I am lousy at making decisions based on second hand information. It frustrates some people I work with, because I may want to hear or see what they already heard. They do an excellent job of giving me a picture from what they have experienced. While a picture is certainly worth a thousand words, for me, living it is worth a thousand pictures.
I am a big believer that the best decisions are discovered, not made. The worst decisions I have made were built on assumptions that proved incomplete. One horrible decision eight or nine years ago that still haunts me was when we cut our software enhancement list for an important customer to fund a massive R&D program that was designed in a vacuum. We ended up not doing 100 days of work, we lost the customer, we over-built a new product and we wrote off the investment three years later. Other than that, we nailed it.
All of this occurred because we didn’t take the time to make the right decision. Had the people deciding to cut the 100 days of work spoken directly with the impacted customer, we would have spent the money and kept the customer. And, we didn’t design the new product with the right input. So, we missed the mark. It cost us millions of dollars.
Those days are behind us. There is frustration pointed at the length of time it takes me to make decisions or the processes we have in place to design a product. We still make plenty of mistakes. But the lessons I have learned on decision making have been some of the most important lessons of my career. Unless there is a need for urgency, I sleep better at night knowing that we want to discover the right answer and not guess at it.
In reading your article, I kept thinking, “Haste makes waste.” Although, I know that decision making in business today is never that simple. I can appreciate the fact that good ideas and decisions can take time to evolve.
My consulting background often wants me to immediately grasp the issues at hand and make the RIGHT decision quickly that will ultimately triumph over the problem and deliver the solution on a silver platter….I’m not that smart.
Instead, age has taught me that if time is available, even if I think I know the answer, I’ll let it rest in my mind until the decision has to be made. I’ll often tell people that I’m ignoring the issue till I have to decide. This is frustrating to them, but it is amazing how often new facts or further information comes forward as time passes that helps me make the right choice. This is my process.
Please don’t get me wrong. I great boss and good friend taught me that perfect is the enemy of good. We can’t over analyze and we shouldn’t take too long to make decisions, else we miss opportunities. But, everything in its own time.
We all get a feel for what works for us and what doesn’t. Taking your time to make decisions is your process, and obviously that works for you. Mabye the rest of us should be more tolerant of an individual’s processes. Especially, when we are asking them to make the call.