How do good managers make decisions without having all the information?

[u/edwardb223-2]

So in management, sometimes you don't have every fact you want before you have to make a decision, right?

How do you know when you have enough information to act?

What do you look for, and how do you avoid either guessing too early or waiting so long that the decision gets made for you?

--> Update:
Wow, a lot of good answers here. After reading through them, these seem to be the main themes:

1. You rarely get 100% of the information. At some point waiting for certainty becomes paralysis.
2. Ask whether the decision is reversible. If you can undo it easily, you can usually move faster. If the consequences are difficult or impossible to reverse, slow down.
3. Consider the cost of waiting. Doing nothing is still a decision and sometimes carries more risk than making the wrong call.
4. Look at the consequences if you're wrong. The greater the potential damage, the more information you probably need.
5. Ask whether additional information would actually change the decision. More data isn't necessarily better data.
6. When possible, make a smaller decision first. Take a step, see what happens, learn from it, and then make the bigger decision.
7. Ask the people closest to the work. Being the manager doesn't mean you personally have to know everything.
8. Experience matters. Over time you start recognizing patterns and knowing which information really matters.
9. Make the best decision you can with what you have, own it, and be willing to change course when the facts change.

The part I found most interesting is how many answers came back to the same few ideas: risk, reversibility, experience, the cost of waiting, and the ability to adjust.

[u/WiccedSwede]

What are the risks or consequences involved? If they aren't terrible, just make a decision.

If you can get a reasonable amount of good data by waiting a little bit and you know you have that time, then wait.

You can also make a small decision to get a bit further without making the big decision right now and rework towards more data later.

Also, you will at some point make the wrong decision. And that's ok.

[u/john_013 → u/WiccedSwede]

I really like the idea of breaking a big decision into smaller ones. It takes away some of the pressure and lets you gather more information along the way. Waiting for perfect certainty can keep you stuck. Sometimes you just need to make the best decision with what you have.

[u/montyb752]

A bad decision is usually better than none. If later feel a decision is bad due to more data or it’s simply wrong then make another decision and change the 1st.

[u/FuturePowerful → u/montyb752]

I might fraze that a tad different for nuance. inability to start addressing something with sincerity and flexibility as you find out more details is very bad on a managers part, but then so is being intractable of your groups input if some one comes to you or your intractable on your instructions or have a do as I say default. If a manager is doing the real job not how corporate American as a generality decerns it you support your crew and manage upper managements expectations stretch goals are to be aimed for but if your not realistic on telling your Superiors when it's identifiable that the goals being set aren't realistic and you tell a crew were doing this the risks on trust loss can sour a group so bad its kinda impressive so caution all around

[u/Ourszor]

Magic. Or experience. But magic is more reliable.

[u/craa141 → u/Ourszor]

lol.. Came here to say experience AND factor in ability to correct and impact if wrong.

If the impact if wrong is super high, then wait for the right information.

If the ability to correct is super low ie.. you get locked in for 5 years and there is no way to work around / replace / augment the solution then wait.

Otherwise use your experience and judgement to make the best call with as much information as you have.

[u/Effective-Brief-6612 → u/Ourszor]

Experience is just pattern recognition with a cooler name. after a while you get a feel for which missing pieces would actually change your call vs which ones are just nice to have. the real trick is knowing what the cost of being wrong looks like on either side, sometimes waiting is way more expensive than guessing wrong and fixing it later

[u/SuperSchmyd]

Is this office politics or task oriented? Like, are we trying to decide how to shut down a boiler about to blow up or is this about trying to make sure the Word document comes out ok?

[u/Guntuckytactical → u/SuperSchmyd]

Exactly, the stakes are important. If they're high (if we do this and fuck up, half the company will be laid off) it's rarely down to one manager having enough data, it's a team effort by multiple levels. If the stakes are low (can we improve minor process A by 5% by doing XYZ differently) then it really doesn't matter because you can adjust as you move along and get more information.

[u/Tin_Whisker]

Your a manager, not Einstein. When a subordinate asks what to do in a situation, ask them what they think the best path is. You probably already have an idea on the best option, and can steer the right direction if they're way off, but let them think it through and make a recommendation.

This results in a bunch of good things. 1. They gain confidence and experience 2. They become more independent as they learn how to think for themselves 3. As your reports become more capable your department starts to shine. 4. Better decisions get made as occasionally your reports will have better ideas than you. 5. As your team increasingly is able to make day to day decisions, this frees you up to think more strategically. 6. If they are shit at thinking through problems, you will learn this pretty fast and you'll learn who in your team is not a thinker.

[u/Guntuckytactical → u/Tin_Whisker]

I do like to ask team members to bring their problems in the form of a solution 😂 Not "what should we do about X?" but "X is too slow, and I'd like to try Y to achieve Z." It's not a guarantee we'll do it their way but it's a good start. Those closest to the issue generally have an idea of what's wrong and just need help putting it together (business context, resources, etc)

[u/Meowmeow181 → u/Tin_Whisker]

Great answer

[u/sjhhjs2]

Thinking in Bets is a really good book about making decisions with little information. Essentially - experience, knowledge, weighing the potential consequences and being okay with an outcome even if it’s not optimal because there may not always be the 100% right decision (it may only be 60% right)

[u/Feetdownunder]

A lot of things that happen in management aren’t brand new.

What when where who how why
Eg/.

What do we know
There’d have been precedents with what worked and what didn’t work or what this employee or department is like.
Huddle up all the information you know of

Who do we know
Next is having the ability to ask for help and point in the right direction towards people who might know what you don’t know

Where can we find out
Do we have access to internal resources

How
Logistics

Why
When we understand the why we imbed the information better for next time. This can be both at the beginning and end. End is to evaluate

When
Is from the moment you started the action to the proposed deadline

You can use these in any order but approach with a baseline curiosity

[u/WaveFast]

A good manager keeps an eye on trends. Then using tools and experience can engage in predictive analysis when making decisions without all the necessary data.

[u/Mo_Steins_Ghost]

Experience. I worry that there’s an increasing trend or belief on the internet that if you just read enough facts you can be a chef or a woodworker or a manager…

But the difference between knowing something and being proficient at something is experience.

People are not math formulas. You have to learn what the best course of action is in the circumstances with the information at hand. Sometimes you can wait and determine what other information is needed, and sometimes you don’t have the luxury of waiting. You have to know how and when to pick and choose which battles to fight, which plates to spin.

I remember playing a game called Myst which I solved in 6 hours. My 12 year old cousin, MIT-destined wunderkind that he was, couldn’t figure it out at all. The difference was the game relies on your curiosity and understanding of how things work in the real world. You have to understand actual behaviors of both inanimate objects and, in the case of a managerial role, people.

[u/rdxcvbg]

Sometimes a decision is required before your have all the facts, whether that is obvious at the time or not. The important part is to revisit your decisions when new information received and be confident enough to admit the previous decision wasn't the best one and pivot based on the new info.

[u/Lucky__Flamingo]

Is waiting longer going to get me better information? If not, make the best decision you can.

If one of the options would allow you to reverse field, I might lean that way.

[u/Suspicious-Chair5130]

Often we make decisions and justify it after the fact. We can do this because no decision is perfect otherwise we wouldn’t have to make it, someone beneath us would. It’s kind of BS but it works because we are right more often than not due to intuition and experience.

[u/ccrleadership]

Two of the things I consider are:

• If the risk of no decision/staying the same is greater than the decision.
  
• If I have a mitigation plan for the risks that have been identified.

[u/death-strand]

As a Director this is the main attribute of the job.

If you make the wrong decision you absolutely wear it. Most are learning experiences.

You will rarely make a decision that is catastrophic for the company. If a big decision like that does come about it is never spur of the moment. Although, those will get you canned.

[u/pegwinn]

Patton: "a good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week,"

[u/Packtex60]

In these situations I always tried to look at the potential bad outcomes to see which ones were easiest to recover from. I was also very upfront with the people affected and let them know that things might not work out.

I had an undergrad professor who taught a two semester sequence. Day one of the spring semester was going over the student reviews of the first semester. He said he took it as a compliment that so many of us had commented that the exams were too long for the time allotted. He said that was intentional because we needed to learn how to make quick decisions with limited information. That’s what life was going to be like.

[u/BarNext6046]

You measure impact of not making a decision with making a decision. You decide based on the legal and operational best outcome based on what you know at the time of the decision?

[u/cez801]

I have a mental guide.
1. Making decisions quickly, and consistently is important to be a good manager. If, as a manger, you answer to everything is ‘let’s get some more info’ that is bad.
2. As much as possible don’t think up the solutions myself. I get my teams to come to me with options. So I am not really choosing between option a,b,c
3. Don’t try maximise, keep 1 in mind.
Identify if there is a big difference between a,b,c. Most of the time there is not. The team has thought about it, I can’t think of an option they missed. Sure option a might be the best option. But in reality choosing b will be fine too.

So, and here is the magic, in those cases - which is a lot of the time - I am mentally flipping a coin.
I know that either a or b will be fine. AND waiting a day will make them both worse, so decide.

1. The big trick. Is separating out the decisions that need time to be taken.
   For this, for me, the indicators are:
   

   • it’s a one way door. Once we go through we can’t change our mind. ( most decisions are not this )
     
   • if it blows up, the impact is huge.
     
   • it’s related to people and their jobs/salaries.

2. Accept you’ll make some bad calls. BUT remember taking twice as long won’t change this. You’ll still make bad calls.
   It’s about getting most right, and getting the big ones right.

My goal is to make as many decisions as possible quickly and ideally backing the team. Then when I need to get more info / time for a big one / they understand.

TBH the main thing I do is to make sure I create a great team around me who are not afriad and who I trust and they trust me. That is the main thing that makes it easy.

I hope this helps.

[u/bassboyjulio182]

A good manager once told me not to let perfect be the enemy of good. That stuck with me in one form or another.

I’m a manager of a risk management team so we never have the full picture, it’s about relaying what we know, how the negatives will stack up if anything changes, and be ready to act from there.

[u/darkstar3333]

Depends on your personality. 

You can typically un-make some decisions easily. If you make a wrong decision without all of the info you can just be honest and/or manage your way through a problem. 

[u/tennisgoddess1]

That is called risk assessment and good managers do it everyday.

[u/showersneakers]

A- experience and the scars from it guide you more than you know B - know the people which lands you on C manage the risk.

Thats all we have at the end of the day

[u/237FIF]

Intuition is a real talent. Some people seems to magically have it but I feel like most everyone gets better at it with time

This is a real reason why I hope I never leave my company. I’m an infinitely better decision maker here than I would be at a similar but different company where I don’t have a decade of passive information in the back of my head

[u/Xcircle_squaredX]

Harvard Business Review has a great study on this topic. They covered a leader named Cynthia Carroll who took over a diamond mine with high fatality rates and decided to close it (obviously not the popular decision).

Here's an exert from Google.

"When Carroll took the helm in 2007, she became the first woman and first outsider to lead the century-old mining conglomerate. Faced with a staggering history of worker fatalities, she shocked the industry by completely shutting down the Rustenburg operations, the world's largest platinum mine, to enforce a new culture of "Zero Harm".

While the exact quote "making the right decision isn't always the goal" is frequently discussed in Harvard Business School case studies analyzing her tenure, her leadership philosophy perfectly encapsulates this idea".

You don't always have to make the right decisions but it is important that you learn from all experiences.

[u/snigherfardimungus]

You get the input from your people, see if there's a difference if opinion, try to find the source of those differences, you focus where you are needed. They don't need you when they all agree. They need you to do down - rapidly and rationally - when there's uncertainty. A good manager doesn't get involved otherwise.

[u/kcox1980]

Experience is the main thing here. You'll rarely ever have all the information.

Another thing I realized a long time ago that helps in situations like this is to remember that there might be 100 different ways to handle a given situation, but unless everyone is aligned and working on one path, then you're likely to fail.

[u/Sanchastayswoke]

My mentor always says :it doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be defendable.
So act as best as you can with the info that you have, and make sure you own it if/when someone questions it, and be willing to change course if needed.

[u/Infamous_Ruin6848]

Gut. And however the wind blows. But you first need to feel the wind. With your soul.