Ep.170 I Deciding to Make Tough Calls: Leading Well When Stakes are High with Matthew Confer
Are your business decisions driven by instinct, or by strategy? How often do you actually stop to tell the difference?
Matthew Confer, the mind behind decision-making simulations used by leading companies, reveals why your gut might betray you, what most leaders get wrong under pressure, and how to sharpen your instincts for critical decisions.
KEY TOPICS
- The bold move leaders can make to avoid catastrophic mistakes before they happen.
- Why seeking consensus isn’t the best leadership strategy—and what to do instead.
- The real reason confident leaders fail under pressure.
- How keeping receipts on decisions can save your team from chaos.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Intro: Defeating Bad Decision-Making in Life and Business
00:49 Changing Wedding Language: Patriarchy or Progress?
03:06 Can Simulations Make You a Better Leader?
05:32 The Dangerous Default in Team Decisions
06:50 Why Consensus Isn’t Always King
08:01 How Leaders Sabotage Innovation Without Realizing It
10:21 What Really Drives Your Team?
12:40 Adapting Management Styles: The Secret to Better Teams
15:05 Leadership Practice Without the Real-World Risk
17:26 Breaking Through Superficial Motivations
19:30 The Challenge of Scaling a Small Company Culture
21:54 Why Diverse Motivations Strengthen Teams
24:14 Spotting Failure Before It Happens
26:36 The Viral Social Media Campaign Dilemma
29:00 The Cobra Problem: When Solutions Make Things Worse
31:16 The $5 Challenge That Changed Business Strategy
33:33 The Power of Writing Down Decisions
35:53 How Poor Note-Taking Derails Teams
38:32 How Stress Wrecks Decision-Making—And How to Stop It
40:51 Why Your Most Disagreeable Employee Makes the Hard Calls
43:07 Why Failure Is the Best Leadership Teacher
45:32 Building Leadership Confidence in Safe Environments
47:51 When Bravado Backfires in Decision-Making
50:08 Are You Missing Critical Team Feedback?
52:32 What MBA Simulations Reveal About Leadership Gaps
54:51 The Secret Ingredient to Engaging Training Programs
56:53 Matthew Confer’s Decision-Making Tip for Business Owners
58:20 Key Takeaways
59:45 Message from the Producer
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SHAWN’S BOOK: Plateau Jumping: What to Change When Change Is What You Want
MAKING A FINANCIAL DECISION?
At Decidedly Wealth Management, we focus on decision-making as the foundational element of success, in our effort to empower families to purposefully apply their wealth to fulfill their values and build a thriving legacy.
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CONNECT WITH MATT CONFER
Website: https://www.abilitie.com/matthew-confer/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewconfer/
Learn To Lead Podcast: https://www.abilitie.com/learn-to-lead-podcast/
Matt Confer is the VP of Strategy at Abilitie, a Leadership Development company based in Austin, Texas that provides immersive business simulations to a global client base that includes over 50 members of the Fortune 500. Abilitie’s leadership programs have been delivered to over 100,000 professionals in more than 30 countries around the world. Matthew has spoken on the topic of decision making at the TEDx Conference with a talk entitled "Before You Decide" that has been viewed over 500,000 times on the TED website. Matthew also hosts the Learn to Lead Podcast where he speaks with authors, professors, creatives, and business leaders about their leadership journey and how they are working to develop the leaders of tomorrow.