How Do You Make Decisions Quickly?

Slow decisions have killed more businesses than bad decisions ever will. Today's Q&A Wednesday's question is from Jalen, and he asks, how do I make decisions quickly? Jalen, I make a lot of decisions in one day, and most of the time it's very, very quick. It's probably one of my number one strengths as a founder. Nicole, on the other hand, my co-founder, is the opposite. She's a lot more slow and deliberate, and that's what makes us a good team. So we're going to talk about when to make quick decisions, when to take a little bit more time, because the actual decision matters most. So let's get into it, Nicole.

Yes, let's do it.

Nicole, be honest. What is it like to work with somebody who makes decisions quickly?

Well, I'm not going to lie. It's been a point of frustration for us. And I think something that we've had to grapple with in our time in business We've butted heads on this point over time. But I do think that we've come to a good place. And I think we're well positioned to discuss this question. Also because as you alluded to, we both approach decision-making in a different way.

Yeah. And I do believe that not all decisions are created equal. And I believe actually most decisions, probably like 90% of all your decisions don't require that much deliberation. And we'll talk about why. Are these decisions reversible and all that kind of stuff? So how do you like to make decisions?

Yeah, I think I need to address something that I've had. Maybe some viewers and listeners might resonate with this. I had a lot of negative talk around my decision-making. I've had people very close to me in the past, as a child, as a young adult, tell me that I was indecisive and kind of call me, pull me up on, come on, let's make a decision quicker than what I was making. Maybe taking my time on. I thought that was something that I was hardwired, uh, it was a hard— like a part of my personality that was hardwired. But I do think that over time I've come to see it as— well, I've come to reframe the situation as not someone who is indecisive— that's how I was labeled— but someone who does take more time to make a decision, someone who Is I feel like I make decisions a little bit more carefully, more thoughtfully, more deliberately. And like you said, we're not talking about every single decision. I'm talking about decisions that, you know, have more consequences behind them. So I felt like I just needed to say that because I've had a lot of negative self-beliefs around it, but I've seen it work for us. I've seen that, you know, our 2 approaches have actually been something that's helped the business. Yeah.

Yeah, and we're going to talk a little bit more later about some examples of these decisions being made fast and ones a little bit more deliberate. But I want to say from the start that we've mentioned this already a couple of times that not all decisions are created equal. One of my favorite frameworks is the one-door, two-door framework that I learned from Jeff Bezos in one of his articles and one of his books. He talks about this idea that most decisions in life are two-door decisions, which means that you can go through the door. If it doesn't work out, you can always go back out out the door and make a different decision. Very few things in life and in business are one-door decisions where you go in and it's gonna be incredibly hard for you to change that decision. You know, in life, that's like having a child or even a marriage. You know, it's a tough door to come out of. Yes, you can get a divorce and break up and things like that, but there's some serious consequences and costs to that. I believe in business, most decisions, Actually, you don't actually need to make most decisions. You should be outsourcing some of these decisions. You shouldn't be making every single decision. A lot of the energy and time that you spend in business should not be making decisions that are not going to make or break the business.

Mm-hmm.

On top of that, I believe that most business, most business decisions are two-door decisions, and you should get in the habit of being okay with making a decision and knowing that it might be wrong because it's okay. It's an experiment. You can learn from it. You can improve upon that decision next time around. And I actually learned a lot of this from playing poker because poker is all about making decisions and figuring out the outcome and then coming up with a better framework next time around and being okay with failing.

Yeah. You're talking about reversing the decision, walking back from the decision. And I think that's where I agree with you. And I think we're on the same page there. If you can walk back a decision pretty easily, then you're okay. Then you don't have to deliberate on it for too much, too long.

And the reason why I bring it up is because the business timing has a lot to do with your success in business. When it's not the right time, it's also how quickly you can make a decision so that you can be ahead of the competition. So, you can act upon your ideas and implement them as fast as possible so that you're ahead of the market. If you're taking too long and worried about making the wrong decision, you often lose out on opportunities. So, it's actually better for you to try and figure it out and, you know, If it works out, fantastic. If it doesn't work out, get out of that situation, start another decision as fast as possible.

Yes, and I agree with you. And I think where we differ is that you talk about your main framework. I think what you said is that you lead with the 2-door decision, the reversibility. I like to add another axis to my decision framework. And that's the, the relational impact, like, how is that decision, whether I walk back from it or not, how is it going to impact, um, whoever else could be impacted by it? I always think about— maybe that's where it's tripped me up a little bit— like the impact of my decision, the consequence of my decision on those around me. And so I think I always stop to pause, whereas— and that's where the frustration has been, I think, with you.

Give me an example.

Well, Okay, something quite fresh. It was a decision that happened that was taken yesterday in a meeting. So we've now launched a program that we're kicking off in September. It's called the Residency Program, where we'll bring a resident into the $100 MBA to work with us. We have already agreed on that project, and a lot of work has been done to set it all up so that we're ready to go. The first of the month. And yesterday we had a meeting with our team. And at that meeting, you introduced a new idea, which was that if it doesn't, you know, pan out after the first month, then we'll revisit the whole program.

Let me clarify.

Okay, clarify.

I didn't say pan out. I said, I think after the first month, we should have a meeting with the team because this is somebody coming from outside joining our office space And going to share the space with us. I think I said after the first experiment, the first month, we should meet as a team, all the actual people that work for the company, and decide unanimously if somebody's against the idea of continuing this. And like, what if the dynamic didn't work? Or like, uh, I can't concentrate or something. The team comes first before this program.

Mm-hmm.

It's kind of what I said. And I just wanted to make sure that, hey, we should allow ourselves to have an out and not just commit to something and grind our teeth. just because we said we're gonna do it.

Yeah, I know where you're coming from there. The only pushback that I have is that the way I see it is a decision was already made. And the 3-month commitment was what we felt would be the appropriate time to see out this experiment. And so introducing a new, what do we say, a new variable or just changing that?

A new decision.

Yeah, a new condition or a new decision. was, yeah, maybe it wasn't what I would have done. But I love the fact that we're able to talk about it just as we are now.

Yeah.

And that I think one of the things we've learned is that we, because we've been in business for so long, we've made decisions. We've both said, okay, that was, you know, maybe not the best decision. We've owned up to it. Not to be too precious, not to be too precious about if I'm wrong and or if you're wrong.

Yeah. I mean, again, I'm going to go back to the poker metaphor. Like there's a concept where you don't put good money after bad money. Like, just because you bet the first round preflop or whatever in poker, and then you realize, oh, maybe I don't have a good hand, you don't just double down and be like, oh, I'm going to keep spending money and keep spending my energy on something that I know already is maybe not going to be in my best interest. Like, you got to be willing to say, this is not worth it. Let's change course.

But how do you— how does that play against constantly revisiting your decisions? Because I do think that there's an element of like, once A decision has been made. And this is where I feel like, okay, if I've deliberated on a decision, like a project, right? And I've already spent that time, that thinking time, and now I've moved into execution, right? I feel that there are times when you start to renegotiate with yourself or revisit that original plan. And I don't know if that's— is that a good use of time? Can that maybe sometimes be a bit of like—

It's not a good use of time. Unless you have new information. If you have new information, if I say, hey, I'm gonna go in business with this person and I'm gonna commit to 3 years to be my business partner, and then 1 year later I find out, you know, they're an axe murderer, like, I'm not gonna commit to them anymore.

Okay, all right. I think, well, we have another example about this. Maybe that's— yeah, well, we shall see with this, uh, program because—

Yeah, well, what I'm saying is that, like, when you get new information, when you learn something new, You should use that data. You can't just like say, hey, I already committed, so I have to do it no matter what. Like, but if it's just like you in your head and you're just like, I'm umming and ahhing, just see it through because you committed to it. That's fine. If there's no new information when you made the decision in the first place, then you have real no data or no real credible reason to say that this is not worth committing to.

I don't see that, like with the case of, you know, the residency.

Yeah.

That, that new info, unless it's like something absolutely like, wow, this is absolutely going south. Like, no, this has to stop.

No, but that is new information. So, I'll give you a good example. So, we're doing the residency program for the first time. We have no idea how this is gonna go. We don't know if somebody's gonna be sneezing every 5 minutes. We don't know if they're gonna be like snooping around and looking around people's desks. We have no idea. Like, I always think of like all the weird things that could happen, right? They eat your lunch. We don't know, right? We find out some new information and then we meet with the team and somebody on the team or all the team says, you know what? I actually preferred it when we didn't have them in the room. The office. Am I gonna just say, guys, I hear you, but we're gonna do this for another 2 months and inconvenience you for another 2 months because we said we're gonna do that? Like, you're— we're in control. This is our world. This is our business. The whole point of being entrepreneur is to get to— you make the rules.

Okay, I feel like I can't win this one, but anyway, I'm just like gonna let it go. Let's just move on, even though I feel like I don't know if I agree with you, but okay.

All good, all good. That's the point, you can disagree. Okay, so let's talk about what about when it actually makes sense to make a slower decision where you have a little bit more to deliberate?

Yeah, I think for me, it's that axis. How reversible is this decision? Like how much can I walk back from it without it being too much of a, you know, Problematic. We'll give an example. And then the other frame, the other axis of that is the impact. And I think you might think about as an example, hiring and firing, right? It's hiring someone and then letting them go. It's something that's pretty easy to walk back. So it's not completely at the end of like not reversible.

But it does impact the team and the morale and all that.

It impacts, it could impact your reputation. It impacts morale, all these things. So yes, while you can walk back something pretty easily, I do think there's a benefit to factoring in something else other than just, I've got new information, I'm just going to change my mind. So I see it as like, well, how much of a detrimental impact is it going to have relationally?

Yeah. Well, give me an example of like you said hiring. Give me an example of when we made a decision quickly and we should have Maybe took a little bit more time?

Um, I, well, I have an example of when we didn't take our time. We took our time to let the person go, and I think that was a bit of a, you know, a bit of a blunder.

What time was that?

Well, it was during our software days. It was a team, a department that I was overseeing. We made a hire. We could have hired internally, but I'm just trying to remember now. I don't— either the person wasn't ready to step up into that role, or we might have not— we might have just decided to go with an external hire. And we hired someone who on paper had all the credentials and seemed like the right fit. And then pretty quickly into their time with us, we realized, oh, they're not the right fit for this role. And I think we took too long to let let them go because I think in that case, we did deliberate, but I would like to say that, oh, it's because I was thoughtful and giving the person a chance. But really, I think I didn't want to backtrack in front of the team and I thought maybe it would have shown poor leadership.

I also think that we didn't spend enough time in the hiring process. We didn't check enough references. We didn't talk to enough people to find out if they're a good fit for the team. if they had the particular experience we needed for our team. And we eventually hired somebody internally in our team. Yeah.

And it worked out.

And we promoted them and they were a rock star in their role before and they grew into the managerial role. It was great.

Yeah. I think I just wanted to like call out the fact that sometimes you're right. Like, if you— are you taking enough time? Are you slow walking a decision for the right reasons? I think in that case, We weren't.

Yeah, I do think that when it comes to hiring— hiring is a very good example because hiring, you're giving the keys to the business of somebody that you don't know, a stranger. And just to talk about this particular example, there's somebody externally coming to take a position in your business, and you might have somebody internally that probably could do the job Now, I like to use the framework that if you're gonna hire someone externally, from this experience, I learned this. If you're gonna hire someone externally, then they need to be at least 40% better than the people that are on your team. Mm-hmm. That, that could potentially take on this role. Why 40%? Because people's flaws are not listed on their CV. You don't know what you don't know.

Mm-hmm.

You know the good and bad of the people in your team. You know the, what their shortcomings are and what they need to be trained on. But somebody externally, they're just all positive.

Mm-hmm.

That's all you see. So it's a good framework and a good way to kind of think about, okay, what are those trade-offs of me bringing somebody outside? And hiring is a very important thing. That's why you should take your time in hiring. But once you do find out they're not a good fit, we, we should have fired much quicker.

Yes.

I hope you're enjoying today's episode, today's Q&A Wednesday's episode. If you want to continue to learn and you want to get the best of this podcast, you got to hit subscribe. That's the only way to do it. By subscribing, you're going to get our next upcoming episodes automatically. And the episode I really am excited about that's coming up soon is The 4-Hour Workweek. We revisit the book, The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. He wrote it back in 2007. And I talk about how that book kind of ruined a generation and how a lot of people misinterpreted this book. So, hit subscribe so you don't miss that episode. So, I want to get practical. So, Jalen, who's listening, everybody else who's listening, with 3 steps on how to make decisions and know which ones are the quick decisions and which ones are the ones that need a little bit more time and deliberation. So number one, I mentioned this before, we need to differentiate between the reversible and the irreversible decisions and where they land on the spectrum in those respective subjects.

Yeah.

Okay? So for example, choosing what type of snacks you're going to have in the office is a very low decision. It can be reversed. The snacks turn out to be bad, you lost $200, it's fine. You can make up for it the next time you order snacks. So, it's not something you need to spend too much time on. And in fact, it's not something that you should be making a decision in the first place. Like this, your time and energy needs to be spent on decisions that are going to impact the business in a bigger way. On the other hand, you know, if you're making a decision like hiring, like the place that you're going to rent out for your office, like a partnership that you're going to have, like a sponsor or even a vendor that you're going to have a relationship with for years to come, that's something that you need to really spend some time with.

Right. And as long as you've put careful deliberation into who you've hired to make that decision, like hiring, like buying the snacks, then you're all good to let that person make that decision.

Yes. And maybe not even like, you know, like they're gonna learn. It's okay. Like, I'm a big believer that when you hire people, you have to allow them to fail. Like, you can't just be like, no, no, don't do that. Like, you know, like they're never gonna learn. They're never gonna have a chance to feel autonomous. And because I feel like that's the best way to learn, by making decisions, realizing, oh, you know, no one ate these snacks. I should change it up. It's a weird example, but yeah. Number 2, you need to set a deadline for your decisions. Big decisions, you might need a little bit more time, maybe a week. Quick decisions, just trust your gut and make a decision. One of the things I always encourage you to do more of is to trust your gut. Sometimes I feel like you need to do that a little bit more. And I feel like sometimes you maybe want to get more information before you make a decision.

Yes, that's true.

I feel like you have a very good sense of intuition. You should utilize it more.

I agree. I think that's the gut check I think people don't rely on as much. And I think it's just that default of wanting to have as much information and making sure that I've made the right decision. But I think as I've gotten older, as I've had more experience, I've realized, okay, this is very much like this decision. I think that's the benefit also of having more years of experience in business than otherwise, is that you recognize a very similar situation.

And I think that people are different. I think some people like came into entrepreneurship because they like just making decisions. They like, you know, having the autonomy to just like, yep, that's what I want. This is what I do. They're very opinionated, you know. I would put myself in that bucket.

Yes.

And some people, they're a little bit more deliberate. So, this is a little bit more of their challenge. So, this is why the deadline is so important. Set yourself a deadline, whether it's 1 hour, if it's something that's like a medium thing, or a week, if it's like, you know, you're checking references, you're making a hire, and you want to think if they're good, maybe you want to interview a couple more people before you make a decision. That's really important. So, that deadline really matters.

I think we've been really good at doing that, even as simple as like time blocking. And I think this is how we've managed to do time blocking, you know, amount of time in our calendar to make a decision on something.

Right.

And that's like, well, let's discuss it. But we know at the end of that discussion meeting, whatever, it's a 15-minute meeting block on our calendar, that we're going to make the decision on that. And I think that's really helpful for anyone that does tend to sit on decisions like I did. And I think over time, so that we could find a happy medium, we would just choose a time of the day that we're going to discuss this, and then we're going to come out with the decision at the end of that discussion.

Right. And number 3, deciding once you have 70% or more of the information you need to make a decision. You're not going to ever have 100% of the information. You can't predict the future. Otherwise, you're going to be flawless. You're like, it's impossible, right? So, whatever comes first, the deadline or you have 70% of the information. Sometimes you have 70% of the information without any deadline, like right in that moment. Just make the decision. It's okay, especially if it's a 2-door decision, because that's pretty good odds. Pretty good odds of 70%. And the reason why I say 70% is because a lot of people think about decisions in the short term. You need to start thinking about decisions in the long term. What does that mean? So, say for example, I'm making the same decision 10 times, right? If 70% of the time I'm going to be right, that means that 7 out of 10 times I'm going to make the right decisions. Yeah, 3 times I'm going to get it wrong. But I'm twice more likely to make the right decision if I'm just using this framework. That means that like, it's OK, I could take the losses because 70% of the time I'm winning. Does that make sense?

That sounds like a poker analogy to me. No.

So, you're making it— if I'm using the same framework, as long as I have 70% of the information, I have a good chance of making a solid decision because not 100%, but I have enough information to make a decision.

The way I see that is I think everyone is different. And for every, like, big decision in life, whether it's changing career, moving country, uh, I think it's relative how much you feel like you need to know about the situation. Like, what this, you know, could look like if I go down this path.

Mm-hmm.

I think that's going to be different for everyone. But I— but where your point is, Is that you should never expect to have all the information because there's no such thing as, like, you can't know what's on the other side.

And I'm saying from my experience, 70% is generous. Like, to have that much information on a decision, to know everything about, like, if you are making a hire, for example, you're not going to know everything. Like, their own husband or wife doesn't know everything.

Yeah.

Like, so it's hard to have all the pieces of the puzzle. So as long as you have 70%, You can make a decision. And what I'm saying is that over time, because you're doing this framework, you're just gonna make more right decisions than wrong decisions, which means you're gonna be ahead in business.

Mm-hmm. Okay.

Now, I just wanna get really real with Jalen who asked today's question. Everybody who's listening, the real reason why your decision-making is slow is because of your fear of failure. A lot of people take a lot of time to make a decision cuz they're so terrified of being wrong or making the wrong decision. What I found is that spending the right amount of time or not as much time as you think is needed will allow you to make a decision. If it's wrong, you'll learn quickly and you'll be able to learn from that decision and make a different decision that is going to help you to move closer to your goals. In the meantime, if you took months to make this decision, you learn nothing and you waste a bunch of time and it just slows you down. Here's the thing that really sprung me into action when I learned this is that I cannot compete with my competition in my field, in my business, if I'm taking forever to make a decision when they're making quick decisions, moving fast. Mark Zuckerberg, love him or hate him, he has a very famous quote. He says, Facebook grew because we built and broke things and figured things out. It's OK to break things to learn what doesn't work. Failing is not the end of the world. I know that it's been drilled in our head from school like failure is bad and getting an F and all that kind of stuff. But in business, it's actually tuition. It's a good way for not tuition, but tuition. Yeah, it's yeah. I'm thinking about like fees tuition. No, failure is is one of the greatest teachers. One of the reasons why failing is so good at teaching you something is because it hurts. When something hurts, you remember it. You know, this is why when we go to hiring, one of our rules is that if you hire somebody, if you make the decision to hire somebody or somebody on our team. Makes a decision to hire somebody and it turns out to be the wrong hire, it's their job to fire them. They have to have that conversation with that employee. Why? Because they need to feel that burn so that when they go to hire next time, they're like, I better check my references. I better make a better decision and be a little bit more deliberate because I don't want to experience that again. So, just to get a little bit more practical, if you're making a decision, in my opinion, and you want to figure out how much time to spend on the decision, ask yourself, Is this decision reversible? And what's the cost of a wrong decision? Is it going to cost me a lot of time and money and energy? Is it going to be a heartache? If not so much, if it's not that bad, then just make a quick decision. It's okay. It's not the end of the world. You can learn from it. If it's going to cost you a bit, then spend a little bit more time and deliberate a little bit before you invest in your time and money in that decision.

I think there's also an awareness. Like, you— I like the idea of reflecting on decisions, whether they turn out well or they turn out badly or poorly, because I think it serves you as a guide in future to make those other similar decisions quicker.

Yeah.

Like, if something went wrong, what happened? Was it something that was out of my control? Was I too hasty? Was it that I misjudged? You'll learn a lesson, like, from If something didn't turn out, I feel like anytime something's gone wrong or south in a decision that I've made, I've taken a moment to analyze why. And then that gives me feedback next time something, you know, a similar decision comes around and I kind of look out for those reasons, recognizing patterns.

So, to wrap up today's episode, decisions matter. Let's not just forget that the decisions that you make have a direct correlation with the outcomes that you will have in your business. So, one of the things I want to remind people of when I say, just figure out if this is a decision that needs a lot of time, is that decision-making is a muscle that you need to exercise. So, the more decisions that you can make, the more you're going to get better at it. The more you're going to get comfortable with trusting your gut, the more you're going to understand, wait, I need a little bit more research. I need to ask a few questions. I need to check some references. So, just get in the habit of the fact that, hey, I need to get better at this, just like I need to get better at anything else, other skills in my business. And as a founder, as a leader of your business, your ultimate job is to make sound decisions. I remember listening to an interview with Warren Buffett, who's obviously a multi-billionaire, and he says that my number one activity is making a few important decisions a month. That's it. He just makes a few decisions. That's all he does for a living, really. And those decisions impact everything that he does with his investments. So, You have to look at yourself. Now, we're not all Warren Buffetts, but you have to look at yourself and say, hey, what impactful decisions can I make in my business that will change the trajectory where I'm going and where the company is going? That wraps up today's episode. Nicole, thanks for being here and thanks for helping me out. If you want to continue learning, just scroll back on whatever app you're using right now. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube. We have a recent episode on how to choose which business to start. If you're not sure which business, which is a decision, then this is going to be a great episode for you. Go ahead and check it out.

Thanks, Omar.

Thanks so much for tuning in and being part of Q&A Wednesday. Remember, if you have a question, you could submit it over at 100mba.net/q and we'll answer it right here on the show. Thanks, Nicole.

Thanks.

Bye.