On Decision Making
Ben Brooks on an article by Clair Cain Miller about Larry Page’s management style being similar to Steve Jobs’:
I’m not a Steve Jobs expert, but I feel pretty confident saying that he didn’t make decisions that he thought were just “O.K.” — he preferred to try and make the perfect decision, even if that meant waiting. That much is pretty clear from reading just a handful of chapters in his new biography.
I’m going to have to disagree with Ben on this one. Sure, Jobs’ biography details the two week discussions on which washing machine to buy, displaying his perfectionist nature. But Jobs certainly knew when time was of the essence. Tom Reestman points out this episode from the autobiography wherein, streams of people were leaving Apple and Jobs thought the only way to stop that was repricing their stock options:
Jobs called for a telephonic board meeting and outlined the problem. The directors balked. They asked for time to do a legal and financial study of what the change would mean. “It has to be done fast,” Jobs told them. “We’re losing good people.”
When the board proposed a study that could take two months, Jobs exploded: “Are you nuts?!?”
Obviously, one could trade contradicting examples, but from my own experience and advice that I’ve been given, it’s best to make a decision while you still have options because the chances are that if you spend a lot of time deliberating them, they have gone and you’re stuck.
