Knowing When You Know Enough

I recently booked a holiday. It took far longer than I care to admit.

We were travelling with four teenage girls, my daughters and my nieces, so the brief felt fairly specific.

They wanted other teenagers around, good pools, enough going on, somewhere they could wander around for a bit of independence.

I wanted somewhere beautiful, with good food and a little peace. Ideally, I wanted to come home feeling as though I'd actually had a holiday.

Then there was the price. Every suitable option seemed to cost enough to make the decision feel consequential. Once you are spending that much money, choosing the wrong place feels considerably more irritating.

So I researched. Hotels, villas, resorts, beaches, room configurations, reviews, transfer times, teen clubs, restaurants, weather. Every time I thought I'd found the answer, something ruled it out.

One hotel was beautiful, but probably too quiet for the girls.

Another had plenty for them to do, in a resort I didn't particularly want to stay in.

A villa gave us space, with the distinct possibility that we would spend the week driving everyone around in some sort of minivan.

Then there were the places that ticked almost every box and cost way far more than I wanted to pay.

The problem was that every option was good enough to consider and flawed enough to question.

Eventually, information was no longer the issue. I already had more than enough of it.

What kept me searching was the hope that one more review, one more comparison or one more hour online would remove the uncertainty.

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I see the same thing happen in senior leadership teams.

The decisions that reach a boardroom are rarely clear, complete or free of risk. If the evidence pointed conclusively to one answer, there would be very little to debate.

Instead, senior decisions usually involve incomplete evidence, competing priorities, uncertain outcomes and several credible interpretations of the same facts.

Do we build or buy?

Do we invest?

Do we restructure?

Do we enter this market?

Do we appoint this person?

Do we challenge the CEO?

Do we continue despite the risk? How do we quantify the risk?

Do we stop?  Do we change direction? 

These questions deserve proper analysis. Data matters. Evidence matters. Different perspectives matter.

Eventually, though, analysis reaches its limit and the decision comes down to judgement.

Good judgement is built from the evidence available, then carries the decision beyond what that evidence can prove.

It draws on experience, pattern recognition, values, context, instinct and an understanding of what matters most in this particular situation.

At some point, somebody has to be prepared to say:

Given what we know, this is what I believe we should do.

That statement carries no guarantee.

It says: I have considered the evidence. I understand the risks. I know what remains uncertain. I am still prepared to make a judgement.

That willingness matters.

Some of the most important decisions I have seen made in boardrooms came with considerable uncertainty. There were legitimate arguments in several directions. People were uncomfortable. Nobody could promise the outcome.

A decision still had to be made. Often a deadline - real or perceived - added pressure.

Your judgement only matters if you are prepared to voice it.

You have to articulate what you think and explain what you are giving most weight to. You may need to challenge someone else's interpretation, hold your position under pressure, or change your view when new information genuinely warrants it.

Then you have to accept the consequences of choosing.

This is a large part of what we at PowerVox mean by Conviction.

Conviction is steadiness in your judgement when the outcome matters and certainty is unavailable.

It allows you to stay connected to your values, your thinking and your voice while remaining open to information that could change your mind.

That combination is particularly important in senior teams because indecision has consequences of its own.

When nobody is prepared to make the judgement, other forces begin to shape the decision: hierarchy, politics, personal agendas, circular debate and sheer force of personality.

The person with the most authority, confidence or persistence can end up determining the outcome, even when their judgement is no better than anyone else's.

Indecision therefore changes how a decision gets made.

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Eventually, I booked the holiday. And yes, it was two days before departure so a deadline forced a decision.

I have no idea whether I chose the objectively best option. I suspect there was no objectively best option available.

I reached the point where I knew enough.

Another two hours on Booking.com was unlikely to reveal the decisive piece of information I had somehow missed.

So I chose.

Leadership requires the same judgement about the decision-making process itself.

There is a point when another question will improve the decision.

There is also a point when another question simply delays the moment when you have to decide what you think, say it clearly and act on it.

And since you've read to the end, I'll assume you're interested in how our holiday went. Let's just put it like this. Making decisions as an adult is hard, and boardroom conversations may be challenging, but wrangling with the hormones of four teenage girls in a confined space for 7 days straight - now THAT is character building. I need another holiday to recover.