Finding the creative, fertile ground between extremes may rely on NOT making up your mind

Being decisive is generally counted as one of the key requirements for a leader, especially the macho kind so heavily favored today. Leaders are expected to be both decisive and tenacious, once their decisions have been made — to stick to a position through thick and thin. But is this such a good idea?

Politicians, the media, and enthusiasts for all kinds of causes are always pushing people to make up their minds; usually between simple, extreme, and nearly always dramatic alternatives: good/bad, fast/slow, profitable/loss-making, success/failure. They argue that there is no other position. “Those who are not for us,” they say, “are against us.” Life is full of blacks and whites — no grays.

In a culture like this, not making a choice is dismissed as indecisive. In fact, it can be both sensible and highly creative. The truth is that life is nearly all grays. It’s black and white that are uncommon.

The drawbacks of decisiveness

What if a decision proves to be less than ideal? What if there simply wasn’t enough data when the the original decision was made, and it was taken on an insufficient basis? Is it still a virtue to make up your mind decisively and stick to your choice? The myth of the decisive leader frequently causes those in power to persist with a failing ideal, long after the point where the evidence is clearly showing that it isn’t working, purely to avoid seeming indecisive. So much of their credibility is tied up in being the kind of person who doesn’t waver from a decision, once made, that they fear its loss more than they fear being wrong.

But when does decisiveness become jumping to conclusions, simply to avoid seeming to stand there, lost in uncertainty?

The world is a complex, confusing, and highly uncertain place. It’s tough to be sure of anything. It’s very possible that following an urge to appear decisive will lead you into making premature choices. We’re taught to dislike uncertainty and ambiguity. The more macho types, especially those of a conservative cast of mind, desire certainty of every kind even more than most. That’s why they try to establish rules and supposed laws of existence; it makes life seem simpler and more predictable — even when it’s neither of those.

In the end, the only sensible path is to deal with the world as it is, not as we might like it to be. Decisiveness, like most supposed human virtues, is not an absolute. It’s value depends entirely on circumstances.

When decisiveness is called for — say to cope with an impending emergency — nothing else will serve. But when there is little time pressure, and the choices are both fundamental and far-reaching, there is no reason to settle on a firm choice until the last moment. The virtue of open-mindedness in such a situation is going to be more important than appearing to know right away what you want.

Finding a middle path

Extreme choices may be simple and dramatic, but they aren’t inevitable. In the middle ground between these extremes lies the possibility of forging a new position that lacks the drawbacks of the polarities. It’s a place where you can seek to combine the advantages of both ends of the spectrum; or one where you can find a new set of choices that avoid the worst drawbacks of the simplistic alternatives you are being offered.

It’s too easy to assume that the current choices are all that there are. This is almost certainly false.

Not liking what’s currently on offer is the essential first step in working out something better. The second is taking the time needed to explore alternatives; to think about the situation creatively, free from any artificial expectation that you must make up your mind within some arbitrary timescale. That requires that you accept ambiguity — even welcome it. Not knowing what’s right allows you to stay open-minded and flexible.

It also allows you to keep changing your mind as more information becomes available. Today’s orthodoxy is so mad keen to finish the thinking stage and get into the action that any delay in fixing on a single, firm decision is heartily disliked; it keeps putting off implementation, which is all that so-called practical managers feel comfortable with.

Implementation of the wrong choice seems a poor option to accept, just to avoid being seen as indecisive. Nor does holding on to a degree of open-mindedness stop you from taking any kind of action. All it requires is that you don’t burn your bridges in doing so.

Like a good general, you advance your strategy, while always being on the alert for any new information that might require you to adapt — up to, and including, having the option to retreat rather than court defeat. It’s the poor, headstrong general who rushes his forces ahead with absolute belief in the excellence of his original plan, even after it may be clear to everyone else that new information has made it a recipe for disaster. Decisiveness and rigidity are frequently found together.

Keeping your options open

The options you have today should be seen as “templates” that you can start to modify and shape into something better; not some immutable position that must be accepted unaltered. Those who favor a position always like to characterize their own as the only possible one, and frighten you with the supposed dangers of the opposite choice. Their opponent do the same thing. Neither group want you to consider a middle path, since that weakens their claim that you must choose only between them.

In reality, there are always going to be other options, many that haven’t yet been discovered or created. Some of these may be much better that those available today. If we aspire to be leaders of any kind — or even just to live a full and happy life — it’s our job to try to find them.

Choosing only between what’s currently available appeals to the macho mind because it’s quick, simple, and appears decisive. Finding new options requires time, thought, and the willingness to sit with uncertainty for maybe long periods — all things that are anathema to today’s short-term,Hamburger Management leaders.

It’s that attitude that helped to get us into the mess we’re in.

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