1-2-1: Avoidance costs more than the wrong call

I've started asking leaders a different question: "What decision have you been delaying?" The answer is usually the thing their team is most stuck on.

You think the decision is paused. The team thinks you've already made it.

1 Principle

The decisions you're avoiding are running every day. They just stop showing up in your calendar and start showing up in your team.

A delayed decision is a decision you've outsourced to whoever's willing to act in the gap. Usually that gap fills with friction: arguments that come back, scope that creeps, candidates who lose interest, hires who disengage and never tell you why. Most of these decisions were two-way doors. The friction was almost always more expensive than the wrong call.

2 Things Top of Mind

#1 The decision that's been "thought about" for six weeks

I keep watching the same pattern in coaching. A leader hits a decision they're not sure about. It feels like one that needs more thought, so it sits. Each week the team asks. Each week the answer is "soon". By week six, the team has stopped asking. Team leads have made their own partial calls. Projects have rerouted around the gap. The decision didn't get easier by waiting. It got more expensive, in places the leader can't see.

This week: Pick one decision you've been avoiding for more than two weeks. Ask whether it's a two-way door (reversible) or a one-way door (hard to undo). If it's a two-way door, set a 48-hour deadline. Most avoided decisions are. A reversible decision made today beats a perfect one made next quarter.

#2 The meeting that won't die

You know the meeting. It keeps coming back. Same argument, different week. You walk out thinking "we need to decide this". Then you don't. The meeting reappears. The discussion gets sharper, then more circular, then quieter. By the third time, the smartest people on your team have stopped offering options because they've worked out you're not going to choose. The meeting isn't the problem. The decision you're not making is the problem.

This week: Find one recurring meeting that keeps revisiting the same question. Cancel next week's. Send the decision in writing instead. If you can't decide yet, name the one missing piece of information and assign someone to bring it.

1 Question

What's the decision you've been delaying that your team has already started working around?