When Decisions Aren’t

I spent longer deciding how to write this than actually writing it.

That is awkward, because the article is about the importance of making decisions.

At first, I thought I would write about Jeff Bezos and “disagree and commit”. Then I decided that was too corporate and I should probably reference Max Weber instead, because nothing says “accessible weekend reading” quite like German sociology from the early twentieth century.

Then I wondered if I should use military history. Armies, after all, learned long ago that endlessly reopening decisions in the middle of events tends to produce consequences of a fairly permanent nature.

At one point I became convinced the article should itself become a commentary on decision paralysis. Which sounds insightful until you realise that was mostly a sophisticated way of avoiding writing it.

For a solid hour I sat here behaving exactly like the sort of person I intended to critique: circling the decision, refining the framing, convincing myself that another ten minutes of thinking would finally reveal the perfect intellectual entry point.

Naturally, this felt extremely important….

There is a particular kind of middle-aged professional arrogance that believes procrastination becomes strategy if you mention someone else’s theory often enough.

Eventually, slightly against my will, I realised the problem was not finding the right example. The problem was my reluctance to commit to one.

Which is, unfortunately, the point.

A great many organisations now confuse involvement with responsibility. People want to shape decisions, influence decisions, comment on decisions, reserve the right to reinterpret decisions, and occasionally explain afterwards how they would have made a better one themselves.

What fewer people seem willing to do is actually make one.

This becomes especially obvious after a decision is finally taken. That is when the late objections arrive. The alternatives become miraculously clear. Risks nobody previously mentioned suddenly become obvious. People who were silent during discussion discover a deep concern about the chosen direction approximately three minutes after responsibility has landed on somebody else’s desk.

The timing is rarely accidental.

Jeff Bezos addressed this with the phrase “disagree and commit”. It is probably one of the least appreciated management ideas because it sounds harsher than it really is.

The important word is not “disagree”. Most organisations already have plenty of disagreement. Some could power small towns with it.

The important word is “commit”.

Because without commitment, decisions become temporary cultural artefacts. Meetings develop the atmosphere of archaeological digs where teams repeatedly uncover and reinterpret the same conclusions from six months earlier.

Nothing really settles. Nothing properly starts.

The irony is that organisations often believe this constant reopening of decisions is a sign of rigour. Usually it is a sign that accountability has become emotionally uncomfortable.

Max Weber approached the same issue from a different angle. In his writing on bureaucracy and rational-legal authority in Economy and Society, Weber understood that institutions function because somebody possesses recognised legitimacy to decide. Authority is attached to roles, processes and offices precisely so organisations do not collapse into permanent renegotiation.

Modern workplaces are oddly uncomfortable admitting this.

Everybody likes consultation right up until consultation produces an outcome they dislike. At that point, there is often a subtle attempt to convert participation back into debate.

You can see why this happens. Committing to a decision means accepting the possibility you might be wrong. Remaining permanently critical preserves the much safer position of theoretical intelligence. The undecided person can always claim they saw the flaw coming.

The person who commits loses that luxury.

Which brings me back to my abandoned opening drafts about Bezos, Weber and military theory.

None of them were really the article.

The article was me spending an hour trying to optimise a decision that would have been perfectly serviceable forty-five minutes earlier.

Still, I suppose I should commit to writing something now.

The only remaining question is which authority I intend to borrow from and quietly subvert.