How do you make decisions in times of change?

How do you make great decisions on your career and building products with so much uncertainty in the air?

Since stepping away from Buildertrend I’ve been listening to others in product and executive leader roles in many industries. There is a single subject that everyone agrees on. AI is coming. Uncertainty around it is universal. How can we navigate it?

I’ve been working on navigating uncertainty for a while now. Many years ago I was entering an uncertain time and needed to make some career-shaping decisions. Fortunately Ray Dalio’s book on principles was released in that moment. That book fundamentally shifted my worldview on decision making. Since then I've crafted, refined, and leveraged principles in my most important decisions as a head of product.

Given we are entering an uncertain time together, I hope sharing some principles can help you develop more consistent decision making and spawn conversation. And, selfishly, I want to reflect on a few principles by sharing them and hearing what others think about them. Great principles, like great product ideas, require getting banged around a little bit.

My simplest principle definition is “learned opinions that help me handle reality”. I think they are best understood in reflective detail. I’ll share some reflections very soon. In the meantime here are a couple teaser principle titles: 'When building products, don’t fall in love with the solution or the customer problem. Be infatuated with the landscape.' and 'Sometimes you gotta let it burn.'

I know others have ways they navigate decisions. Do you use a foundational framework for making decisions? How do you approach important decisions and uncertainty? If you've encountered the material, what do you think of Ray Dalio's approach? Share below—I’d love to hear your thoughts!