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Getting Fired For Being Smart And Indecisive
By Tim Gross - Internet Business Blog | February 12, 2008
A couple months ago I did a favor for a close associate of mine by taking a phone call from a woman who had recently been hired as the new head of marketing for a division in his company.
I reviewed their current website with her while we were on the phone, and she emailed me a mockup version of changes/improvements she was getting ready to propose, and I thought they looked very good.
Besides giving her a few specific pointers, I mostly was just very encouraging to her and told her I was impressed with her ideas, told her she was headed in the right direction, and wished her well.
She struck me as smart and capable, and I assumed her plans had been implemented by now.
Long story short… I just spoke to my friend yesterday, and he’d fired her. (!)
It turned out that while she was smart, she was also frozen with indecision.
“Analysis Paralysis”
She’d never presented the mockups she’d showed me, because she kept working up more and more alternatives.
It came to a head when she was supposed to review some food choices for a catered lunch meeting, and instead of making the decision of the 3 types of meals to serve as she was told to do, she came back with a dozen pages of food options.
She Literally Couldn’t Make Decisions
Oops. At the risk of sounding like a broken record…
Plans are only good when they turn into something more than plans. You don’t have to be perfect. You just have to do something.
Topics: Marketing, Oops (Bad Move) | Trackback URL