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The $3.2 Million Question: Why Smart People Make Terrible Decisions (And How I Finally Stopped Being One of Them)
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There's a particular type of paralysis that hits high-achievers like a freight train, and I should know—I spent the better part of 2019 watching a $3.2 million contract slip through my fingers because I couldn't decide between two equally qualified vendors.
The irony wasn't lost on me. Here I was, a business consultant who'd spent fifteen years helping companies streamline their decision-making processes, and I was sitting in my office at 2 AM, staring at two proposals, creating endless comparison spreadsheets that nobody asked for. My team was waiting. The client was getting antsy. And I was... researching.
Again.
The Myth of Perfect Information
Here's what nobody tells you about indecisiveness: it's not about lacking information. It's about being terrified of making the wrong choice when you already have enough information to make a good one. We've created this fantasy that somewhere out there exists the perfect piece of data that will make our decision obvious.
Spoiler alert: it doesn't exist.
I learned this the hard way during my early days consulting for a mid-sized manufacturing company in Brisbane. The CEO—let's call him Dave—had been "evaluating" a new warehouse management system for eighteen months. Eighteen months! His team had prepared reports, conducted trials, and even brought in three different vendors for demonstrations. But Dave kept asking for "just one more analysis."
The competition analysis. The risk assessment. The five-year projection. The ten-year projection. The "what if our industry completely changes" scenario.
Meanwhile, his current system was literally held together with duct tape and prayers. I watched perfectly good inventory disappear into a black hole of inefficiency while Dave continued his quest for decision-making perfection.
That's when I realised something crucial: indecisiveness isn't about being careful. It's about being scared.
The Real Cost of Overthinking
Let me be brutally honest here—indecisiveness is expensive. Not just in the obvious ways (missed opportunities, delayed projects, frustrated teams), but in ways that don't show up on your quarterly reports.
There's the psychological cost of carrying unresolved decisions around like mental luggage. There's the opportunity cost of resources tied up in endless evaluation cycles. And there's the reputational cost when people start viewing you as someone who can't pull the trigger when it matters.
I once worked with a company where the leadership team spent six months debating whether to implement managing difficult conversations training after a series of workplace conflicts. Six months! By the time they finally decided, they'd lost two valuable team members who simply got tired of working in a toxic environment.
The training cost? $15,000.
The cost of replacing those two employees? Try $180,000 when you factor in recruitment, onboarding, and lost productivity.
But here's the kicker—the same leadership team could approve a $50,000 office renovation in a single meeting. Priorities, right?
The Perfectionist's Paradox
This is where I'm going to say something that might ruffle some feathers: perfectionism is often just procrastination wearing a fancy suit.
I see this constantly in my consulting work. Executives who demand detailed feasibility studies for a $20,000 software purchase but will drop $80,000 on a trade show booth based on a thirty-minute conversation with a sales rep. It's not about the money—it's about emotional comfort zones.
Financial decisions feel safe because they're quantifiable. Strategy decisions feel terrifying because they involve judgment calls about the future. So we hide behind analysis paralysis and convince ourselves we're being thorough when we're actually being scared.
There's a difference between due diligence and decision avoidance. Due diligence has a timeline and clear criteria. Decision avoidance is just an endless loop of "what if" scenarios that never lead anywhere productive.
The 70% Rule (And Why It Works)
After my $3.2 million wake-up call, I developed what I now call the 70% Rule. If you have 70% of the information you think you need, and the decision is reversible or adjustable, make the bloody decision.
Not 85%. Not 90%. Certainly not 100%.
Seventy percent.
Here's why this works: that last 30% of information usually takes 80% of your time to gather, and half of it will be wrong anyway because business environments change faster than research cycles.
I tested this approach with a client in Perth who was agonising over a new CRM system. Instead of the usual six-month evaluation process, we gave ourselves four weeks to gather the essential information and made a decision. Was it perfect? No. Did it work? Absolutely.
More importantly, we had eight months to optimise and adjust the system instead of eight months to think about it.
The results spoke for themselves: customer response times improved by 40%, and sales tracking became actually useful instead of theoretically comprehensive.
Why Fast Decisions Beat Perfect Decisions
There's something magical that happens when you start making faster decisions: you get better at making decisions. It's like a muscle that strengthens with use.
I started implementing this philosophy across all areas of my business. Vendor selection? Two weeks maximum. Staff hiring? Three interviews, then decide. Office location? Visit five options, then choose.
Did I make some suboptimal choices? Of course. But here's what surprised me: the so-called "mistakes" were usually fixable, and the time I saved by deciding quickly allowed me to course-correct faster than if I'd spent months deliberating.
Take my office relocation decision from last year. I had two good options in Melbourne's CBD. Instead of spending weeks comparing lease terms and calculating foot traffic patterns, I chose the one with better natural light because—and this might shock some people—happy employees are more productive than theoretical cost savings.
Was it the "optimal" financial decision? Probably not. Has our team productivity increased noticeably? Absolutely.
Sometimes good enough is actually better than perfect.
The Action Bias Advantage
Here's where I'll probably lose some of the analytical types reading this, but I believe there's tremendous value in developing what psychologists call "action bias"—the tendency to favour action over inaction when facing uncertainty.
Now, I'm not talking about reckless decision-making or shooting from the hip on major strategic choices. I'm talking about breaking the cycle of endless evaluation that prevents good decisions from happening at all.
I worked with a startup founder who spent four months choosing between two equally qualified marketing agencies. Four months! Meanwhile, her competitors were actually marketing their products and gaining market share.
When she finally made a choice (I may have threatened to resign if she didn't), the results were almost immediate. Not because the chosen agency was dramatically better than the alternative, but because they were finally doing something instead of planning to do something.
The agency they chose increased their lead generation by 200% in the first quarter. Could the other agency have done better? Maybe. But it doesn't matter because they were never going to find out while stuck in analysis mode.
Breaking the Research Addiction
Let's address the elephant in the room: some of us are addicted to research. We've convinced ourselves that one more report, one more opinion, one more data point will magically transform an uncertain decision into an obvious one.
It won't.
I see this particularly with time management initiatives. Companies will spend months researching productivity methodologies, comparing software options, and surveying employees about their preferences. Meanwhile, their teams are drowning in inefficiency.
Here's a radical thought: pick a reasonable system and implement it. If it doesn't work perfectly, adjust it. If it really doesn't work, try something else.
The worst time management system that's actually being used is infinitely better than the perfect time management system that exists only in research documents.
The Decision-Making Framework That Actually Works
After nearly two decades in business consulting, I've developed a simple framework that cuts through the noise:
Step 1: Define what "good enough" looks like. Before you start gathering information, establish your minimum criteria for success. This prevents the goalposts from moving during your evaluation process.
Step 2: Set a decision deadline. Not a "we'll probably decide around" timeline, but an actual date with consequences. Tell people. Put it in calendars. Make it real.
Step 3: Gather information with purpose. Every piece of research should answer a specific question that relates to your "good enough" criteria. If it doesn't, don't waste time on it.
Step 4: Make the decision and communicate it clearly. This includes the reasoning behind your choice and what success will look like going forward.
Step 5: Plan for adjustment. Most decisions aren't permanent. Build in review points and be prepared to course-correct based on real-world results.
This framework has saved my clients hundreds of hours and probably millions of dollars in opportunity costs. More importantly, it's helped them become more confident decision-makers overall.
The Confidence Side Effect
Here's something interesting that happens when you start making faster decisions: your confidence grows exponentially. Each decision you make—even the imperfect ones—proves that you can handle uncertainty and move forward despite incomplete information.
This confidence spills over into other areas of your leadership. Your team starts trusting your judgment more. Clients respect your decisiveness. Vendors stop trying to oversell you because they know you'll make a choice and stick with it.
I've seen this transformation countless times in my consulting work. The executives who learn to make faster decisions consistently outperform their more cautious counterparts, not because they're smarter or have better information, but because they're actually making decisions while others are still researching.
Why This Matters More Than Ever
In today's business environment, the cost of slow decision-making has never been higher. Markets shift quarterly, not annually. Customer expectations evolve monthly, not yearly. Technology becomes obsolete faster than you can implement it.
The companies that thrive are the ones that can adapt quickly, and adaptation requires decision-making speed. You can't pivot if you're still stuck in committee meetings debating whether to pivot.
I recently worked with a retail client who saw the writing on the wall regarding e-commerce growth. Instead of spending months evaluating platforms and conducting market research, they chose a solid option and launched within six weeks.
Was their initial online store perfect? Not even close. But they were selling online while their competitors were still forming focus groups. By the time the "perfect" solutions launched six months later, my client had already captured significant market share and optimised their approach based on actual customer data.
Real-world feedback beats theoretical perfection every single time.
The Bottom Line
Indecisiveness isn't a character flaw—it's a habit. And like any habit, it can be changed with conscious effort and consistent practice.
The goal isn't to become reckless or impulsive. It's to become comfortable with uncertainty and confident in your ability to adjust course when needed. It's to recognise that most business decisions are reversible, adjustable, or at least survivable.
Most importantly, it's to understand that the perfect decision you never make is infinitely worse than the good decision you make today.
That $3.2 million contract I mentioned at the beginning? I eventually lost it to a competitor who made a faster decision with less information. They weren't necessarily better than my options—they were just quicker to commit.
The lesson learned? Sometimes being decisive is more valuable than being right.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a decision to make about lunch, and I'm giving myself exactly three minutes to choose.
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