Making Money Is Not Illegal, Immoral, or Fattening argues for moving ahead with decisions before we have all possible data:
“With some retailers, every time I suggest a nugget, they think about the exceptions, where it might not work. I know that there are exceptions to almost everything. But if you deal just with exceptions in your world, you won’t do anything. You won’t be able to move ahead quickly enough for retailing success. I like to take action which is based on what is true most of the time, not on exceptions. And I will not wait until I have every piece of information possible to make a decision. When I have about 70%, I’m moving.”
Maybe you want to hold out for 80% of the available information. But the problem with waiting for 100% is that all the information will never be in. We work in a retailing world of information overload. Herbert Simon, a professor of psychology at Carnegie Mellon University talked about what he called satisficing. He verified how people who make profitable business decisions never hold out for the whole information bundle
Even if we could get all the information, we lack the brain power to accurately juggle it all. Hey, we’re only human! For his research on satisficing, Professor Simon was awarded a Nobel Prize in Economics. Since I’m a psychologist, I wish it had been a Nobel Prize in Psychology, but unfortunately for my wish, there is no such animal.
Are you allowing yourself to shy away from the tough decisions by saying, “First, I need to get all the data”? Do you spend more time analyzing sales than building sales? The retailer who stands still is falling behind. What will you do today to free yourself from the paralysis of over-analysis?
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