Metadecision: How to decide how to decide

Are you a do-er or a planner? How do you decide when to stop deciding and when to start doing? Everybody has their default style of decision making but I think it's worth introspecting about this process and how certain situations (should) affect how you go about deciding on a course of action.

I recently had an interesting conversation with a French fellow about the different styles of decision making he’d experienced. His (originally French-owned) company had recently been acquired by an American company. He explained that there’s been a massive shift in the management styles between the two. He broke it down like this:

Before; aka the “French” Style

• characterized by deliberation

• emphasizes making the “right” decision

• takes it’s time to arrive at the next course of action

After; aka the “American” style

• characterized by speed

• emphasizes taking action

• taking a step, even if it winds up being in the wrong direction, is better than delaying

This was a revelation to me because I've implicitly been applying the "American" Style and trying a bunch of different things without being too careful that these attempts are steps in the absolute best direction. I had never considered that there might be a different way.

Note: the "American" and "French" designations are useful handles for the two ends of this decision- making spectrum but aren't meant to imply anything more generally about French and American people or businesses.

The One True Way?

The point of this article is not to champion one way of decision-making and bash on the other but rather to call out the different possibilities. There are going to be situations where it’s better to use one approach or the other. The important point is to be aware of the pros and cons of the two approaches and understand when it makes sense to apply them.

When should I use them?

Okay so we’ve discussed that the different styles are useful in different situations but how do we know when to use which?

I’m not an expert on this but here are some good questions to keep in mind when deciding which side to lean towards:

• How “expensive” is each attempt?

  • This could be either money or time. The more of either any particular decision is going to take should push your decision making towards the French System

• What information do you need to get in order to make a good decision?

  • Think about the data that you need to know whether your decision is a good one e.g. this design is preferable because it increases user retention by x%, this system architecture will improve developer velocity by yy%

• Are there less expensive alternatives to get the same information?

  • Following from the point immediately above. Spend some time investigating if there are other ways to approximate the data that you need to make your decision. Has someone adopted the tech you're considering? What were their outcomes? Learning from their investment can save you from pursuing a potentially expensive but bad option.

• Will deliberating lead to a better decision?

  • Up to a certain point, it’s worth going through the work to enumerate the requirements thoroughly but at some point you'll reach a point of diminishing returns so picking one and moving forward is a reasonable strategy. The process of going down that path will provide you with more information that will allow you to understand if this was the right decision or if it makes sense to pursue another approach.

So which way do you lean? Are you biased toward action? Or deliberation? Are you explicitly considering these factors when you're making a decision or do you just decide based on a gut feeling? Maybe your gut instinct does a good job of deciding when to do which. Regardless, I'd argue it's worth understanding why those are the right approaches given the circumstances.