Sink or Swim: Navigating Leadership Choices

Sink or Swim: Navigating Leadership Choices

What’s the hardest decision you’ve ever made? In Episode 23 of The C-Suite Chicks Podcast, Whitney and Ashlie bring their candid and insightful perspectives to the intricate process of decision-making, covering everything from personal choices to professional challenges. Whether you’re grappling with a high-stakes decision at work or figuring out how to navigate tricky relationships, this episode is packed with wisdom and relatable anecdotes that will inspire you to approach decisions with intention and courage.

The episode kicks off with a lighthearted discussion about holiday traditions. Whitney shares why she doesn’t travel for Thanksgiving and her dreams of making the holidays about experiences rather than gifts, while Ashlie reflects on the challenges of juggling family commitments and long-term travel plans. This segues into a deeper conversation about how values shape decision-making, particularly in leadership.

One of the key takeaways from this episode is the idea that complacency can often be the most damaging decision of all. Whitney and Ashlie emphasize that waiting too long to act—or avoiding a decision altogether—can lead to unforeseen consequences that might be harder to address later. They encourage listeners to embrace calculated risks, even when they feel unprepared, and to learn from the inevitable challenges that come with making tough calls.

The hosts also dive into the emotional complexities of decision-making, particularly in the workplace. Ashlie recounts the process of investing in a $250,000 piece of equipment for their business. While the decision felt like the right one, it came with unexpected hurdles, from upgrading infrastructure to working with external partners. The experience taught them the importance of involving the right people in the decision-making process and ensuring that all voices are heard.

Another powerful theme in the episode is the value of respectful disagreement. Whitney and Ashlie discuss how differing opinions—when communicated effectively—can lead to better outcomes. They share personal stories of times when they disagreed, and how those moments ultimately strengthened their decisions. Whether it’s defending your position or being open to changing your perspective, they emphasize the importance of balancing confidence with humility.

The conversation extends beyond leadership into personal growth, touching on topics like toxic relationships and how to make the hard choice to walk away for your own well-being. Ashlie shares practical tips on structuring chaos—whether it’s getting kids out the door for school or navigating a complicated project at work. Preparation, communication, and a clear sense of purpose, they argue, are the keys to tackling even the most daunting challenges.

Ultimately, Episode 23 is a thoughtful and engaging exploration of the decisions that shape our lives and careers. Whitney and Ashlie remind us that while making tough choices is never easy, it’s often the gateway to growth, learning, and unexpected rewards.

Whether you’re a business leader, a parent, or someone navigating life’s many twists and turns, this episode offers valuable insights into how to make thoughtful decisions and stay true to your values. Tune in for an honest, heartfelt discussion about the beauty and complexity of decision-making.

Have a story about a tough decision you’ve made? Share your experiences in the comments, leave a review, and don’t forget to share this episode with a friend!

Whitney Ramirez (00:01):

It's never a good thing to always just be like, my decision is the right one, and that's what we're going to do. I never think that is a good, healthy thing because you end up being so closed-minded and so you shut yourself off from what could be really good whenever you think My decision is the only right way. Are you going to Louisiana for the holidays this year?

Ashlie Marshall (00:37):

No, we're not. We don't normally travel on Thanksgiving. It's the most heavy, what is it? The number one holiday for travel, travel holiday, which is weird because America's the only country that celebrates Thanksgiving. But no, we're not traveling to Louisiana. My sister usually hosts Thanksgiving and we don't travel too much. We may in the future travel to Jamaica at Christmas time every other year. We were hoping that his parents were going to come this Christmas, but I'm not sure that they're going to be able to, it's not easy to just pick up and leave there. You have to plan, have somebody watch your house and do all the things, and it's a whole process. What about you?

Whitney Ramirez (01:33):

I never travel. I don't have family to go see or anything, so no traveling for me.

Ashlie Marshall (01:42):

But that's positive though, because it's crazy. Yeah, I'm not going to lie. I'm not looking forward to driving up to Tulsa that week. I feel like it's going to be a nightmare.

Whitney Ramirez (01:52):

I don't know if it'll be too bad, but I do think it is kind of a cool thing to travel for holidays. I think when Rome's older, we could do Christmas in New York or something. I love Christmas in New York, so

Ashlie Marshall (02:08):

We talked about that. When the kids are older instead of doing Christmas gifts, obviously they'll still get a couple things, but right now they're little, so it's like, oh, I want to a baby all bed or a kitchen or a bike. But then when they get older, be like, Hey, wouldn't you rather go skiing or whatever the experiences they want. Do you want to go to Europe and watch soccer game? I'm pretty sure Dom would pick that over anything. He would love that.

Whitney Ramirez (02:38):

Yes,

Ashlie Marshall (02:41):

If I could ever do that, man, it'll be a fantastic day when I'm able to do that for him, but

Whitney Ramirez (02:48):

Hopefully one day be a poor memory for him.

Ashlie Marshall (02:51):

Hopefully one day though, I'll be traveling to watch him play instead of take him to watch somebody else.

Whitney Ramirez (02:56):

He's going to be good.

Ashlie Marshall (02:58):

That's his dream, and as your parent, all you do is give him every resource you can possibly muster to help them reach that. I feel like that kind of speaks to what we do at the company too. You Oh, yeah. Pour yourself into every nook and cranny that you can so that all the people who your company is trying to support has everything that they need to have a fulfilling role and do their job and feel accomplished at the end of the day. I hope that's how our team feels at the end of the day.

(03:36):

So last time we kind of ventured down a road of, we started out talking about difficult decisions and then we kind of realized that it would be hard to categorize certain things as difficult or not. There's lots of gray, and then there's also lots of opinions on that. What you found as a difficult decision, I found I was me, so on and so forth. Once you've gotten through the decision making process, well, then there's repercussions of those decisions. Some are positive, some are not so positive. Some are downright awful, and it's a difficult fact of life that I'm currently trying to teach my children is that every choice has a consequence. And I think we were kind of talking about this. I think some people, and I know you think the same thing, some people in leadership roles will choose to stay complacent and not make the decision because they don't want the consequence, but what they're not realizing is there is a consequence. It might later on, it might be much longer down the road, but staying complacent still produces a consequence.

Whitney Ramirez (05:01):

It's like everything in life has that, so it's like sometimes, I don't know. It's like everything is a risk, and when you're in a position like ours, you put thought and effort and ethics to make sure it's a calculated risk and not just out of the blue making decisions. You try to make thoughtful decisions, but sometimes it is better to make decisions before you're ready because holding things off by not making decisions sometimes that is worse than making a decision that you need to make. Even if you're not fully ready, you learn through making decisions that you'll be ready. You'll figure out how to be ready. You just got to kind of go sometimes

Ashlie Marshall (05:59):

Sink or swim, sink or swim. No, I do not advise you to throw your child in the water and say, sink or swim. Oh my gosh. I do know people who have learned how to swim that way as a child, don't advise that, but as a metaphorical example, jumping in before you're ready forces you to figure it out.

Whitney Ramirez (06:22):

Yeah,

Ashlie Marshall (06:24):

Yeah, I would agree with that. I would agree with that. It's also important when you're in that situation, sometimes you can't avoid a consequence or a negative repercussion, but you can minimize the blast radius.

(06:44):

For example, if you're in a toxic friendship and you are in this group of friends, but this one person is incredibly toxic and it's just really starting to affect you deeper than everybody else, choosing to stay in the friend group and expose yourself to the toxicity or choosing to remove yourself from the friend group and maybe only have smaller relationships with different individuals out of that group that don't involve the toxic person. There's consequences to all of that. You're going to miss your group of friends. You're going to miss all the good times. You're going to miss out. You're going to have fomo. If you experience fomo. I experience FOMO all the time, but is that more detrimental to you than protecting your sanity in terms of dealing with a toxic person face-to-face all the time? I don't know. You have to make that judgment call when it comes to personal decisions, and what's really important about business decisions is knowing who you're in that pot with to make the decisions together, or if you're the only one doing it, if you're the business owner and you don't have a leadership team, God bless you, because that is a difficult spot to be in.

(08:00):

But when it's like me and you and we have each other in this pot and we have a couple of other people who kind of dip their toes in here and there where their input is very valuable when making big decisions, it's learning how to have that give and take and learning how to do that dance. Right,

Whitney Ramirez (08:20):

And it's also like it takes the pressure off of a singular person. Whenever you do open up and listen to hear what someone else has to say, they might think of something that you weren't thinking of when you were originally going to go forward and make the decision that you were going to make. If you take the step to listen to someone that you trust and their thoughts and opinions based on their role, then that might cause you to make a different decision, or it might cause you to compromise a bit on your original plan and introduce another piece of the path forward.

Ashlie Marshall (09:12):

I only know how we've approached it, and we've definitely done a good job of one asks the other, what are your thoughts on X, Y, Z? And then, okay, these are my thoughts. What are your thoughts? And then we kind of go back and forth a bit, especially when it's a big decision, when it's something that could potentially affect multiple people or multiple positions or the company as a whole, those types of things. We've definitely done a good job of pulling other people into that process as well. We have a couple of individuals, like I said, that depending on the decision that we're mulling over, we've pulled a few people in to kind of have conversations. Hasn't always gone to plan, but we have listened to feedback and we have allowed it to guide us in certain respects. How do you know

Whitney Ramirez (10:16):

There's also what?

Ashlie Marshall (10:18):

Go ahead. There's also,

Whitney Ramirez (10:20):

Oh, I was just going to say, whenever you do enter and enter a company and move up in a company, especially as you're promoted and gain more responsibilities, often you're in a position of dealing with decisions that other people made before you and working through the aftermath, whether good or bad. I mean, it's like you get the good with the bad and the good decisions or the decisions that they made impact the work that's in front of you and the work that you have to do now that you're in the role of responsibilities to make decisions.

Ashlie Marshall (11:07):

Right. Well, that's a big deal though. Like you said, dealing with the decisions of others,

(11:16):

Whether it be in the past or in your present. You're currently in a situation where someone else has an authority to make a decision that now affects you, and it dictates now how you need to move forward, and that can create a whole slew of difficult decisions. I think the people who struggle with that the most are people in roles that are in middle management. If you have someone that you answer to and then you have people answering to you, I witnessed Dwayne in that situation all the time. He's constantly struggling to hold conversations and he's trying to understand. He works for a much larger company, and I have visually been able to see how pertinent communication is, and the way you communicate internally has to be so structured. There has to be such strong processes in place. The bigger you get when you don't have those processes in place, it makes communication. Everybody doing everything. It's like a bunch of screwing ants all trying to go in one direction. It doesn't work, and it makes everybody frustrated. But being in a position where you're having to base your decisions off of something somebody else has dictated to you must be done. That's difficult.

(12:41):

It's really difficult. Even if it is a good decision, it's a good decision. It's going to move the company forward, but it's still

Whitney Ramirez (12:49):

Difficult. Sometimes a lot of work comes with it and sometimes it's like, okay, now you have to hold up your end of the deal by keeping this thing going.

Ashlie Marshall (12:58):

Yeah, yeah, that's true. That's true. I don't know. For me, I have definitely leaned on my strength of structure and organization the way I view it, no matter how difficult the situation that I'm in, the more organized I can make it, the easier it is to deal with. Yeah, great example. Getting my kids out the door for school, right? Some days it's breeze, everybody's happy, we're rolling, Everything's good. Some days it's like the world is over and nobody can do anything on time.

(13:42):

So how it's unpredictable every morning is unpredictable. What can I control and put structure to that will make it easier? Whether they're being agreeable or disagreeable, right is okay. Lunches are made the night before, water bottles are made the night before, bags are packed, clothes are laid out, this is what you're wearing. You ain't changing it. Hairstyles are picked. My daughter likes to have fancy braids and ponies and cool things done to her hair, and this morning was a prime example. We did not pick that out last night, and my child takes forever

(14:19):

To make a decision on things like that. So she looked at the phone for 30 minutes and by the time she picked what she wanted, I was like, we don't have time for that. I can't see the back of that hairstyle. I dunno what's going on with it. So she went to school

(14:36):

Looking a little hot mess, in my opinion. She loved it. I was like, not my favorite. You look beautiful sweetheart, but it's not my favorite hairstyle. We're not doing it again.

Whitney Ramirez (14:45):

Yeah,

Ashlie Marshall (14:45):

Okay. But we had a meltdown, we had a cry session. All of those things slowed us down and caused us issues, whereas if I would've prepared a little bit better, have a little bit more structure the night before, it would've made the morning a little bit easier. So for me, when I'm faced with situations, what's the goal? What can I put in place to help me achieve that goal? That may not necessarily be things to move me that way, but it's actually going to support me in moving that way. I'm going to do it. I'm going to spend whatever time I need to doing that.

Whitney Ramirez (15:20):

Yeah, I need to do that. Which part? Any preparation the night before,

Ashlie Marshall (15:28):

It's so helpful.

Whitney Ramirez (15:29):

Even if I mentally think I'm going to wear that tomorrow, even that helps me because by the time I wake up, Rome's asking me to open some Halloween candy, and I'm like, I don't know what to wear. And I'm trying on stuff and I'm like, oh, but I have this meeting today. I need to wear something nicer. And then it's like, okay, well, I don't like how this looks. And so it just gets frustrating and then it's 9:00 PM or 9:00 AM By the time I'm like, oh's, time to go. It's time to go an hour ago.

Ashlie Marshall (16:07):

All of those things are decisions. We kind of talked about that at the beginning of the last episode. It was like, what's a difficult decision and what's not, right? And you kind of mentioned about changing your hair, and I was like, I would not find that a difficult decision,

Whitney Ramirez (16:19):

But

Ashlie Marshall (16:19):

Now you talking about something to wear, that's

Whitney Ramirez (16:22):

Hard for me,

Ashlie Marshall (16:23):

Your girl. It's hard for me too. I don't want to look like the mom in leggings in a t-shirt every day. I want to look put together. But I also think that for me anyway, style, I'm much older than you. Styles have changed. I like certain styles on other people, but I don't like them on me. And so finding that style that I like and then trying to buy clothes that kind of fit that style, that's a challenge for me. It's a big challenge for me, especially since having kids, because your body's never exactly the same afterwards, and your view of yourself is very different. Also the older you get and the kids you have and all that stuff. So that makes the decisions difficult. Whereas for somebody else, nah, just throw that on. It's no big deal. And I'm like, oh my God, I wish I could do that. But setting things out and preparing for that is big for me too. I do it for myself too. My clothes are laid out in the closet.

Whitney Ramirez (17:23):

That's good.

Ashlie Marshall (17:24):

So those are decisions we make on our own, but bigger decisions that require other people. For us, the purchasing of equipment that we kind of touched on a little bit. It wasn't necessarily a difficult decision, but it was a decision that required more people involved. We brought in our creative director who had more knowledge on equipment. We brought in the business owner mostly because he was going to be there and that type of purchase requires his credit to be involved, and it is also a decision that he wanted to weigh in on, and we had definitely wanted to give him that space to do so

(18:06):

Because like you said, that's a quarter million dollars piece of equipment, not counting all the electrical work that we did to the building and investment that we had to do into our property and the investment that the electricity provider had to put into our street in order for our building to retain that level of power. There was a lot of outliers that were unexpected, and again, this was a great example. That entire decision that we made, which we knew was the right one to make, and it wasn't difficult to make. There was a lot of things that we didn't know until we knew it. And now I know exactly how I'm going to handle it. Next year or two, three years from now when we buy another piece of equipment, I'm going to be like, we're not signing nothing until these things are done. And we wouldn't have known that had we not been in that situation, but we had to include a lot of people into the conversation and now we know next time we need to include more people into that conversation. And one of the challenges is

Whitney Ramirez (19:06):

The city

Ashlie Marshall (19:08):

We didn't even know can't even do that.

Whitney Ramirez (19:09):

Yeah, good thing we could, but

Ashlie Marshall (19:15):

There could you imagine if they would've told us they couldn't put in a new poll to give everybody a little bit of background. We own a building on a piece of property, and you have electrical poles outside your building that run electricity to all the buildings in the area, and the equipment that we chose to buy or that we invested in needed more power coming from the street to the building, which required the electrical company who provides electricity to the area to come out and provide us a new pole with bigger capacity. And that was huge. They could have said, no, we're not doing that. I mean, I don't know what tells them they can, and I have no idea anything about that, but what if they would've said no, we had never thought that we were going to need to consult them on this decision. Now we do.

Whitney Ramirez (20:10):

Yeah.

Ashlie Marshall (20:10):

Yeah. It's a lot. It is a lot. And learning how to make big decisions like that with everybody's voice being heard. Luckily this time around, we were all in agreement that it was the right next step to make. Although I do think that some people may have been worried that I was going to be like, no, we're not doing it. But it was the right decision to make. It really was. Now how we handle that decision in the future will be different, but I definitely think I'm a true believer in you have to invest in order to grow, and it was just the time to invest so we could grow. What if you and I would've disagreed, man, if we would've decided? Nope. And you would've decided Yes, and we wouldn't have been able to come to an agreement on it that would've caused repercussions.

Whitney Ramirez (21:09):

Yeah. I mean, I can think of other instances where we don't agree on something right off the bat, but it's never a situation where we're picking one or the others way forward. It's usually a situation where, part of what I'm saying should be the path forward and part of what you're saying should be the path forward, and we need to figure out

Ashlie Marshall (21:41):

How

Whitney Ramirez (21:41):

To combine both of our ideas and figure out the best way. And I honestly feel like it's better that way because it's never a good thing to always just be like, my decision is the right one, and that's what we're going to do. I never think that is a good healthy thing because you end up being so close-minded and so you shut yourself off from what could be really good whenever you think my decision is the only right way. That's

Ashlie Marshall (22:25):

True. That's true.

Whitney Ramirez (22:26):

And I like hearing from people that don't necessarily agree with me because it gives me a new perspective and maybe me disagreeing with someone leads to me making a better decision

(22:43):

Or

(22:43):

Something that I wouldn't have thought of doing, or it makes me really double check myself in terms of let me make sure that what I think is the right decision. I want to feel really solid about it, and sometimes I am, I know what's a good way forward, but it never stops me from fully, I'm never going to shut someone else fully down from giving another idea.

Ashlie Marshall (23:19):

For me, I think I had to learn a lot about myself in terms of, well, I'm not going to say I had to learn. I know certain things about myself that I have been able to apply to certain situations in Merck. I know for instance, I am not indecisive. I'm not an indecisive individual. I might not know exactly or what color, but I know that I need to purchase this or do this or this is how we're going to do it, and it's decisive. That doesn't mean that you could come in and be like, well, did you think about trying it this way? We're still doing it, but we might try a different route. And yeah, that worked way better. So in certain instances, I am just like you in that respect, where I do enjoy hearing people who disagree with me.

(24:14):

I know in certain instances with certain individuals, I tend to have more emotional reaction to the disagreement if there is one, because of the way it's approached or the way it's communicated, but not between you and I, between you. And I think that we are very respectful to one another. We're very observant to others' emotions, and it's really important that we learn each other and our personalities so that we know how to communicate with each other, and that's how we've been able to navigate difficult decisions, especially when we have maybe seen the path. They are different, not on, I don't think that we've ever disagreed on major, major things. It's usually small little things where it's like, well, I think we should this way, and I think we should this way, and then we,

Whitney Ramirez (25:04):

And sometimes too, I think whenever you do disagree with someone on a decision you want to make, sometimes it helps you to learn. I feel really strongly about this and I have done my research. And then sometimes it makes you defend your decision even more, which I don't think is a bad thing either, because as long as it is a respectful dialogue, you're able to show someone, here's what I'm thinking when I'm saying this, and maybe you're dispelling some of their rebuttals and if they're disagreeing with your decision, and maybe sometimes they're like, oh, you're right. That's a solid decision. But it can go as long as you're, sometimes you're defending the decision and really feeling confident, and sometimes you're like, oh, no, I didn't think of that. I'm going to consider this.

Ashlie Marshall (26:00):

Yes. It all kind of circles back though, to everybody has to be on the same page in terms of what are your values? Everyone has said, what are your values? Some respect. Yeah. Because if one person finds it more important to make sure that the operations process is solid for the team to get it done efficiently, but in doing so, they've completely left out how the customer views their service or product from beginning to end, right? What's that cycle look like from the customer's perspective? And you've got a team of people worrying about one part and a team of people worrying about the other part, but those teams are not coming together to communicate and find that ground that works for both simultaneously, that that can cause problems. It can cause rifts. It can cause frustrations. Then you've got customers who are frustrated and other customers are like, oh, I'm fine with it. It's perfect. It's like marrying the two parts of the business together and making sure three or four or five parts of the business together for businesses that offer more than one service or more than one product or a wide range of things that they're working through. You've got to have the voices in leadership, their capability of bringing people together to make decisions

(27:31):

And not creating friction between them. That's the challenging part of being in leadership.

(27:38):

So it's important for your leaders to work in the same direction. It's okay for leaders to disagree. It's okay for leaders to communicate about disagreements, and it's okay to not see eye to eye on big decisions, but what's not okay is making them anyway without working together through it. Right? It's all about how you handle it. And again, coming back to those core values, what are your values? What do you view as the most important part that your business represents? And realizing that sometimes the worst consequences are in complacency and not moving forward with something and understanding how valuable it can be to stand your ground, state your case, and work together.

Whitney Ramirez (28:30):

Yeah.

Ashlie Marshall (28:38):

Well, if you guys liked hearing about all of our consequences, leave us a review. Tell us what big difficult decisions you've had to make, whether personal or in your business, and what consequences came from that. What positive things or maybe negative things that happened that you learned from, and share this episode with a friend. Thanks for listening. Thank you. Bye.

Whitney Ramirez (29:02):

Bye.