Decide quick, fail fast and have fun

“… these are great holistic insights but they do raise a number of questions. You will not progress this program until you’ve really gotten granular.”

This was a (probably slightly misquoted) comment from a former manager who lived for corporate jargon, complete control and data at a granular level. We had been debating the relative merits of a small initiative impacting a handful of people and being paid for from the budget equivalent of petty cash. The greatest cost of the program, by far, was the resource hours invested in getting the approval. On the bright side, the manager never made any really poor decisions - he never made any decisions… or real progress.

Compare this to another leader, who demanded of his team that they strive to ‘fail fast’. He wished them to make bold calls, take decisions and drive them home with pace. If they didn't work out – reset and go again. It was in this environment that his business innovated, improved and found financial success.

“Fail fast” I love. It gives permission to try new things, have a go and celebrates failures as well as successes. As long as they are quick and you learn. But making quick decisions isn’t usually easy or natural.

We’re far more motivated by what we have to lose than what we have to gain. This often manifests in a desire to be cautious about decisions where there is a great opportunity or gain - meaning we potentially miss out on the biggest opportunities. Conversely we may move too quickly in panic when there is immediate loss presenting – in a crisis quick, but poor, decisions are often taken. So what do we do?

I’ve encourage leaders to think carefully, concisely and quickly in decision making. To get a ball park sense of where to ‘drawn the line’ I recommend that the first 20% of facts and data drive 80% of the quality of decisions. Once you feel that you've got a good sense of the data, make the decision and implement effectively. You can then spend time monitoring, measuring and confirming the direction is the right one and the implementation is up to scratch. Remember, most business failures are caused by poor implementation not poor logic/strategy (indeed at some estimates 60% of strategy isn’t even implemented.

I don’t advocate ‘fail fast’ as a excuse for sloppy decision making. A decision needs the weight of consideration and data relevant to the size of the prize. A ‘back of the beer coaster’ business case might be suitable for a decision on a new laptop order but probably wont cut it for a major acquisition. Right size the decisions, but recognize if analysis paralysis is your default setting.

When you’re monitoring success or failure, remember that our nature tells us to throw good money, time and effort after bad. We believe we can turn it around, and we’ve invested so much already we can’t walk away. Just as with any gamble, walking away when you’re ‘behind’ difficult – but by diverting time and resource to great, new opportunities (rather than the original failing one) you have a greater opportunity for long term success.

In recent years I’ve been made acutely aware that even the highly detailed and heavily modeled decisions invariably don’t play out as expected. Those ‘perfect’ granular details rarely look so perfect and granular in retrospect. The measuring, monitoring and testing remains key to staying ahead.

Finally, you need to reinforce the permission to fail - allow the team to make decisions, identify (quickly) and learn from failures and go again. Celebrate success, but don’t forget to recognise when teams ‘fail fast’. Backing your team only when they make good decisions leads quickly leads to no decisions, ass-covering or ‘blame-storming’. Celebrate and reinforce the culture of failing fast.

Decide quickly, fail fast, know when to walk away and, most importantly, have a party when you do!