Decision Study

In March I ran a structured decision-making study with dozens of senior operators and founders. Five modules of reflection on how people actually decide at work and in life. Thank you to everyone who participated.

Here's what I found.

The hard part isn't analysis. It's people.

The most expensive dimension of deciding was coordination: aligning stakeholders, getting buy-in, bringing people along after the decision was already clear. Nobody named "thinking it through" as the bottleneck. One person put it directly: "The cost isn't in the decision. It's in alignment."

Everyone defined "significant decision" the same way — unprompted.

Not by size or stakes, but by reversibility. The ones that close a door behind you.

The best decisions looked wrong on paper.

Pay cuts. Pivots away from prestige. In every case, the right signal was values alignment, not data.

Failed decisions shared one failure mode.

The decision-maker assumed alignment that didn't actually exist.

The thesis emerging: what people need isn't help making the decision. It's help compressing the coordination overhead around it — faster alignment, better pressure-testing, fewer meetings to arrive at the same place.

Get in touch

Interested in learning more or have ideas for next steps? Get in touch.