I guess my takeaway is to understand your options, understand the timeline, understand what success and failure looks like and then work like a dog to satisfy your selection criteria for a decision.

@ David – I agree that decisions have an NPV and waiting costs more. Your comparison of a decision sitting around with an employee sitting around doing nothing really drives home the problem of not making decisions. The more we leave decisions ‘loitering’ the more trouble we ask for.

Thanks for your comments. -Michael

Indecision is accepting the cost of abating the problem, or accepting the loss of the revenue that the decision faced. Either way, the real outcome of indecision isn’t straight and normal flight, or growth. The real outcome is down, and down faster. “Are we vertical yet?”

A guy I worked with told me that if he didn’t make the decision, his boss would eat him alive. It didn’t matter if he made a good or bad decision, as long as it was made and committed to.

Time shapes all decisions. Time shapes all costs. If you practice cost management, then you have to make that decision immediately. A decision has an NPV. Waiting costs more and earns less. Waiting multiplies the downside.

If an employee sits at their desk all day doing nothing, most managers wouldn’t tolerate it. So why is it we tolerate decisions sitting at our desk doing nothing for days, months, quarters, years and years on end?

“Hey, you, decision 423, clean out your desk, you’re fired!” Get security. Decisions tend to loiter on the way out.