A friend of mine regularly talks to me about his job. A couple of years ago, his company’s managers were slow to make decisions. While other firms in his industry changed how they worked, his business sat still. “They didn’t have enough information to support doing things differently,” he told me. Eventually, some of their largest customers migrated to the competition.
Now the opposite is true. With less revenue, the company started showing signs of financial strain. So the CEO and other senior managers made some very quick decisions. Those decisions were made with limited information, and they backfired. Now the company is in serious trouble.
The main rule of decision making: as soon as you have a reasonable amount of information, decide what to do. Any more or less could be catastrophic.
well put.
years ago, before being an biz owner, i was amused at how execs love graphs, charts, and bite-sized info. i now realize all this contributes to making swift, informed, and educated decisions. a key component to running a successful biz.
i’ve seen references to studies calculating costs associated with delayed decisions. sometimes “long” decisions can be just as bad/costly as wrong decisions. experience definitely plays its roll, but timeliness is just as important.