My reaction to: High-Velocity Decision-Making for Senior Leaders and Executives, by Ethan Evans

 I recently saw a course on LinkedIn by Ethan Evans titled High-Velocity Decision-Making for Senior Leaders and Executives. I found it very educational, so I want to share my notes and opinions. I do not intend to make an exact summary, and I recommend watching the course if you have access to the platform and understand English, especially because I found the administrative anecdotes about Twitch very interesting.

Photo by Hunters Race

Why must Executives decide quickly?  

• An Executive cannot wait too long to decide, they would expose themselves to competitors gaining an advantage.  
• An Executive must prioritize speed over certainty, and take intelligent risks.
• If the decision is not reversible, or the cost of a bad decision is too high, it is better to wait until you have 90% of the information needed to make decisions.
• If the decision is reversible, or the cost of a bad decision is low, an Executive should decide when they have 70% of the information.  

How can it be determined whether a decision is reversible or not, and if it can be made quickly?

These tests can be used:

• What is the cost of changing? Can it be reversed with days and dollars, or will it cost months and careers?
• Detection time? Will we realize quickly if we fail, or only when it becomes public?
• External promises? Will the trust of clients, regulators, or the press be broken?
• Impact on people? Are we going to inspire a team, or fire a team?
• Brand or price? Are we setting expectations that we can change easily?

How can you think outside the box?  

• People tend to think and decide in a binary way: yes or no, good or bad, inside or outside, etc. When you only perceive two options, you need to make a conscious effort to think outside of the box, what other options do I have? If the answer to this question is silence, it is a sign that you are still thinking in a binary way.
• 15-minute brainstorming exercises are recommended to think outside the box.
• It is recommended to have at least a third option.
• Small-scale pilot tests are useful to determine the best decision on a larger scale.
• Expectations must be compared against the data.
• We must have an Expert, and a Skeptic.

What questions should be answered to challenge our favorite option?

These three questions must be answered:

• What am I overlooking?
• What is going to break first?
• What must be true for this to work?

If a cheap test is enough to invalidate a core belief, you have managed to save months. If things go wrong in the future, you can return to these three questions and reconsider.

What are the most common mistakes when making decisions?

• You must avoid falling into analysis paralysis, you cannot think forever, you have to act.
• The second trap to avoid is revering experts; advice is data, not orders. It must be cross-checked with evidence and goals.

How can the evidence be evaluated, and be in a position to monitor problems on time?

The evidence should be standardized in the following way:

• Metrics to evaluate? Are the goals being met?
• Limits not to cross? What data are we not interested in?
• Time window? When are we going to reevaluate our strategy?

To make decisions, emotions must be minimized. An exercise that helps minimize emotions is to ask yourself, how am I going to feel about this decision in 10 minutes, 10 months, 10 years?

What is the most effective way to learn from mistakes? 

• A quick failure is not the opposite of success; it is the price of speed and the fuel for learning. Failures should be seen as information, not as a permanent disaster.
• As long as you are learning, and keep moving forward, you are on the path to success.
• Also judge the process, not just the outcome. Luck can favor a bad decision, and it can also harm a good decision.
• Limit the consequences of a bad decision by reducing the costs, whether by reducing the effort margin, pilot tests, etc.
• If you anticipate problems and solutions to those problems, you can afford to be brave safely. 
• You have to lose the fear of acknowledging mistakes, because not acknowledging them deprives us of valuable data.
• You have to be specific about what goes wrong, put it in numbers and percentages. This way we can find new options that were not considered at first. Adapting is not discarding what has been learned. Correcting the course is normal.
• When you make a mistake, accept it, and say that you will take care of it. This gives others calm.
• To regain credibility after a bad decision, set an agenda that solves the problem in the short term.
• Ask for help from an Expert, and from the necessary support teams for a prompt solution.
• Acknowledge the annoyance of others and explain what will be done to avoid making the same mistake again.
• Close the case with your leaders. If your bosses see that you can handle a crisis, that can increase their confidence in you and improve your reputation.

Here end my notes, reflecting what impacted me the most from what Ethan Evans said.

This article is also available in Spanish. Read the Spanish version here.

If you want to improve your skills as a Customer Service Agent, I recommend my article: Why is resilience more important than talent in Customer Service?