Deciding is so Valuable

We all know Simon has the market cornered on "Why." I don't care. I don't even like that question. One of my favorites? "When?"

In my efforts to help guide and arrange the efforts of high quality performers, I find that a lot of people have a soft area around one specific topic: decisions.

Decisions and Time - We Treat Time As if It's Infinite

As it applies to the act of being decisive, it's so strange to me how many people default to a "wait and see" on so many fork-in-the-road moments. When it comes to interacting with people management, for instance, I'm even more baffled. The storyline often goes something like this:

• Person X isn't exactly rocking. They need a nudge or something
• FIRST DECISION GATE: Is this problem/person fixable? If no, take action. (Many variations on what this might be.)
• Let's say they're recoverable. What's the plan?
• SECOND DECISION GATE: Put a plan in place with time gates. Communicate the plan.
• Maybe they don't quite kick butt after you've worked your plan.
• THIRD DECISION GATE: Maybe it's time to take action/restructure/whatever.

For some reason, instead of doing something a lot more decisive and communicating a plan, I see lots of people "hope and wish" that "something" happens and the person improves. Almost always missing from this is any kind of clear communication.

This example is based on management/leadership types of issues. This is "hey, I see a non-performing person" or "a poor fit" or whatever. That's just one example type.

Decisions and Money - We Treat Money as if It's Finite

There are many other examples of decisions where timing is the big issue. If you do something too soon, maybe that's the bad choice. If you wait too long, it's often harder to do something.

Marketplaces think about this one all the time. Some companies strive to be first to market. Microsoft (at least historically) was famous for never going first. They waited, they checked things out, and then they leveled a ton of resources on making a "best version" of something. (VisiCalc to Lotus to Excel, for instance).

Moving too fast can cost just as much as moving too slow. In the case of humans, keeping someone on the payroll for too long costs. In the case of business, if you buy too much inventory too fast, your business might be too leveraged and you won't have access to funds when necessary.

Time and Money are two strong vectors to impact decision making. By the way, often times having enough money means that you can operate on a longer time horizon, which thusly opens up even more ways to decide, instead of having to decide something at an inopportune time.

What Gets In the Way of Decisions?

I would say the first and foremost enemy of someone making a decision is fear of being wrong. I think waiting is another way people can be wrong, though, so I try to educate folks to the concept that "not deciding" is a decision of its own (and almost always a "wrong" one).

Lack of agency is an issue, too. If you don't trust people to make decisions at other levels of the organization, then you have one of those "run everything up the pole" kinds of companies, where decisions only exist at the highest levels. What a waste of energy, time, and intelligence this is. I think it's easier to just hire great leaders and give them the authority to lead at their level.

Of course, there are the basics of decision problems: not enough information, false confidence, conflicting priorities, etc. There are so many of these: lack of clear goals, decision by committee, inability to prioritize, etc.

Low on the list, however, is what I think most people fear: punishment for making the wrong decision.

What Happens if You're Wrong?

It's fair to say that I'm fascinated by failure. It's ONE way to learn. Iterative growth after failure is actually the secret sauce of how your favorite AI learns. It throws a lot of "is this a hot dog?" at things to get to an answer that's statistically reasonable.

In decision making, if you're wrong, something invariably happens, but most times, unless you're a surgeon or a commercial airline pilot or someone with inadequate judgment around food safety, most times, a failure is a chance to learn and not a deadly experience.

David Rubenstein starts his book, How to Invest, talking about some of his "bad" decisions (who's gonna want to buy books online? - passed on Amazon). When I hear things like that, I feel more trust in a person. My CEO told a story about a failure today in an internal meeting. He has lots of these stories, so can share a different one at every town hall he attends. Every time, I see people nod and appreciate that their CEO fails sometimes. (It's built into our culture that most - almost all but c'mon - failures are recoverable.)

If you're wrong, apologize. Pick up what fell over (if you can). Learn something. Share the learnings. Try to fail some other way next time and not the same way. And keep going.

"Complete the motion, if you stumble." - Anthony Kiedis.

Decide

It's just so much better so often when you decide. The time you save, the money you save, the chance to be in a better position when easier decisions are out of the way, they all add up.

And remember: not deciding is a decision of a sort. Just rarely a good one.

Chris...