day at work – what call to return next, how to tell that client no, or how to approach your boss on an issue. These are important but oftentimes relatively easy. We also have choices that affect many people that work for us and those we serve. During a session at the 2018 WCI conference Dave North, President and CEO, Sedgwick Claims Management Services discusses the decision-making process, why the right thing to do is sometimes easier said than done, and why our industry needs the courage to make the right choices.

The choices you make are harder the more you move up the ladder. The choices you make affect more people. Choosing to do the right then is sometimes premeditated and sometimes it is just plain reaction. It is possible to not make the right decision even though you know it’s the wrong decision and not realize how many people that wrong choice will affect in the short or long term. Demonstrate the characteristics you want your company to embody. Demonstrate to your peers that caring about other employees and injured workers does make a difference.

The tough choice with clients is to terminate the relationship. It may not always be about profit. This makes your realize it’s harder to terminate a working relationship than create a new business relationship. Doing the right thing as a leader is more impactful in a difficult situation than doing the right thing in a situation that everyone can handle.

Three final thoughts

Consequences – doesn’t mean you should have anxiety and apprehension. Making a choice is the exact same as not making a choice.

Own it – realize that how your brain works, regardless of your brain thinks one decision will affect others, maybe you didn’t have all the facts, maybe you didn’t realize how your choice would impact others or the future of your department but own it because you did make that decision.

Learn from them – acknowledge that every single choice or lack of choice is now a decision that belongs to you. The ones that matter are not the donut or the additional drink last night. Most of the choices you will be proud of some of them you will not but those are the ones to learn from.

An individual is who you are and the choices you make are you. People perceive you to be a certain person by the choices you make and the choices you do not make.