When it takes forever to make a decision

Have you worked in an environment where it takes forever to make a decision?

At work, when decision-making is slow or unclear, it creates confusion, delays execution, and frustrates employees. If it’s unclear who is responsible for making decisions, work gets stuck in endless discussions, approvals, and second-guessing. This leads to inefficiency at best, and lost opportunities at worst. On the other hand, when decision-making is both fast and clear, employees move forward with confidence, projects stay on track, and the organization becomes more agile.

To improve decision-making agility, consider adopting one or more of the following 3 habits.

1. Define a single, clear decision making framework?Using a structured decision-making framework like RAPID (Recommend, Agree, Perform, Input, Decide) or RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed) ensures that employees understand who gets to recommend a solution, who has the final say and who needs to be consulted. Assigning a single accountable decision-maker for major decisions prevents delays caused by endless group consensus-building. For example, as described in the GitLab handbook, Apple coined the term “directly responsible individual” (DRI) to refer to the one person with whom the buck stopped on any given project. The idea is that every project is assigned a DRI who is ultimately held accountable for the success (or failure) of that project. They likely won’t be the only person working on their assigned project, but it’s “up to that person to get it done or find the resources needed.

2. Push decisions down the organization, based on the two-way door framework?Not all decisions require the same level of scrutiny, so it’s important to understand whether a decision is high impact or low impact, and whether it is reversible or not. Low-impact, reversible decisions can be made autonomously by employees, while medium-impact decisions that affect teams or departments can be escalated to a senior leader to be resolved within , say, 48 hours. High-impact, company-wide, or irreversible decisions should involve broader input but still have a clear deadline.

Jezz Bezos, in an interview with Lex Fridman, describes how in Amazon most decisions in a company are two-way doors—you can walk through, test the outcome, and if it doesn’t work, walk back and choose a different path. According to Bezos, these decisions should be made quickly, often by individuals or small teams deep in the organization, without requiring extensive approvals.

One-way door decisions, on the other hand, are high-stakes, hard-to-reverse choices, a kind of “quick drying cement” in Bezos’ words. Once made, they are either permanent or extremely costly and time-consuming to undo. These decisions require deliberate analysis and should be escalated to senior leadership, who must slow the process down and ensure every angle has been considered before committing.

A common mistake in organizations is applying the same heavyweight decision-making process to both types, leading to unnecessary slowdowns. Leadership should be skilled in distinguishing between one-way and two-way decisions so that simple, reversible decisions aren’t bogged down by bureaucracy, while critical, irreversible ones receive the scrutiny they deserve.

For Bezos, examples of one-way doors was launching Amazon Prime or selecting rocket propellants at Blue Origin, where reversing the choice would be a massive setback. But most decisions aren't like that—they should be made quickly, with the understanding that they can always be changed if needed, and therefore delegated to lower in the organization.

not everyone needs to agree, but everyone must support the final decision**.

3. Increase decision velocity with a ‘Disagree and Commit’ mindset

"Disagree and Commit" is a key principle that enables teams to make decisions efficiently while maintaining alignment and trust. Disagreements are inevitable in any organization, but at some point, a decision must be made, and progress must continue. While hierarchical structures mean that senior leaders often have the final say, great leaders sometimes choose to back a decision they disagree with, trusting their team’s expertise. Jeff Bezos explains that as CEO, he frequently found himself in this position—his direct reports would advocate for an approach he didn’t personally agree with. Rather than block them, he would say: "I don’t think you’re right, but I trust your judgment. Let’s do it your way, and I’ll support it fully." The key is that once a decision is made, everyone commits to making it work, rather than second-guessing or undermining it later.

Bezos, in an interview with Lex Fridman, contrasts this with ineffective ways teams resolve disagreements. Compromise, for example, is often a shortcut that avoids real problem-solving. He compares it to estimating the height of a ceiling—if one person says it’s 12 feet and another says 11, a compromise at 11.5 feet is easy but doesn’t get to the truth. The better approach is to measure it. Similarly, another poor way to resolve disputes is a war of attrition, where the most stubborn or the loudest person wins simply because the other side gets exhausted or intimidated. This leads to bad decisions and damages team morale. Instead of falling into these traps, Bezos encourages teams to escalate disagreements if necessary—going to a higher-level leader to help make the call, rather than wasting time on a battle of wills, as escalation is always better than a war of attrition.

Ultimately, Bezos ties "Disagree and Commit" to decision velocity, arguing that most slowdowns in companies come from taking too long to decide. At Amazon, despite having over a million employees, the company remains fast and decisive because it values making decisions quickly and moving forward. The goal isn’t to always be right—it’s to make the best decision possible with the available information, commit fully, and adjust if needed. By embedding this into company culture, organizations can maintain trust, agility, and high performance at scale.