Yes, No, Maybe: Is Indecision Killing Your Business?
In the construction world, we’re used to dealing with delays we can’t control, bad weather, late material deliveries, or inspection hold-ups. But there’s one project killer that comes entirely from the inside: indecision.
When you’re running a construction business, standing still is just as dangerous as moving in the wrong direction. Every day a decision hangs in limbo is a day you’re losing money, draining team morale, and letting profitable jobs slip through your fingers. Let’s talk about why “let me think about it” might be the most expensive phrase in your vocabulary—and how to start making calls with confidence.
Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe..
Nursery rhymes have their place, but not in construction. Chronic indecision is bad for all businesses, and, as Jerry Aliberti, owner of Pro-Accel points out, it has an especially negative impact on construction businesses:
Every time a decision gets reversed without a clear reason, your team quietly recalibrates how much weight your word actually carries. They lose TRUST in you and your leaders!! Eventually nobody moves until they get confirmation the decision is real this time. And even that confirmation is foggy. That delay shows up in missed schedules, lack of quality bids, drastically reduced production rates, failed client relationships, terrible change order process, very flawed communication, planning that is almost worthless, and meetings that go nowhere. Ultimately, frustrated field staff who stop bringing you their best ideas because they assume the answer will change anyway. It’s exhausting!
The domino effects of an indecisive business leader add up, and as Forbes points out, the cost of indecision compounds as a company attempts to grow:
- Every delayed decision halts progress.
- A week alone is 2% of an entire year. If our organizations delay 50 decisions by just a week, we lose an entire year of productivity in that area alone.
- Scale that to the thousands of decisions required to grow a company, and the price tag is massive.
- Losing time is more harmful than occasionally pressing the reset button.
- This doesn’t mean we should be sloppy, irresponsible or reckless. It simply sees “no decision” as a greater threat than “wrong decision.”
Data Based Decisions vs Analysis Paralysis
Informed decision making is certainly wise in business, and the advance of digitalization has made access to much more data possible. Of course that can be a help or a hindrance when time is of the essence. A key question construction business leaders need to be asking themselves is: Can you readily access what you need to know when you most need to know it? As Bob Salaj of Quickbase points out, tracking the right data, and acting on it in a timely manner, can make all the difference.
The next time you find yourself struggling with analysis paralysis, remember,even the most awesome and meticulous spreadsheet ever won’t on its own power your business forward. Consider following this advice from Jeff Bezos: “Most decisions should probably be made with somewhere around 70% of the information you wish you had.”
Toward improving your ability to make the game day calls in a timely way at your construction business, you may also find it helpful to identify what’s holding you back. Oracle NetSuite shares these 10 common roadblocks to effective decision making:
📋 Decision-Making Self-Assessment for Business Leaders
- Resource Deficits: Am I launching projects without necessary support?
- Risk Mismanagement: Am I failing to calculate or mitigate risks?
- Misidentified Problems: Am I treating symptoms instead of root causes?
- Fear of Failure: Is the fear of a wrong turn causing paralysis?
- Unreliable Data: Are decisions based on incomplete or old metrics?
- Analysis Paralysis: Am I over-complicating with excessive information?
- Internal Friction: Do politics or red tape stall execution?
- Cognitive Biases: Am I trapped by confirmation bias or overconfidence?
- Groupthink Trap: Is the team agreeing rather than challenging ideas?
- Muddled Priorities: Do vague goals make next steps impossible?
The next time you catch yourself doing the “yes, no, maybe” shuffle at your business, identifying what specifically is holding you back may give you the insight needed to power forward. Keep in mind, as Alibeti underscores, “Winners make decisions make decisions. Not because they are always right, but because they understand that momentum matters more than perfection.”
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