How to Make Better Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Information
I’ve started realizing how much time and energy I can spend carrying around a decision before I actually make it. And this is coming from someone who has Discernment as a Working Genius - ha!
I see this in my coaching clients too.
There are decisions we’ve been talking about for weeks, sometimes months: Someone needs to move into a different role, a team structure needs to change, we know we need to hire someone, we know we need to stop doing something that isn’t working anymore, there’s a conversation that needs to happen.
In almost all of these situations, I find that the leader is pretty clear on what they need to do, but they still hesitate.
You’d think having access to more information would make decisions easier, but I’ve been seeing the opposite. We can research anything, text five people and ask what they think, read reviews and articles and books, and now ask AI to analyze every possible scenario and give us 17 things we haven’t thought about yet.
At some point, strong leadership requires us to say, “I have enough information to make the best decision I can right now.”
There’s a big difference between being thoughtful and being stuck.
What are you actually waiting for?
This was especially on my mind recently when I had the opportunity to spend time with one of my heroes, Seth Godin, at the launch of his new book, The Knot.
One of the ideas he talks about is how often we become stuck because we’re holding two incompatible things at the same time.
We want growth, but we want everything that comes with growth to feel comfortable. We want to feel completely confident in a decision while also wanting the freedom to change our minds later.
And the most relatable one to me right now: We want to matter and make an impact, while also sometimes wishing no one needed anything from us.
Sometimes those competing desires are sitting underneath our leadership decisions without us even realizing it.
Maybe I know what needs to change, but I also want everyone to be happy with me. Maybe I know the next step, but I want some guarantee that it’s going to work before I take it.
Sometimes more time really is the right answer. But sometimes the extra week isn’t going to give me anything I don’t already know.
Five questions I’m asking
When I notice myself getting stuck in a decision, these are the five questions I’m trying to get more comfortable asking:
1. What problem are we actually solving?
This sounds obvious, but I think we often start solving before we’ve named the real problem.
Keep asking why. If the problem still feels huge or vague, keep going until you can actually name what needs to be solved.
2. What are the downstream effects?
Every decision creates dominoes.
Who will this affect? What changes for the team? What becomes easier or harder because of this decision?
Sometimes understanding the downstream impact gives us the clarity we were missing.
3. What will this pull energy away from?
This one gets me because I can get very excited about a new idea.
Every yes costs something. If I give my time, attention or resources to this, what am I taking them away from?
And am I okay with that?
4. Is this aligned with our mission?
A clear mission should actually help us make decisions.
When there are multiple good options, coming back to why we exist and what we’re trying to accomplish can make the next step much clearer.
5. Does this create long-term health?
For me. For the team. For the organization.
Decisive leadership isn’t about making every decision fast. It’s about making the decision when you have enough information without sacrificing long-term health just so you can move quickly.
Your team feels the decisions you carry
One other thing I keep coming back to is that when I carry a decision, my team usually carries it too.
I see this in really small ways on my own team. I can ask my Assistant and Project Manager, Anna, to work on something, she sends it back to me, and then I sit on it because I’m still “thinking.” Meanwhile, she can’t move the project forward because the next decision belongs to me.
I’m thinking. She’s waiting.
That’s been a helpful picture for me.
The decisions we carry around in our heads usually aren’t staying there. They eventually create weight somewhere else in the organization.
So maybe the question to sit with this week is the one I asked at the end of our webinar:
What decision have you been carrying the longest, and why?
That question, along with these five, became the basis for our latest Ready Network webinar, How to Make Better Decisions. We went deeper into why leaders get stuck, what makes decisions harder right now, and even worked through a real leadership decision live using these questions.