The email from my property manager said my tenant had water coming through the ceiling in the hallway, dripping through the light. I’d been thinking about selling that apartment for about a year, and I never acted. If you run a growing business, you’ve probably got a decision like that on your desk right now.
The apartment I didn’t sell
Now there’s a building defect that needs fixing. A tax change has been announced that kicks in next July, and the market has moved.
I couldn’t have known about the defect. But if I’d sold when I first thought about it, I’d have got more for it.
I never decided to keep that apartment. Not deciding was still a decision, and it’s been costing me money ever since.
The hire, the client, the call
In a business it’s rarely an apartment. It’s a hire you’re not sure about, a client you should have let go, or a call you keep meaning to make. Each one sits there, and each one keeps costing you something while it waits.
The answer isn’t to decide everything faster. It’s knowing which decisions are actually yours.
Decisions you can undo: test them small
Not every decision deserves your time. Some you can undo.
Recently I tested a new payment provider. They promised the same features as my existing one, with lower fees. We tried it with one client, in a way that was easy to back out of.
It was clunky. The features they promised weren’t there, and the support wasn’t as good. So we switched back, and it cost us very little.
That’s a decision you can undo. Don’t agonise over those. Test them small and find out.
The decisions that are actually yours
Other decisions are much harder to undo. They reach your whole team. People copy the way you made them, and they stick around for years. Those are the ones that are actually yours.
A hire is the classic one. Some years back, early in my business, I hired an operator from outside my network. She was technically very good, and I put her in with one of my clients. It didn’t work. She ran it like a dictator, her way or the highway, and she never got the team’s buy-in. That’s not how I manage, and it’s not what my client needed.
In the end I rolled up my sleeves and worked on that client myself. We ended the relationship with that operator and kept the client.
You can test for skill easily. You can’t easily test for character.
So now I always hire through my network, from someone I trust who can tell me directly what that person is actually like. My team does it too, without me in the room. I made that decision once, and it gets made again every time we hire.
Changing priorities is a big decision too
There’s one big decision a lot of founders make without noticing: changing priorities.
Every time you change what the team should focus on, it reaches everyone. They copy it, and it sticks. Change priorities every week and your team learns to wait for the next change.
One weekly habit
Keep a running list of the decisions you’re putting off.
Once a week, give that list one protected slot with nothing else in it.
For each decision, ask a single question: can I undo this? If yes, test it this week. If no, it’s yours, and it gets a deadline.
Back to the apartment
The milk’s already spilt, and I can’t change when I didn’t sell. What I can do is make the next wise move and cut my losses.
So what decision are you sitting on right now, and what is it costing you while it waits?
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