Are you overthinking a problem or opportunity?

The challenge at hand may need less analysis than you think.

THINK ON IT: Are you overthinking a problem or opportunity?

When have you gathered enough information about a problem or an opportunity? 

While many leaders habitually make a decision about a problem without gathering enough information, some have the opposite habit: they exhaustively examine every detail even if the problem itself doesn’t deserve that level of scrutiny. 

Jeff Bezos famously wrote a letter to shareholders detailing the difference between what he called one-way and two-way doors. 

In the letter, he described Type 1 decisions and Type 2 decisions: 

• Type 1, or One-Way Doors: These are “nearly irreversible” decisions, like selling a company or resigning from a job. Once you walk through that door, you can’t walk back through again. 

• Type 2, or Two-Way Doors: These decisions are much less drastic, and can often be reversed with a little time and effort. They might feel monumental — a rebrand, a pricing structure update, a CEO swap — but can indeed be walked back with a bit of hustle and humility. 

Type 1 Decisions need to be made with the utmost care and foresight, but Type 2 decisions can be made more quickly and with less overthinking involved. 

We can fall into a pattern of thinking that every single decision is important enough that our business will live or die by it. In actuality, very few decisions need the time, energy, and expertise devoted to them like a Type 1 or One-Way Door decision. 

The key with either decision type is knowing when you’ve got just what you need to make that decision. Paid subscribers, read on for a way to narrow what you really need to know.

 

“If you treat every situation as a life and death matter, you'll die a lot of times."

— Dean Smith 

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Premium subscribers: Read on for a way to narrow what you really need to know.

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