If everything is a priority, nothing is a priority

I heard a couple HBR podcasts that I’m somewhat at-odds with.

The first one, The Case for Embracing Uncertainty, relates to not allowing unknowns to dictate to your life. Sometimes there’s an acceptable amount of unknown, and that is just part of decision-making.

Amazon’s leadership principles prioritize action over inaction, for instance:

Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study. We value calculated risk taking. 

https://www.amazon.jobs/en/principles

Granted, I think Amazon generally refers to mundane business decisions, while the podcast interviewees were talking about moving cross-country or starting a business. But I’ve noticed that a comfort for certain levels of uncertainty permeates everything in one’s life. A more risk-taking business mentality is invariably going to dip into large and small professional decisions.

The second podcast, titled Decisions Don’t Have to Be Either-Or, is perfectly sensible. The concept is an appropriate one: don’t simply accept the first opportunity to make a choice. Sometimes suboptimal choices are an indicator that your team hasn’t done its due diligence. Doesn’t this actually reveal a damning point about the first podcast? Meaning, your comfort with making decisions with substantial uncertainty is at your own risk.

Yet the potential risk in holding off for “Also-And” is in waiting for unicorns. Sometimes tough choices are what they are, and there are often moments where leaders have to search their values. The interviewees themselves made a caveat that these “Also-And” situations are out of the norm and rare — that is, it shouldn’t operate as a modus operandi, but as a point of due diligence.

I, for one, don’t think I became an effective leader until I picked the four things I cared about and decided to prioritize those items. Most of us are facing critical shortages in funding, personnel and time. This requires choices.

If you freeze in place until you get everything you want, you may be sitting there inactive for quite a while. No, the prudent business path is to collect as much information as possible in a timely manner, and then be ready to make sometimes-tough decisions that reflect what your goals are. The respective podcasts make some salient points, but have substantial limitations that are dangerous if not reigned in.