As leaders and managers, part of our responsibility is to find credible information to assist practical and informed decision-making. Unfortunately, decisions often have to be made on deadline — without all the necessary information available. Decision makers in these circumstances must leverage their management experience to estimate the likely risk-to-reward ratio of a business decision and act within their authority on limited information. How to make better decisions faster is a skill all leaders must learn, or else they may be left behind.
Indecision Is a Decision
From my own experiences, I have often observed leaders who are very uncomfortable making decisions without “all” the information. But to not make a decision is also a choice. In a competitive environment, indecision is the kiss of death: Situational opportunities get snatched up by competitors who are more adaptable and agile. Decisiveness now on an incomplete set of facts beats a perfectly informed decision later — provided the educated guess was close enough.
Military strategist Carl von Clausewitz coined the phrase “the fog of war” to describe uncertainty within the complex, high-stakes arena of military conflict. It addresses the complexities of gathering accurate and timely information in a constantly changing environment against thinking opponents.
Key to the “fog” metaphor is the importance of how to make command decisions faster with what little information one has. Fog is also everywhere; there is no place to hide from it. Indecision does not lie outside the Fog of War, but within.
In war, achieving goals requires maintaining momentum. Momentum requires action. The skilled commander must timely act within the Fog of War, maintaining momentum on limited information rather than losing by default to indecision.
No Perfect Decisions in the Fog of War
So why can’t people conceive of making better decisions in the absence of “all” the information? The simple answer is fear of making the wrong decision. With no information at all, this prudent caution is perfectly understandable. But there is no prudence in wasting time on an endless search for the “perfect decision” because it does not exist, except maybe in hindsight.
If there is no such thing as a time-constrained “perfect decision,” and if all decisions are time-constrained, making better decisions while maintaining momentum is the wiser course. A leader whose decisions are rash and ill-considered doesn’t stay a leader for long. Overcompensating for this, however, is no better.
What a wise leader will find is that the most effective balance lies closer to action. From my own experience in competitive environments, I’ve found that making faster decisions that are good 80% of the time beats 100% of the decisions made too late. Making better decisions while maintaining momentum creates the most reliable recipe for projects succeeding on time.
In the Fog of War, Information Is on a Budget
On a time budget, gathering data is not income but expense. To make better decisions, your information needs to be worth more than the time it takes to gather. For every data-gathering endeavor, ask yourself, “Am I gathering the right amount of the right data? Was the time I spent worth the cost?”
Sir Richard Branson once said, “There’s no such thing as perfect decision making — only hindsight can determine whether you made the ‘right call.’”
One of Branson’s techniques places greater emphasis on a small set of key questions, gathering the most accurate information possible on a small set of parameters to inform the broader decision. “Perfect information” on a narrow set of specifics is a viable technique — it’s the time budget that matters. If budgeting all the time on a narrow set of specifics provides a way to make better decisions faster, it’s a good method.
Too often, people appear to be gathering information without a good understanding of what decision it will influence. In these instances, people are most certainly busy; unfortunately, they are likely collecting the wrong information. Quantity without quality is wasteful spending of the time budget. Getting the right data and only the right data is how to make decisions faster.
4 Ways to Manage the Fog of War
As a trained leader, there are several things you can do to assist your team members so they spend the minimum of their precious time collecting the most valuable information:
- Prioritize your questions of fact. Determine what one must know versus what is nice to know. In some cases, a metric applied to the data itself might signal the end of the useful collection. Always place greater emphasis on answering questions that will determine go/no go criteria for the project.
- Route the right questions to the right stakeholders. Too often, we engage the wrong people with our critical questions. When engaging with subject matter experts, ensure that your question drives toward a decision and that you ask in language or vernacular appropriate to your audience, as words often mean different things to different professionals. Don’t make the common mistake of assuming every project manager knows complex engineering terminology.
- Streamline data collection toward specific questions targeted to make better decisions. Effective project managers adequately define the project scope and ensure the project remains oriented toward a measurable end-state. If you are collecting information that does not target how to make decisions faster, stop collecting it.
- Sequence your data collection to align toward project milestones. Get what you need most first. Do, however, keep one eye on preserving data you might need later.
Make Better Decisions Within the Fog of War
If you wait too long for too much information, you can miss critical opportunities as projects and situations evolve. The Fog of War will never part to reveal the perfect decision until it’s too late to matter. Do you have enough information to make a “good enough” decision now? Make it. Learn how to make decisions faster, and you’ll find you can make better decisions.
These principles inform our work at The Eighth Mile Consulting. We work with good people who are ready to take a critical inventory of their skills and make the changes necessary to become better leaders for their teams and businesses. If you’re facing the uncertainty of the Fog of War, we’re a good ally to have on your side. Take a look at our 8-week online leadership course and see how The Eighth Mile can help you make better decisions faster.
Jonathan Clark
Jonathan Clark is the director and co-founder of The Eighth Mile Consulting based in Sunshine Coast, Australia. Working with organisations, we facilitate change management, strategy development and risk management initiatives. We are good people, helping good people. We support positive projects and positive people.
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