When climbing the corporate ladder, it is crucial to avoid making a decision whenever possible. As all successful business leaders know, making decisions leads to responsibility, accountability and indigestion, all of which are equally unpleasant. However, sometimes it’s difficult coming up with new and creative ways to avoid making a decision. That’s where this list comes in. Here are 10 decision-making strategies to help you avoid making a decision.
1. Get the team involved
Schedule a five-hour brainstorming session with 20 of your most trusted colleagues. Guide the session with open-ended questions such as “What should we do?” and “No, really — what exactly should we do?” During the session, write down each idea on a colourful sticky note. Place the sticky notes all over the room. Take pictures of the sticky notes. Email the pictures to each of the attendees. Was a decision made? No. Did you waste everyone’s time? Definitely. If the decision backfires, just blame “the process”.
2. Do whatever your boss wants
Ask your boss exactly what he or she wants you to do. Your boss may say: “I want you to make this decision.” This is a sign that he or she is trying to throw you under the bus. Do not fall for it. At this point, it’s best to trick your boss into making the decision by putting them on the spot in front of your colleagues. You can achieve a similar effect by calling them out in a team-wide email. CC everyone.
3. Steal from a competitor
When in doubt, steal. Is there a competitor in your field who might have the answer? Find out how they solved the problem, then do the exact same thing. If it goes well, you can claim you were inspired by your competitor. If it doesn’t, you can blame “poor research”.
4. Try something old and stupid
Sometimes the simplest path forward is to look backward — or to not move at all. In a strategy colloquially known as “the government way”, take a look at how your company has made similar decisions in years past. Then, simply repeat the same mistakes over and over again. No matter the results, you’ll be able to back your decision with years of precedent. Once you start saying things such as “this is how we’ve always done it”, you are well on your way to a tenured position.
5. Try something new and stupid
If there’s a strategy your company has never tried, try it. Tell everyone you want to “move fast and break things” — like how Google broke journalism, or how Facebook broke democracy, or how Twitter broke everything. If things go wrong, simply blame your company for “not being ready for the future”. Lament that you tried to push your team to a bold new tomorrow they just weren’t prepared for, and hope maybe someday they will be ready for it.
6. Ask the internet
Turn indecisiveness into prime marketing content. Ask your social media audience to make the decision for you. Tweet out a poll, create an Instagram story or ask for suggestions via Facebook. Ask your LinkedIn followers what kind of videos you should be making. Give prizes to whoever comes up with your new logo or jingle or promotional poster. If the final decision fails, just blame the millennials.
7. Hire a consultant
If you have money to burn, hire a consultant. They are masters at gathering the wrong information, assessing the landscape from an uninformed perspective, and making recommendations that make no sense. But you’ve already spent all the money so you have to do what they say. When it fails, though, the resulting fallout will be zero per cent your fault. In fact, you will be able to blame the consultants for every mis-step your company takes for the next three years.
8. Employ murky legal language
Consult your company lawyer and gather some good jargon. Tell the team you’re going a certain route in order to “mitigate liability”. Even if everything goes sour, they’ll thank you for being so judicious.
9. The one no one will notice
The best decision is like a poorly tied knot: easily unravelled. If you’re in a pinch and need to deliver a V1, just choose the option that’s the easiest to undo. If you can undo the decision before anyone knows you’ve made it, it’s like you never made a decision at all.
10. Wait it out
Sometimes the best way to avoid making a decision is to simply avoid it. Go on a vacation or take a sabbatical. Enrol on an MBA course that takes up all your time. Keep ignoring it until the person asking about it leaves the team, or you leave the team, or a re-org renders your team no longer essential. Eventually, everyone will forget there was ever a decision to be made, even you.
