Inc. includes an article: “How to Make Better Decisions, Faster—Daniel Kahneman, John Smoltz, and A.J. Pierzynski on why data and analysis are important, as long as you also develop a feel for whatever game you play” by Jeff Haden.
Contemplation and reflection are important, but nothing ever gets done until you actually get started. In business (and in life), a bias toward action is important.
That's why Jeff Bezos thinks most decisions should be made when you don't have all the information you wish you had.
As Bezos says: Many decisions are reversible, two-way doors. Those decisions can use a light-weight process. Most decisions should probably be made with somewhere around 70 percent of the information you wish you had.
Some decisions are consequential and irreversible or nearly irreversible -- one-way doors -- and these decisions must be made methodically, carefully, slowly, with great deliberation and consultation. If you walk through and don't like what you see on the other side, you can't get back to where you were before.
But most decisions aren't like that -- they are changeable, reversible -- they're two-way doors. If you've made a suboptimal two-way door decision, you don't have to live with the consequences for that long. You can reopen the door and go back through.
He's right. Most decisions are reversible. But some aren’t.
Like which pitch to throw, and where, a decision made over two hundred times a game by Major League Baseball pitchers. Once released, you can't get that pitch back -- and you have to deal with the consequences.
decisions became more difficult when MLB instituted the pitch clock, a 15-second timer (20 if a runner is on base) designed to speed up the game's pace of play.
It's definitely worked. So far this year, the average game is 26 minutes shorter, and whether causal or not, game attendance and TV ratings are also up.
But what about all the pitchers and catchers who have to make one-way door decisions in response to tighter time frames and shrinking "deadlines"? The same thing happens in business. Once you have the basic skills required to run a business, decision-making skills are often what separate great entrepreneurs from good entrepreneurs.
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