Deciding to Make Tough Calls: Leading Well When Stakes are High with Matthew Confer | REPLAY Ep.170

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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Thank you to Shelby Peterson of Transcend Media for editingand post-production of the Decidedly podcast.

 

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CONNECT WITH MATT CONFER

Website: ⁠https://www.abilitie.com/matthew-confer/⁠

LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/i