October 19, 2003

Decision making

Last week, Peter Kaplan wrote to me about the infamous 8th inning of Game 6 of Marlins at Cubs:

"You know, it all happened in that moment when Dusty Baker failed to make a conscious decision to decide whether to take Mark Prior out when everyone could see that he didn't have the Stuff he had started with and that his breaking ball wasn't breaking. I mean, if Dusty had made the wrong decision, that would be OK. If he had not gotten to the point of making a decision but had at least committed to deciding, that would have been unfortunate timing, but respectable. But by all accounts, Dusty showed no sign of being in the process of deciding to make a decision... And the thing is, once the momentum shifts that way, it doesn't matter what else happens. The Cubs just aren't going to be the winners anymore at that point, and you know it in your gut. It was a sad moment for everyone who recognized it as such."

It's an profound observation. It's profound because it's so simple.

Many times in my career, entire business organizations have become paralyzed because of an inability, on the part of an individual or a team, to make a decision.

Imagine a race that starts out in Colorado. The destination is said to be somewhere in the northeast US -- but you won't know exactly where for a few days. One driver decides to wait until he knows exactly where he's going, so he can plan the fastest route possible. The other driver starts driving North-East right away.

Who do you think wins?

He wins because he didn't start driving towards California or Texas. He wins because he realized that some forward motion, in what was vaguely the right direction, got him closer to his goal. He wins even though he will certainly drive for more time and more miles than the first driver. He wins because he got enough of a head start that the extra time doesn't matter. And he wins because, when he does get the news of the final destination, he changes his course to start heading for it.

Of course, the reality is that you can never know all the information you need at the start. I once spent about a month and a half, along with several other senior engineers, basically sitting on our hands waiting for management to come up with the Perfect Plan for the next release of our product. We didn't start the race until management had decided on the exact destination -- but the destination changed before we got there anyway. We gave up a six week head start, and still had to make a course correction.

That was Dusty Baker's problem, in the end. He actually had a plan for getting to the World Series, but he couldn't see that he might need to change his course until it was too late.

I think it comes down to two distinct, albeit related, abilities. The first is the ability to make a decision in the first place -- to realize that going forward in something approximating the right direction is better than not moving at all until you have the exact direction. And the second is the ability to recognize when you have to change your course, because the first plan isn't going to work anymore.

Posted by Mike at October 19, 2003 05:36 PM