We all know about the recent Qantas debacle, where Alan Joyce famously initiated the grounding of all Qantas planes worldwide affecting almost 100,000 passenger’s travel plans. Whilst this has been a topic of discussion and the press having field day publishing all the updates of this crises, I have yet to read an article that looks at the situation from perhaps a business perspective.

Given that Alan Joyce was faced with potentially crippling stikes that would affect the company, he had a choice of either going along with it or taking action that would put it to a halt. The decision that he made may not have been the best interest of all the people affected, but it may be in the best interest of Qantas strategically in the long term. Had he not acted, he would have been faced with the continued strike action that may have affected the airline right into the holiday season and beyond, thus potentially affecting the plans of thousands of business and holiday travellers, making Australia a less desirable place to visit.

Lesson To Learn

So what can we as a business learn from this event? That there are times in a business where decisions have to be made, where there will be unpleasant consequences to a decision made. Business Owners have the unenviable task of being the leader and at times will have to make decisions that may prove painful to a few, for the greater good for the business. Alan Joyce had to make a choice. By doing nothing about it, that is a decision in itself. In such a situation, doing nothing may seem like the easiest thing to do, but would result in a prolonged and protracted disruption to the company with a high level of unpredictability. In this case, doing nothing may bring more harm in the future than good. Alan has proven that he can make a decision that he believes is in the best interest of Qantas, while many of us may like to think otherwise. Whether he makes the right decision is another matter which will play out in time.

Are you faced with a situation that you know you need to make a decision which may not be pleasant? How do you make the right decision? How do you know its the right one? Follow what one of the most famous (or infamous right at this time) CEOs did before he made his decision:

1. Get the facts of the situation.

2. Plan for all contingencies.

3. Know what needs to be done in order to achieve your desired outcome.

4. Then make the decision.

If you do all the above in order, when you look back on the day you made that decision (on hind sight), you know that you could not have made a better informed decision.