How Do You Make Decisions Quickly?

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1:43Mazda has been named Consumer Reports' safest new car brand. It starts with our approach. Every Mazda comes standard with proactive safety features. So you're more aware of what's around you, more focused on the road ahead and ready before problems ever start. Mazda, more of what matters most to you. Go to MazdaUSA.com to learn more. Consumer Reports does not endorse or promote any product. Slow decisions have killed more businesses than bad decisions ever will. Today's Q &A Wednesday's question is from Jalen, and he asks, how do I make decisions quickly? Jalen, I make a lot of decisions in one day, and most of the time it's very, very quick.

2:28It's probably one of my number one strengths as a founder. Nicole, on the other hand, my co-founder, is the opposite. She's a lot more slow and deliberate, and that's what makes us a good team. So we're going to talk about when to make quick decisions, when to take a little bit more time, because the actual decision matters most. So let's get into it, Nicole. Let's do it.

2:53Welcome back to the$100 MBA show. I'm your host, Omar Zinhome, where I deliver practical business lessons three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to help you start, grow, and scale your business. Hey, if this show has helped you in any way, it would be amazing if you dropped us a quick review on whatever app you're using right now to listen to this podcast. It helps me and my team bring you new episodes every week. And more importantly, more entrepreneurs will be able to discover the podcast so you can help someone else start their journey. Nicole, be honest. What is it like to work with somebody who makes decisions quickly?

3:29Well, I'm not going to lie. It's been a point of frustration for us. And I think something that we've had to grapple with in our time in business, we've butted heads on this point over time. But I do think that we've come to a good place. And I think we're well positioned to discuss this question. Also, because as you alluded to, we both approach decision making in a different way. Yeah, I do believe that not all decisions are created equal. And I believe actually most decisions, probably like 90 % of all your decisions don't require that much deliberation. And we'll talk about why and are these decisions reversible and all that kind of stuff.

4:06So how do you like to make decisions? Yeah, I think I need to address something that I've had maybe some viewers and listeners might resonate with this. I had a lot of negative talk around my decision making. I've had people very close to me in the past, you know, as a child, as a young adult, tell me that I was indecisive and kind of call me, pull me up on, you know, come on, let's make a decision, you know, quicker than what I was maybe taking my time on. And I thought that was something that I was hardwired. It was a hard, like a part of my personality that was hardwired. But I do think that over time, I've come to see it as, well, I've come to reframe the situation as not someone who is indecisive, that's how I was labeled, but someone who does take more time to make a decision.

4:57Someone who is, I feel like I make decisions a little bit more carefully, more thoughtfully, more deliberately. And like you said, it's the obvious that we're not talking about every single decision. I'm talking about decisions that, you know, have more consequences behind them. So I felt like I just needed to say that because I've had a lot of negative self-beliefs around it, but I've seen it work for us. I've seen that, you know, our two approaches have actually been something that's helped the business. Yeah. And we're going to talk a little bit more later about some examples of, you know, these decisions made fast and one's a little bit more deliberate.

5:33But I want to say from the start that we've mentioned this already a couple times that, you know, not all decisions are created equal. One of my favorite frameworks is the one door, two door framework that I learned from Jeff Bezos in one of his articles and one of his books. He talks about this idea that most decisions in life are two door decisions, which means that you can go through the door. If it doesn't work out, you can always go back out the door and make a different decision. Very few things in life and in business are one door decisions where you go in And it's going to be incredibly hard for you to change that decision.

6:05You know, in life, that's like having a child or even a marriage. You know, it's a tough door to come out of. Yes, you can get a divorce and breakup and things like that. But there's some serious consequences and costs to that. I believe in business. Most decisions, actually, you don't actually need to make most decisions. You should be outsourcing some of these decisions. You should be making every single decision. A lot of the energy and time that you spend in business should not be making decisions that are not going to make or break the business. On top of that, I believe that most business decisions are two-door decisions.

6:36And you should get in the habit of being okay with making a decision and knowing that it might be wrong because it's okay. It's an experiment. You can learn from it. You can improve upon that decision next time around. And I actually learned a lot of this from playing poker because poker is all about making decisions and figuring out the outcome and then coming up with a better framework next time around and being okay with failing. Yeah, you're talking about reversing the decision, walking back from the decision. And I think that's where I agree with you. And I think we're on the same page there.

7:05You know, if you can walk back a decision pretty easily, then you're okay. Then you don't have to deliberate on it for too long. And the reason why I bring it up is because the timing has a lot to do with your success in business. It's not the right time. It's also how quickly you can make a decision so that you can be ahead of the competition. So you can act upon your ideas and implement them as fast as possible so that you're ahead of the market. if you're taking too long and worried about making the wrong decision you often lose out on opportunities so it's actually better for you to try and figure it out and you know if it works out fantastic if it doesn't work out get out of that situation start another decision as fast as possible yes and i agree with you and i think where we differ is that you talk about your main framework i think what you said is that you lead with the two-door decision the reversibility i I like to add another access to my decision framework.

7:55And that's the relational impact. Like how is that decision, whether I walk back from it or not, how is it going to impact whoever else could be impacted by it? I always think about maybe that's where it stripped me up a little bit, like the impact of my decision, the consequence of my decision on those around me. And so I think I always stop to pause. And that's where the frustration has been, I think, with you. Give me an example. Well, okay, something quite fresh. It was a decision that happened that was taken yesterday in a meeting. So we've now launched a program that we're, you know, kicking off in September.

8:37It's called the residency program where we'll bring a resident into the$100 MBA to work with us. We have already agreed on that project and a lot of work has been done to set it all up so that we're ready to go the first of the month. And yesterday we had a meeting with our team. And at that meeting, you introduced a new idea, which was that if it doesn't pan out after the first month, then we'll revisit the whole program. Let me clarify. Okay, clarify. I didn't say pan out. I said, I think after the first month, we should have a meeting with the team because this is somebody coming from outside, joining our office space and going to share the space with us.

9:20I think I said after the first experiment, the first month, we should meet as a team, all the actual people that work for the company and decide unanimously if somebody is against the idea of continuing this and like, what if the dynamic didn't work or like, I can't concentrate or something. The team comes first before this program. It's kind of what I said. And I just wanted to make sure that, hey, we should allow ourselves to have an out and not just commit to something and grind our teeth just because we said we're going to do it. I know where you're coming from there. The only pushback that I have is that the way I see it is a decision was already made and the three month commitment was what we felt would be the appropriate time to see out this experiment.

10:01And so introducing a new, what do we say, a new variable or just changing a new condition or a new decision was, yeah, maybe wasn't what I would have done, but I love the fact that we're able to talk about it just as we are now. And that I think one of the things we've learned is that we, because we've been in business for so long, we've made decisions. We both said, okay, I, that was, you know, maybe not the best decision. We've owned up to it, not to be too precious, not to be too precious about if I'm wrong or if you're wrong. Yeah. I mean, again, I'm going to go back to the poker metaphor.

10:39Like there's a concept where you don't put good money after bad money. Like just because you bet the first round pre-flop or whatever in poker and you realize, oh, maybe I don't have a good hand. You don't just double down and be like, oh, I'm going to keep spending money and keep spending my energy on something that I know already is maybe not going to be in my best interest. Like you got to be willing to say, this is not worth it. Let's change the course. But how does that kind of play against constantly revisiting your decisions? Because I do think that there's an element of like once a decision has been made and this is where I feel like, OK, if I've deliberated on a decision, like a project.

11:17Right. And I've already spent that time, that thinking time, and now I've moved into execution. Right. I feel that there are times when you start to renegotiate with yourself or revisit that original plan. And I don't know if that's, is that a good use of time? Can that maybe sometimes be a bit of like. It's not a good use of time unless you have new information. If you have new information, if I say, hey, I'm going to go in business with this person and I'm going to commit to three years to be my business partner. And then one year later, I find out, you know, they're an ax murderer. Like, I'm not going to commit to them anymore.

11:50OK, all right. I think, well, we have another example about this. Maybe that's, you know, we shall see with this program. What I'm saying is that, like, when you get new information, when you learn something new, you should use that data. You can't just like say, hey, I already committed, so I have to do it no matter what. But if it's just like you in your head and you're just like, I'm just see it through because you committed to it. That's fine. If there's no information when you made the decision in the first place and you have real no data or no real credible reason to say that this is not worth committing to.

12:22I don't see that like with the case of, you know, the residency. Yeah. Yeah. That that new, unless it's like something absolutely like, wow, this is absolutely going south. Like, no, this has to stop. No, but that is new information. I'll give you a good example. So we're doing the residency program for the first time. We have no idea how this is going to go. We don't know if somebody is going to be sneezing every five minutes. We don't know if they're going to be like snooping around and looking around people's desk. We have no idea. Like I always think of like all the weird things that could happen.

12:51Right. They eat your lunch. We don't know. Right. We find out some new information and then we meet with the team and somebody on the team or all the team says, you know what? I actually preferred it when we didn't have them in the office. Am I going to just say, guys, I hear you, but we're going to do this for another two months and inconvenience you for another two months because we said we're going to do that. Like, we're in control. This is our world. This is our business. The whole point of being an entrepreneur is you make the rules. I feel like I can't win this one. But anyway, I'm just going to let it go.

13:21Let's just move on. even though I feel like, I don't know if I agree with you, but... Okay. All good. All good. That's the point. You can disagree. Investing with Schwab is like spending a Saturday at a great farmer's market. You can fill your reusable tote with a bit of everything. Maybe you go for some free-range, self-directed investing, or perhaps you pick up a few farm-fresh trades while you peruse. You can even get help from a dedicated advisor. That's full-service wealth management. Mix, match, and change your mind whenever you want. Because at Schwab, you can invest your way. No matter your goals or appetite for investing, Schwab has everything you need all in one place.

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14:36No IT, no hassle. Plus, Quo's optional built-in AI agent handles after-hour calls, answers questions, and even books appointments so you never miss a lead even when your team is offline. I'm going to tell you, just from experience, the lowest effort activity that you could do in your business with the highest impact is improving your customer support and your service. And Quo does exactly that. Money's on the line. Always say hello with Quo. Try Quo for free, plus get 20 % off your first six months when you go to Quo.com slash MBA. That's Q-U-O dot com slash MBA. let's talk about what about when it actually makes sense to make a slower decision where you have a little bit more to deliberate yeah i think for me it's that axis how reversible is this decision like how much can i walk back from it without it being too much of any you know problem problematic we'll give an example and then the other axis of that is the impact and i think you might think about as an example, hiring and firing, right?

15:41It's hiring someone and then letting them go. It's something that's pretty easy to walk back. So it's not completely at the end of like not reversible. But it does impact the team and the morale and all that. It could impact your reputation. It impacts morale, all these things. So yes, while you can walk back something pretty easily, I do think there's a benefit to, you know, factoring in something else other than just, you know, I've got new information. I'm just going to change my mind yeah um so i i see it as like well how much of a detrimental impact is it going to have relationally relationally um yeah well give me an example of like you said hiring give me an example of when we made a decision quickly and we should have maybe took a little bit more time um i well i have an example of when we took our time to let the person go yeah and i think that was a bit of a blunder.

16:34What time was that? Well, it was during our software days. It was a team, a department that I was overseeing. We made a hire. We could have hired internally, but I'm just trying to remember now. I don't, either the person wasn't ready to step up into that role or we might have not, we might've just decided to go with an external hire. And we hired someone who on paper had all the credentials and seemed like the right fit. And then pretty quickly into their time with us, we realized, oh, they're not the right fit for this role. And I think we took too long to let them go because I think in that case, you know, we did deliberate, but I, and I would like to say that, oh, it's because I was, you know, thoughtful and giving the person a chance, but really I think I didn't want to backtrack in front of the team.

17:22And I thought maybe it would have shown poor leadership. I also think that we didn't spend enough time in the hiring process. We didn't check enough references. We didn't talk to enough people to find out they're a good fit for the team. And if they had the particular experience we needed for our team, and we eventually hired somebody internally in our team. Yeah. And it worked out. And we promoted them and they were a rockstar in their role before, and they grew into the managerial role. It was great. Yeah. I think I just wanted to like call out the fact that sometimes you're right. Like, are you taking enough time?

17:55Are you slow walking a decision for the right reasons? I think in that case, we weren't. Yeah, I do think that when it comes to hiring, hiring is a very good example because hiring, you're giving the keys to the business of somebody that you don't know, a stranger. And just to talk about this particular example, there's somebody externally coming to take a position in your business. And you might have somebody internally that probably could do the job. Now, I like to use the framework that if you're going to hire somebody externally, from this experience, I've learned this. If you're going to hire someone externally, then they need to be at least 40 % better than the people that are on your team that could potentially take on this role.

18:34Why 40 %? Because people's flaws are not listed on their CV. You don't know what you don't know. You know the good and bad of the people in your team. You know what their shortcomings are and what they need to be trained on. But somebody externally, they're just all positive. That's all you see. So it's a good framework and a good way to kind of think about, OK, what are those tradeoffs of me bringing somebody outside? And hiring is a very important thing. That's why you should take your time in hiring. But once you do find out they're not a good fit, we should have fired much quicker. Yes, I agree.

19:06So I want to get practical. So Jalen, who's listening, everybody who's listening with three steps on how to make decisions and know which ones are the quick decisions and which ones are the ones that need a little bit more time and deliberation. So number one, I mentioned this before. we need to differentiate between the reversible and the irreversible decisions and where they land on the spectrum in those respective subjects. Okay. So for example, choosing what type of snacks you're going to have in the office can, is a very low decision. It can be reversed. The snacks turn out to be bad. You lost 200 bucks.

19:41It's fine. You can, you know, make up for it the next time you order snacks. Okay. So it's not something you need to spend too much time on. And in fact, It's not something that you should be making a decision in the first place. Like this, your time and energy needs to be spent on decisions that are going to impact the business in a bigger way. On the other hand, if you're making a decision like hiring, like the place that you're going to rent out for your office, like a partnership that you're going to have, like a sponsor or even a vendor that you're going to have a relationship with for years to come, that's something that you need to really spend some time with.

20:11Yeah, because I mean, how do you feel about that? Like the reversibility, but there's also like a reputation thing there. with the brand partnership. And as long as you've put careful deliberation into who you've hired to make that decision, like hiring, like buying the snacks, then you're all good to let that person make that decision. Yes. And maybe not even like, you know, like they're going to learn. It's okay. Like I'm a big believer that when you hire people, you have to allow them to fail. Like you can't just be like, no, no, don't do that. Like, you know, like they're never going to learn.

20:41They're never going to have a chance to feel they're autonomous. And because I feel like that's the best way to learn by making decisions, realizing, oh, you know, no one ate these snacks. I should change it up. It's a weird, it's a weird example, but yeah. Number two, you need to set a deadline for your decisions. Big decisions, you might need a little bit more time, maybe a week. Quick decisions, just trust your gut and make a decision. One of the things I always encourage you to do more of is to trust your gut. Sometimes I feel like you need to do that a little bit more. And I feel like sometimes you maybe want to get more information before you make a decision.

21:14yes I feel like you have a very good sense of intuition you should utilize it more I agree I think that's the gut check I think people don't rely on as much and I think it's just that default of wanting to have as much information and making sure that I've made the right decision but I think as I've gotten older as I've had more experience I've realized okay this is very much like this decision I think that's the benefit also of having more years of experience in business and otherwise, is that you recognize a very similar situation. And I think that people are different. I think some people like came into entrepreneurship because they like just making decisions.

21:53They like, you know, having the autonomy to just like, yep, that's what I want. This is what I do. They're very opinionated, you know, I would put myself in that bucket. Yes. You know, so, and some people, they're a little bit more deliberate. So this is a little bit more of their challenge. This is why the deadline is so important. Set yourself a deadline, whether it's one hour, if it's something that's like a medium thing or a week, if it's like you're checking references, you're making a hire and you want to think if they're good, maybe you want to interview a couple more people before you make a decision.

22:17That's really important. So that deadline really matters. I think we've been really good at doing that, even as simple as like time blocking. And I think this is how we've managed to do time blocking a, you know, amount of time in our calendar to make a decision on something. Right. And that's like, well, let's discuss it. But we know at that end of that discussion meeting, whatever, it's a 15 minute meeting, a block on our calendar, that we're going to make the decision on that. And I think that's really helpful for anyone that does tend to sit on decisions like I did. And I think over time, so that we could find a happy medium, we would just choose a time of the day that we're going to discuss this, and then we're going to come out with the decision at the end of that discussion.

22:56Right. Number three goes along with number two, which is deciding once you have 70 % or more of the information you need to make a decision. You're not going to ever have 100 % of the information. You can't predict the future. Otherwise, you're going to be flawless. You're like, it's impossible, right? So whatever comes first, the deadline or you have 70 % of the information. Sometimes you have 70 % of the information without any deadline, like right in that moment. Just make the decision. It's okay, especially if it's a two-door decision, because that's pretty good odds. Pretty good odds is 70%.

23:27And the reason why I say 70 % is because a lot of people think about decisions in the short term. You need to start thinking about decisions in the long term. What does that mean? So say, for example, I'm making the same decision three times. Let me go a little bit wider. Let's say I'm making the decision 10 times. If 70 % of the time I'm going to be right, that means that 7 out of 10 times I'm going to make the right decisions. Yeah, three times I'm going to get it wrong, but I'm twice more likely to make the right decision if I'm just using this framework. That means that like, that's okay. I could take the losses because 70 % of the time I'm winning.

24:00Does that make sense? That sounds like a poker analogy to me. No. So if I'm using the same framework, as long as I have 70 % of the information, I have a good chance of making a solid decision. Because not 100%, but I have enough information to make a decision. The way I see that is I think everyone is different. And for every big decision in life, whether it's changing career, moving country, I think it's relative how much you feel like you need to know about the situation, like what this could look like if I go down this path. I think that's going to be different for everyone. But where your point is, is that you should never expect to have all the information because there's no such thing as like you can't know what's on the other side.