Knowing When You Don’t Know Enough

Are you wrestling with an important decision—concerned that acting too soon could create costly mistakes, but waiting too long could allow the opportunity to disappear?

That is an uncomfortable place for any leader because certainty rarely arrives when a decision is required. Another piece of information might reveal something important—or merely provide another reason to delay.

How do we know when patience is improving our judgment and when waiting is preventing necessary action?

General Colin Powell reportedly used a practical guideline to navigate that uncertainty. He believed acting with less than approximately 40% of the available information was premature, while waiting until more than 70% was often too late.

One of the byproducts of playing competitive sports for many years is developing the ability and willingness to make decisions quickly with incomplete information.

In the middle of a game, there Heming is rarely time to stop, gather all the facts, consider every alternative, and carefully calculate the potential consequences.

You observe what is happening, draw on your preparation and experience, trust your instincts, and act.

The decision is made on the fly.

That decisiveness served me well beyond the athletic arena. In crisis situations throughout my career, I was generally comfortable taking charge and moving forward. If a decision proved incorrect, I would change direction and continue moving.

I lived by the belief that it is much easier to change the direction of a ship that is in the water than one that remains moored at the dock.

Movement creates options. Indecision creates none.

That approach paid dividends when circumstances required immediate action. While others were still trying to determine the perfect response, I was willing to make a decision and begin addressing the problem.

But the confidence to act quickly carried a hidden weakness.

Not every leadership decision is made in the middle of a game or during a crisis. Sometimes there is time to gather more information, hear another perspective, challenge an assumption, and consider the possible consequences.

Too often, I treated those decisions as if the clock were still running and an immediate response was required.

My decisiveness was well developed. My patience was not.

In my haste to move forward, I often relied too heavily on experience and gut instinct. I did not always take the time to analyze information that was already available to me.

I was not deciding quickly because the situation demanded it. I was deciding quickly because that was how I was most comfortable operating.

There is a significant difference.

Experience and instincts are valuable. They help us recognize patterns, anticipate problems, and act when others may hesitate.

But they are not infallible. Our instincts are shaped by what we have experienced, and they can sometimes cause us to rush to a conclusion or see only what confirms what we already believe.

There were times when greater patience would have allowed me to gather information that was available, involve people who saw the situation differently, and consider consequences I had not yet recognized.

As a result, I have made decisions that I later regretted.

Through experience, I learned that slowing down did not require abandoning my bias toward action. It required becoming more thorough before acting.

When I became more patient about gathering information and testing my assumptions, the quality of my decisions improved significantly.

I have worked with many leaders who struggled with the opposite problem.

They were extremely proficient at analyzing a situation. They gathered information, evaluated alternatives, anticipated consequences, and identified every conceivable risk.

But they were unwilling to pull the trigger without perfect information.

Perfect information rarely exists.

At some point, additional analysis stops improving the decision and begins postponing it. The opportunity narrows, the team loses momentum, and circumstances make the decision for us.

Great decision-making requires two complementary skills: decisiveness and analysis.

Strong leaders are patient enough to gather the information necessary to make an informed decision. They are also decisive enough to recognize when the information they possess is sufficient to move forward.

Patience does not mean waiting until every risk has disappeared. It means resisting the temptation to act before we have gathered what is reasonably available and considered what it might reveal.

Decisiveness does not mean acting before we are prepared. It means accepting that uncertainty will remain and moving forward anyway.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

Could you benefit from exhibiting a bit more patience before making an important
decision?
What might you learn—and what mistakes might you avoid—if you gathered more
information before acting?
Or are you waiting for certainty that will never arrive?

CHALLENGE

Gather what you reasonably can. Listen to what the information is telling you. Then trust
your judgment and act.