Comments on: Struggling With a Business Decision? Here’s What to Do

By: Chris Ronson

Chris Ronson — Wed, 05 Apr 2017 14:18:06 +0000

Solid. I’m sending this one around. Thanks Alex.

By: Clark S. Baker

Clark S. Baker — Thu, 12 May 2016 01:54:17 +0000

This is something I’ve struggled with, but know it, and eventually just tell myself to make a friggin’ decision! Your post reminds me of a great example from Steve Krug’s “Don’t Make Me Think” in which he describes how a fire captain makes decisions at a fire. They don’t have time to consider all the possible solutions to a problem. They come up with one or two and choose the one that’s less likely to get someone hurt. Make a decision and move on. I try to remind myself of that when making decisions. Also helps to remind myself that the decisions I’m making are nowhere near life-or-death.

The passage from Krug’s book is credited to a book by Gary Klein – “Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions”

By: arohacs

arohacs — Fri, 06 May 2016 14:59:01 +0000

“But on small teams, bad players can be toxic. Whether they’re simply not pulling their weight, or something far more insidious (like ego) is at play, a weak link degrades the whole chain.”

With ego comes creativity, and yes, autonomy. Crushing ego for the sake of compliance is a great way to build a company full of yes men. You want to have people speak their mind and tell you when a framework isn’t working or when a decision is a bad idea, or even be proactive and try to make solutions that head off issues before they become problems. Squelching any and all ego will take away most chances of feedback happening openly, honestly, and unprovoked.

By: Donald Patnaude

Donald Patnaude — Thu, 05 May 2016 23:59:51 +0000

Hey @alex_turnbull:disqus this is really good and so true in the business world. Thanks for this advice.

By: Simon Gifford

Simon Gifford — Thu, 05 May 2016 20:40:26 +0000

Hi Alex, good article. Your point about reversibility is particularly accurate. A “bias towards action” as Stanford d-school call it is normally right. However, moving into scale-up mode means that some of your decisions may not be reversible and can have a massive impact – rgats when appropriate caution / analysis can pay off. We recently penned an article on reframing decisions that someone who appreciates your article will also enjoy http://www.mashauri.com/blog/reframing-and-solving-the-right-problem/84
There is a further artivle entitled MBA versus Entrepreneur based on a lecture I give that you will find valuable too. http://www.mashauri.com/blog/mba-vs-entrepreneurs-how-they-think-and-decide/77

Thanks Alex – good value here.

By: Melissa

Melissa — Thu, 05 May 2016 15:46:51 +0000

Feels like i’m holding a mirror up to my face reading this post. What holds people back is the fear of making an irreparable mistake. To use your example of the domain. What if you pick a name, buy the domain and then a few months later you realise that the domain name really isn’t working out? Changing a domain name people are already attached to could lead to losing your audience, maybe even some money. I completely agree that we need to make firm decisions rather than dither about, but the fear is real. I’ll be the first to admit that indecision is one of my greatest problems and i’ll also admit that because of indecision I haven’t achieved a lot of the goals I set out to achieve, even after setting deadlines that keep getting pushed back.

By: Convention Nation

Convention Nation — Thu, 05 May 2016 14:48:50 +0000

Alex, perfect timing on this! We’ve been struggling with a redesign decision for 2 weeks now and I finally made the decision and pulled the trigger on Tuesday. Now other team members are questioning my decision because I didn’t run through all of the possible bad scenarios—but I don’t roll like that. I can always undo a bad decision. It may cause some pain or some extra money, but it can be done. And yes, the inaction of making the decision held up other aspects of development, so we weren’t moving forward. I’m glad I made the call and I’m looking forward to seeing the results. Thanks again. It’s great advice!!