Making no decision at all.
Many people struggle to execute their new innovative ideas, or launch that new creative project, because they overthink them.
They believe they need to think through every possible scenario and have all the answers to every question before it is safe to begin.
They are so afraid of making the “wrong decision” because they have been told their whole life about how important it is to only give the right answer. Therefore they want to gather more and more information, but this isn’t necessarily to make a better decision.
It is to delay having to make a decision at all, because they are afraid.
Many people suffer from “analysis paralysis“
The problem with this is that it is impossible to have all the answers.
It will never be “safe”.
Because with innovation and creativity, nobody knows yet what the right answer is.
Nobody can tell you “yes, according to all the rules, this is the correct decision and it will therefore work”.
But one thing is definitely true.
If you don’t begin, then it definitely will not work.
You can’t win the lottery if you don’t buy a ticket.
And even if things don’t work out perfectly and it feels like a failure, it actually gets you closer to the eventual right answer. That is how innovation works, sometimes through many small steps which lead to the final success.
Sometimes any decision is better than no decision.
Nick Skillicorn
Latest posts by Nick Skillicorn (see all)
- Anchoring: The bias which affects our ability to estimate & negotiate - February 22, 2023
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- Leaders will invest less in transformational innovation due to fears over the economy - February 6, 2023
- A.I. can now use text prompts to design new proteins which don’t exist in nature - January 30, 2023
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