Are You Sure?

Any organisation tries to mitigate wrong decisions because they carry risk. However, avoiding decisions carries greater risk, and delaying any decision serves to amplify risk.

The search for the right decision often becomes a search for certainty. Faced with uncertainty, organisations will seek more information, more analysis, more evidence and more opinions. However, certainty is rarely fully attainable. There is always another report, forecast, meeting or opinion readily available.

In time, this additional analysis ceases to bring the organisation any closer to a decision, and the search continues.

What began as diligence can become delay. What began as risk reduction can become risk displacement. The initial risk has not been mitigated nor removed.

At this point, the question has changed from:

What do I need to know?

to:

How sure do I need to be?

This search for certainty has become the final form of indecision.

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