An Essay on Decisiveness

I'm currently on holiday in Europe with my lovely wife, Haley. We're here for two weeks. So, we're here in a strange land with a radically different culture, a foreign language, and a lot of exploring to do. I adore my wife, she's wonderful and beautiful and talented, but she has one fault. She is exceptionally indecisive. Which train do we take? "I don't know, can you figure it out?" Where do you want to eat? "I don't know but not there." Do you want an Aperol Spritz? "I don't know, do you?" I'm comfortable talking about this personality flaw because my wife only has this one - I have dozens. One reason I believe we complement each other so well is that I am absurdly decisive. It works.

Now you might be asking? What is the method of measuring decisiveness? And that's a good question to which I've made up an answer. The measurement of 1 optimal unit of decisiveness depends on how long it takes to get correct results, and that depends on the type of problem you're solving. When you're deciding where to go next on holiday, it could be an hour or so, whereas if you're deciding which train to take to get home, it should take less than a minute.

I find this skill to be especially important in business. A week ago, preparing to write this essay. I counted the number of somewhat unimportant but not inconsequential decisions I made each day (Monday: 6, Tuesday: 3, Wednesday: 3, Thursday: 7, Friday: 4). An average of 4.6 per day of decisions made ranging from somewhat important to very important. I tried to time my decision to each of these issues but didn't do a very good job of tracking. My scientific estimate was ~6 seconds per decision.

You might read that and think, "That's not enough time to make decisions, Hunter. That's actually laughable." I'd agree with you if not for the hit rate on correct *subjective* decisions. The fact of the matter in business is that the bake time it takes for a decision to be put in the oven to the time it comes out fully baked may take months. I optimize for 90% correctness with a total think time of less than 10 seconds.

Some people really struggle with decisions, like my wife. They struggle with analysis paralysis. One of my favorite frameworks for combatting analysis paralysis comes from Dwight Eisenhower. The famous World War II general and later president of the United States had a good antidote to analysis paralysis. Eisenhower suggested dividing all tasks into 4 quadrants based on their level of urgency and importance.?

The “Do” quadrant is for tasks that are both important and urgent. “Plan” (or schedule) is for tasks that are important but not urgent. “Delegate” (to other people) is for tasks that are urgent but not important. And “Eliminate” is for the tasks that are neither urgent nor important. I use this sh*t daily.

I wasn't always like this, I can remember spending weeks deliberating on what brand of basketball shoe to buy in middle school doing hours of research to make sure it was the right decision. I spent months deciding between Beats by Dre or Skull Candy headphones watching YouTube unboxings and reviews. This decisive trait was cultivated.

Decisiveness is important especially when there is a lack of information or a cloud of obscurity in front of you. The ability to grab the 3-5 most important attributes of an issue and craft the correct decision quickly is what I'm working towards. I strive to see the shape of a situation quickly and act. A word of caution if you plan to work on this skill; it can bite you in the butt. Occasionally, I will make a quick decision that ends up being incorrect. People make incorrect decisions all the time, but when I make an incorrect decision after spending very little time on it, it can be seen as a mistake made in haste. I get it, but I don't care about the optics. I care about the ability to make great decisions quickly.

The people that I know who are decisive are quite determined as well. Decisiveness without the appropriate ambition or discipline can be a very dangerous cocktail.

One thing Haley is decisive about is sweets. Her decision time to get gelato before dinner was made in less than 5 seconds (see cover image). But now I'm writing this from our little apartment in Rome while she makes our decision to visit Trestavere or Prati for dinner this evening. She hasn't asked me what I think yet so I'm not gonna poke the bear. I'll let her have this one ;).