"A company is either growing or it is dying."

Peter Janis, Business Leader, Author, and Church.Design Contributor

Have you ever written an email, hit send, and then wished you had not? Everyone has. These days of fast-food restaurants, next-day deliveries, and impatient customer service have likely pushed all of us over the expectation edge.

Just recently, I read how 3D printing on the International Space Station eliminated the need to carry spare parts. If something breaks: pull up a file and hit "print." We live in an "I want it now – get ‘r done" society.

Back when I was working for Fender Canada (TMI), my biggest frustration was my boss’s inability to make a decision and then stick with it. He would gather a group around the boardroom table and circle until he found someone that would agree with his position, undermining the manager that was supposedly responsible. If a consensus was found, an hour later, he would change the course of action. Mike Hill, the general manager at Radial, would sometimes take days to ruminate around the facts before making a decision. I used to tell him it was like watching paint dry.

Were either of these leaders' approaches to decision making wrong?

How to avoid decision paralysis

Due diligence and patience are prerequisites to making smart decisions, after all. The challenge is that as you go deeper into the rabbit hole, you may not see sunlight for some time. In other words, how deep do you go? How much information is enough? When do you pull the proverbial trigger?

SWOT stands for strength, weakness, opportunity, and threat.

When developing a product, a SWOT analysis often drives the decision making. This need not be limited to a product; it can also apply to the service industry and just about any course of action. SWOT stands for strength, weakness, opportunity, and threat. Let’s say you have decided to expand your business from designing church AV systems to outfitting arenas. Your strengths may include high proficiency with AV system integration and an excellent installation and service team. The obvious weakness is a lack of experience in this sector while you clearly see the opportunity in a number of tenders that have come your way for upgrades to gymnasiums, soccer fields, and baseball diamonds. The threat is that you are about to bite off more than you can chew. Maybe. A SWOT analysis helps you define the big picture and can point to solutions. By hiring a system engineer that is experienced at designing arenas and ball fields, you can leap-frog your way into the game. Problem – solution.

As a manufacturer, I have often made off-the-cuff decisions based on my gut feel. Some ideas were no-brainers that grew to be success stories, while most did not produce appreciable results. As the sole owner, I did not have to answer to a board of directors. I only had myself to blame for mistakes I made along the way. For the company to grow, things had to change. I could no longer be the center of the universe. I had to learn to delegate. I started by assembling a tech team that would bring new product ideas to the table, debate them, and then had them put it all on paper in the form of a SWOT analysis. It helped them define the feature set, the competition, and project the sales opportunity.

For the company to grow, things had to change. I could no longer be the center of the universe. I had to learn to delegate.

A company is either growing or it is dying. The information age and advances in technology have expedited disruption, whereby very few institutions will continue to amble along as they always have. Old school concepts such as loyalty are being eroded by the need, whether true or imagined, to have the latest and greatest. Tesla is a great example. The promise of feel-good, pollution-free driving is masking the environmental costs of producing electricity and replacing and discarding spent lithium-ion battery packs. Nuclear energy is a significantly cleaner alternative for producing electricity than coal, yet our fear of catastrophic failure has stalled its growth. Instead, we blow smoke.

Keep an ear to the market, then actually listen

It only takes a minute to look at the stock market and leave bewildered. Gone are the Warren Buffet long-term-value-investment teachings. The trend is to buy non-dividend paying stocks that are valued using absurdly high multiples with the promise of profiting from their unimpeded growth. Tesla may lead the pack in electric cars today, but how long will it take for BMW and Ford to start mass-producing lower cost alternatives? If the only pay-out is selling the stock when you think it is at an all-time high, does this mean you no longer believe in the company?

Many decisions today are based purely on emotion. We can no longer assume that customers will base their purchase-making on logic. This means we have to amplify our ear to the market by paying closer attention to our customers, as we try to read where they perceive their next need to be. My advice: listen, get closer, and react—before the other guy eats your lunch.