How CEOs in Chicago Decide

I started interviewing “Chicago” and I am grateful for the interview with CEO Elliott Slutzky, of Coffee Unlimited.

The biggest challenges Elliott ever had to make was answering the questions where to move the business, taking a chance and buying a warehouse in a risky neighbourhood and when taking on a product or machine that precluded him from taking on a competing product line or machine.

I asked him “why” such decisions were offering such impacts.  He went on – because each was/is one of the long-term decisions and afterwards you have to develop and marshal the resources to make that product or new machine successful in the marketplace.

We got to the point that Elliott isn´t thrilled making decisions because he´s not always having the luxury of time on his side.  In earlier days he made decisions by the “fly by seat of his pants”, having the gumption and raw energy that lets you take chances and he found himself making decisions quickly.  He said, once you get older you shouldn´t wait too long or you might miss out.

As CEO Elliott has to make decisions of course, being responsible for the livelihood of his employees.  He said that “he who hesitates is left out” – sometimes it´s live or die.

To make sure to turn into the right direction he invites customers into a test kitchen.  If the employees like the product or new machine they invite customers to get their feedback and measure the response. As a tool in general in his coffee- and coffee machine biz he uses “exposure” and “testing” of each new product before making the next relevant decision.

Elliott ended the interview questions with the words of the late SONY President who said that being in business is making mistakes – if you are afraid of making mistakes – don´t be in business.

I very much thank CEO Elliott Slutzky for this interview!  It was nice taking time for my interview.

BE A DECISION MAKER. BECOME OUTSTANDING.

rita jaskolla – Leadership Architect –