This week's idea
From Cicero:
"More is lost by indecision than by wrong decision."
I watched a company die slowly over several years because they were terrified of dying quickly. They had a strategy that worked. They knew it worked. But they couldn't commit to it. So they added safeguards, committees, road shows, alternative opinions, piecemeal tests. All of it was designed to reduce risk, ironically, it ensured mediocrity instead.
They knew better, but just couldn't act on it.
Useful takeaways
Indecision is expensive. Every month of deliberation, every committee meeting, every "let's get another opinion" is time and money bleeding out. The cost compounds. Wrong decisions have a price tag. Indecision has an invisible mortgage.
Caution masquerades as strategy. Road shows, consensus-building, risk mitigation, due diligence. They all sound smart. They feel safe. But they're often just machinery for avoiding commitment. And commitment is where progress lives.
Safe incremental choices produce beige outcomes. Not failure. Mediocrity. A slow fade instead of a dramatic miss. You don't collapse, you just become forgettable. And forgettable is a slower death than any wrong bet.
Where people get this wrong
The misreading: "So you're saying go reckless. Just decide, be brazen, and screw the consequences."
The correction: No. I'm saying the cost of not deciding is usually steeper than the cost of deciding wrong. A wrong decision teaches you something. You can measure it, learn from it, pivot. Indecision just drains you while you stand still.
How I've applied it
When I hear "let's get another perspective", I actually read it as code for "we can't commit".
I truly believe that when committees replace decision-makers, momentum dies.
Unless it needs to go to a regulatory body or requires internal legal sign-off.
So now I have a line. I'll iterate. I'll pivot. But I won't jump through hoops indefinitely for someone who won't do it themselves. The moment I sense the machine is designed to prevent a decision rather than improve one, I'm out.
Storytime
Some time ago now, one morning, my phone went off, and, to my pleasure, it was an ex-client calling me. Who'd started a new gig and was excited to get me and the team involved for a new brand campaign that would launch in several markets. We'd worked together before, and she knew we could do something pretty cool. The business needed a strategic pivot, hard but necessary.
We went to work. Nailed the strategy. Nailed the creative. Backed it in research, customer interviews from overseas markets, real data. In our first pitch, everyone said they loved it. But they had to play the game and wait for the other two agencies to pitch their case as well.
So we waited, and then my phone went off, congratulating us on the win! However, they had to conduct a road show to get the rest of the company on board. This was the beginning of the end. People who'd never worked in marketing, but had used the product, started adding their two cents. In fact, it was worse than that...there were grandiose assumptions about how it would work in other markets that they had not been to. Never mind that our work was based on actual research and interviews with people in those markets.
Then another rebrief. Tweaks here, repositioning there. More meetings. More voices.
After weeks of back and forth. I walked into what I thought was a simple "show me the work" meeting with the big boss. Instead, it was another rebrief. And now they wanted to bring in more agencies to do more unpaid work.
This wasn't diligence. This was fear wearing a suit.
I’d lost patience at this point and said, "Inaction and pontificating are costing you. Everyone in this room has said the work is solid. But you, alone, are not sold. Meanwhile, your competition is eating your lunch."
The big boss said, "But it's to mitigate risk, Chris."
I said, "I appreciate that. But inaction and the time you're spending here are costing you more than a wrong decision ever would. We're not in a tightly regulated category, so the only thing holding us back is fear."
He pushed back, exclaiming that "We like the work, but we just want more opinions."
"Great," I said. "Our work is ready to buy. If your second opinions don't go anywhere, I remind you I own the IP, given you haven't paid for anything yet." I shook their hands, wished them luck and never heard from them again.
I walked out with relief and clarity. I knew that by saying no, I was actually doing the industry a favour. Because if I kept feeding that machine, it’d reinforce bad behaviour.
Years later, still in touch with her, she'd left the company after 11 months. Nowadays, that business is on the brink of administrative takeover. After years of testing small things piecemeal.
They chose perceived safety, and it cost them everything anyway.
Thanks for reading, see you next week!
-Murph