Response to 'Is fast the new right?'
One of the perks of having interviewed Jim Collins is that his email is still near at hand. The chance may be remote, but I asked him if he would comment on Ben's post and subsequent comments.
My take is this — I don't think you'll find many people arguing with this point:
I assert that the failure to make decisions in a timely manner is just as bad as (and possibly worse than) the failure to make the quote-unquote right decisions.
"Timely manner," of course, is a highly subjective term. But before we dig too much deeper, let's make this assumption: We're talking about big decisions here. It's not should we close the exhibit hall for the last day of the annual meeting, but rather, should we replace the annual meeting with something else?
I liked Fred Simmons' comment (although I confess to not knowing what ROFL means -- oh, and if it's not rated G or PG, don't tell me) — not too many associations will be accused of making major decisions quickly. I'm not sure we've ever met an issue that setting up a committee or task force couldn't slow down.
But back to Ben's point. You could stop on Collins' point and compare it to, say, Tom Peters' commitment to the principle of "Ready. Fire. Aim" and think the two are in opposition. I choose to think they're not necessarily that different. And at the risk of dropping too many names and sounding all swarmingly intellectual, I think of a section of the book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell when I reconcile these approaches. The masterfully prosaic title of the chapter is "Paul van Riper's Big Victory: Creating Structure for Spontaneity." Collins = structure, Peters = spontaneity.
The whole chapter informs this idea pretty well, but one part talks about how Cook County Hospital revolutionized emergency room procedures. It's too complex a story to get a real flavor for it, but the two-sentence synopsis is that diagnosing chest pain was a major headache and rife with inaccuracies until Brendan Reilly collapsed the battery of symptoms and risk factors into just four or five. Costs plummeted and accuracy skyrocketed. The point is, there is a need for quick decisive action, but it needs to be informed.
Another assumption I make is that you cannot know whether or not your decision is the "right" decision before you make it. I also agree with Ben that right and wrong is too simplistic a way to think about decisions, because one decision only leads to needing to make more decisions and then more decisions, etc. I call that execution. There are a couple of dangers here. First, if things turn out badly, you never know which of the decisions is the culprit. The Peters' philosophy would be better described as "Ready. Fire. Aim. Fire. Aim. Fire. Aim..." You constantly need to assess the situation and aim again. Second, no amount of data will ever ensure that a decision is the best one.
Being successful means making smart decisions. Data can be very paralyzing. It is almost always true that for complex issues data does not give an answer. It informs opinions. Speed is another component and no less important. Smart decisions are made when you gather only the data you need, and you make that decision so you can move on to the next one.
I agree with Ben in that everyone should question whether or not they are making decisions fast enough to remain relevent. But I disagree that fast necessarily equals right (though I could see the argument for the opposite being true, that slow is definitely wrong). You do have to make fast decisions. And they do have to be right. Sounds hard, but I think by definition success is not easy (or does that statement call for another blog post?).
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Comments
For me, what is still missing is an explicit discussion of the role of learning in decision-making. Perhaps we don't talk about it because we know that most organizations aren't very good at it. Perhaps we don't talk about it because we still see it as soft. Whatever the reasons, we need to bring it front and center into this dialogue.
In my comment to Ben's post, I invoked the overused phrase "paradigm shift" because, after so many years of misuse and abuse, I finally do believe these words accurately describe the nature of the change occurring in society today. I use paradigm shift as a shorthand for "profound, accelerating and intensifying disruption and discontinuity," the emerging systemic condition that makes it much harder for leaders to get decision "right" in the way we have understood that word in the past. As Scott suggests above, rather than making the right decisions in absolute terms, leaders operating in this environment must be willing to accept a certain lesser degree of right, on the premise that the decision itself will trigger the rest of the system to make choices that may ultimately render the original decision either partially or wholly wrong. Instead of "absolutely right," I think we're talking about "right enough" to proceed.
This is where learning comes in. Rather than paying lip service to learning, leaders must get serious about their own learning, as well as the capacity for learning in their organizations. When individuals and organizations develop a capability for on-going learning, they can make decisions more rapidly and with greater confidence because they know they will continue to address the still-fluid outcomes of those choices in the short term, rather than wait to deal with the dire consequences of their decisions once they are set in stone in the long term. For me, it is the learning mindset that is the most significant element of the decision-making discipline today and going forward.
From an innovation perspective, my "wrong is the new right" comment to Ben's original post is a thought experiment that emphasizes the necessity of learning. I want to challenge us to question the underlying premise that getting things right by some non-existent objective standard is the only pathway to success. In associations, as in many organizations, we often view decisions as wrong because they run counter to the prevailing orthodoxy. Can the unorthodox path involve making more mistakes than most but still yield a "right" outcome? Absolutely, but it is a much more difficult path to pursue.
Scott and Ben, thanks for sparking this conversation. I hope it continues. And Scott...
ROFL=rolling on the floor laughing
Posted by: Jeff De Cagna | January 11, 2007 12:15 PM