What Can The Syria Situation Teach Us About Decision Making?

As our government ponders action in Syria, there is much debate and much at stake. What can we learn from this decision making, as it’s in process?

This is NOT intended as a political article, yet there is much to learn from the politics of the situation and some of it is highly applicable to business. Let's cover some key points such as the difference between soft principles and hard laws and the importance of not painting oneself into a corner or going it alone.

Let's start with some fundamentals. Startups often begin with informal decision making and then formalize a framework as follows:

Framework 1a

As we apply this to the decision in Syria, for example, it plays out as follows:

We value human life / rights. Therefore, in principle, something that threatens it must be bad. Thus, the rule coming out of these values and principles is that action must be taken if human life / rights are taken and we outlaw things like chemical weapons.

It all seems logical and straightforward. After all, based on the government's conclusion, the use of the outlawed chemical toxins resulted in “indiscriminate, inconceivable horror” — killing nearly 1,500 civilians, including over 400 children.

Since World War I, the use of chemical weapons has been prohibited by all countries signing the Geneva protocol, prohibiting its use in warfare on the grounds that it has been “justly condemned by the general opinion of the civilized world.” In fact, the use of chemical weapons has been ruled against and prohibited by the governments of 98 percent of the world’s people. Therefore, if one simply follows the basic decision framework above, one must act. But of course it's not that simple.

And that's why this decision around punitive intervention in Syria is so hard and, for example, why the British Parliament returned such a split vote. Of course in life as in business, there are always many other factors.

First consider what is at stake.

Example might be:

• The risks / rewards (in Syria: unchecked use of chemical weapons; loss of credibility / affirmation of power)
• Intended / unintended consequences (in Syria: wider regional conflict, potential ongoing involvement)
• The amount of information at hand and separating fact from opinion or emotion (For example, in Syria, U.S intelligence “assesses with high confidence” that the Syrian government carried out the attack, using a nerve agent. However, is that a high-enough standard to take limited punitive military action or should we wait for the U.N.’s results?)
• Past results (For example, of ongoing U.S. involvement in the Middle East)

... and many other such things like the urgency of a situation and considerations such as one’s tolerance for risk.

Clearly, we need a framework that includes other dimensions such as what is at stake.

Framework 1b

There may be many dimensions to these and other kinds of decisions, around “what is at stake.” For simplicity, let's include them as just one other dimension.

Graphically, the framework then looks like this:

This may be a fine framework, but it too has many problems. The most obvious of which is playing out with Syria right now. The world has clearly said we can’t tolerate the use of chemical weapons and that our rule is we must act. As the stakes increase and more information comes in, if we’re not careful, we simply escalate. In his buildup of reporting the information, Kerry appeared to simply escalate. And then Obama appeared to have painted us into a corner where the stakes are so high that if he didn't act he would lose credibility, because the rule of not using chemical weapons, if unenforced, becomes meaningless. But the consequences can be so far reaching that obviously this decision requires more than just a rule. It requires significant judgment.

Sound familiar to any business decisions you’ve had to make recently?

Business example: customers always come first

You value customers and in principle they should be prioritized and the rule becomes something like "customers always come first because we have no business without them".

This all sounds good. But what happens when your apparently biggest and best customers become unprofitable to serve? Or they spar with one of your best leaders and demand his resignation because it turns out they discriminate against gays? Both situations have happened in my career as a CEO. Don't paint yourself into a corner with rules. If you believe an exception proves the rule, then my experience is a few exceptions ridicule the rule and the rulemaker. (That's why the use of Chemical Weapons is such a tough issue. Are there exceptions our government can make?).

Perhaps instead consider a principle such as "we believe our business should be customer centric and market validated".

Urgency

Urgency is often a driving factor. And sometime one that can lead to poor decision if left unchecked. On Saturday, Obama made another judgment call. The action he said we would take would be as effective in a day, a week or a month. He bought himself time for debate and further information.

As a startup you usually only have one advantage. Yes one. Speed. In most cases you are competing with larger players who have the resources or distribution or balance sheet to outrun you unless you are more nimble. It's a great principle therefore to consider "a fast decision is better than no decision," especially if you can learn from your mistakes. But I believe it would be a horrible rule. Take care to distinguish these things in your decision-making frameworks.

Alternative

Let’s look at an alternative framework. We’ll flip the x-axis and put rules first and principles last.

Framework 2

At first, this is a very comfortable business framework because things like simple decisions that can be highly informed with data can be turned into processes and automated.

Things in the middle of the spectrum require good information and management.

And now at the top right we avoid getting painted into a corner, but we really need to use great judgment and base it on strong intelligence.

Of course, there are challenges with this framework too, such as the dependence on that intelligence AND good judgment when the stakes are high. And that's a gross understatement when they are potentially immeasurably high, such as in Syria.

At this point, I must humbly reiterate that I am not qualified to comment on the Middle East, let alone judge the politics involved. Yet, as someone who has learned from startups going from zero to billions in value, I see the contrast between simple ignorance of the importance of a decision making framework, and a considered approach to it as part of a culture, play out all too often. And the stakes can become high when decisions impact key things like the responsibilities of a team or the accountability of management in the company and may for example escalate all the way to questioning the often vital role of a founder.

Thoughts for startups and rapidly growing businesses

• Be careful not to set up rules too early in a company. As a startup, for example, you and your market may well be evolving so fast that you could be painted into a corner before you really understand the implications. Instead, consider defining core values that can guide you and your team and empower you to be nimble and responsive. And try not to even draw conclusions until you really have the data you need validated by your customers and the marketplace at large. Instead dig deep to understand context and relevance before trying to derive meaning.
• Take time to learn the basis of your operating environment to figure out what can be organized, systematized, and automated with good information and processes. The more you do this, the better it will free you and empower your team to have time for the really important decisions that take real judgment.
• Figure out who needs to be included. As your company gets bigger and you have more people dependent on you and not just inside, but outside the business with partners and suppliers and shareholders in your ecosystem, the more critical it becomes to find ways to include them in your thinking, even if just to explicitly say how or whether they do or don’t matter. More often, they do matter as they are key to taking a decision through to implementation.(On Saturday, Obama showed he needed to be inclusive. He was clear he was ready for his course of action, yet wanted to include Congress).
• Leave yourself room to make mistakes. They are often the best form of learning. Few high-stakes decisions are predictable in their outcome so be compassionate on yourself when you make a mistake. But be prepared to act to readdress the mistake quickly. Fail fast and learn faster is a great startup mantra.
• Be humble enough to admit your errors and omissions and open enough to learn from them. In this way, you will earn support and trust to try again. For example I will have made a mistake penning this article if it comes across as political. Other than recognizing the gravity of the situation in Syria and seeking peace, my focus is on helping startups and fast growing businesses.

Summary

As with all frameworks, these are highly fallible themselves and they don’t provide answers, but hopefully they can serve as a spark for you to think through some important questions in business such as:

• What kind of decision making and leadership culture do you have?
• Is it based on principles, values or rules? What is appropriate for what circumstances?
• Is there a consistent framework and do people understand it and how to contribute to it?
• How do you make decisions and do people understand the framework so they can contribute?

As a leader:

• How do you encourage and empower people to take initiative in their decisions and yet allow for and accept inevitable mistakes?
• How can you balance data and logic for automated processes and still ensure judgment when needed from your team?

Personal Learnings

I believe those companies that succeed find ways to balance their decisions between principles, core values and rules. They separate emotion from reason to organize their judgments and when they make mistakes they investigate deeply to learn from it for themselves.

In the spirit that peace begins within each of us and we can all make a difference, I hope we will each find a path to thoughtful decision making and in turn each of us will help our teams, our communities, both national and international, to respond to challenges both small and large or even of the magnitude of Syria.

Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision."

-- Peter F. Drucker

In the comments, we’d love to hear how you make decisions and what you’ve learned from it that can be shared for us all.

---

At Underscore VC, Michael and his team partner with daring entrepreneurs to invest in founders and build from inception to market leaders. As a former entrepreneur turned VC, Michael has backed and built teams that have created billions of dollars of value focusing on large, market-changing technologies such as Cloud Computing, IoT and Big Data as well as disruptive business models such as Open Source and SaaS. Current representative investments include Acquia, Cazena, Demandware (NYSE:DWRE), Mautic and Salsify.

Follow Michael on LinkedIn, Twitter @mjskok, his website, and in his Harvard Innovation Lab class, Startup Secrets. Follow Underscore VC on the web and Twitter @UnderscoreVC.