I still remember the meeting that changed how I viewed leadership forever. It was 2019, and I was consulting for a mid-sized logistics company in Sydney that was struggling with delayed shipments and declining customer satisfaction. The leadership team had spent close to four months debating whether to upgrade their fleet tracking system. By the time they finally approved the purchase, two competitors had already implemented similar technology – and stolen key accounts.

That experience taught me a brutal truth: In business, slow decisions don’t just cost time. They cost market share, talent, and sometimes the entire company.

Over the past few years, working with executives across Australia and New Zealand, I’ve seen how organisations that master efficient decision-making outmanoeuvre rivals, adapt to crises, and seize opportunities while others are still forming committees.

But why is efficiency in decision-making so critical? And how can leaders cut through bureaucracy without sacrificing quality? Let’s examine the evidence – and the high stakes of hesitation.

The high cost of delay – when slow decisions kill companies

In business, speed is the new scale.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon Shareholder Letters

Research from McKinsey & Company (2021) found that companies making fast strategic decisions are 1.5 times more likely to outperform peers financially. The inverse is equally striking:

• Nokia’s 18 month delay in adopting smartphones (while debating operating systems) allowed Apple and Samsung to dominate the market.
• Blockbuster’s infamous 2000 refusal to buy Netflix for $50 million – after months of internal debate – became a case study in catastrophic hesitation.

A Harvard Business School study (Sull & Eisenhardt, 2023) analysed 500 corporate decisions and found that delayed choices cost 2.3x more in missed revenue, employee attrition, and operational bandaids than decisions made quickly – even if imperfect.

Why efficient decision-making wins

Market opportunities favour the swift

Industries today move at the speed of data. A Stanford Graduate School of Business report from 2022 found that 70% of competitive advantages last less than 12 months due to rapid tech disruption.

Consider the following:

• Tesla’s decision to open-source its patents in 2014 (a call made in days) solidified its dominance in EV infrastructure.
• Air New Zealand’s pivot to cargo flights during COVID (a 72-hour decision) saved millions while competitors grounded fleets.

This brings me to the Ray Dalio’s thoughts:

The race doesn’t always go to the strongest or most intelligent, but to those who act fastest.

Ray Dalio, Principles: Life and Work

Slow decisions demoralise teams

Indecision is a silent culture killer. A Gallup study of 2023 revealed that employees in organisations with sluggish decision-making are:

• 43% more likely to disengage.
• 3x more likely to quit within a year.

I have seen some of this first-hand, where new businesses have seen a giant increase in the number of key employees resigning where decision-making was delayed, especially in situations involving the implementation of new projects and ideas.

Data decays faster than ever

MIT’s Sloan Management Review (2023) proved that analytics older than 30 days lead to 52% less accurate decisions, yet most corporations still rely on quarterly reports.

For example, a retail chain I know spent four months analysing foot traffic data to relocate stores. By the time they acted, post-pandemic shopping patterns had shifted – and they had to close several locations unnecessarily.

How the best leaders decide faster (without sacrificing rigour)

Efficient decision-making isn’t about recklessness – it’s about structured urgency. Here’s how top executives balance speed with precision:

The 70% rule

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos famously advocated making decisions when you have 70% of the desired information rather than waiting for certainty. Delaying for perfection often means missing the window entirely.

“Two-way door” decisions

Classify choices as:

• One-way doors – irreversible; demand caution.
• Two-way doors – reversible; should be made quickly.

War rooms, not committees

Harvard Business Review (2022) found that cross-functional war rooms (time-bound teams with full authority) cut decision cycles by 65% versus traditional hierarchical reviews.

Pre-mortems over post-mortems

Psychologist Gary Klein’s research shows that imagining why a decision might fail before committing surfaces risks faster than endless analysis.

The bottom line – velocity as competitive advantage

In nature, predators don’t stalk prey indefinitely – they strike when the cost of waiting exceeds the risk of action. Modern business is no different.

As Andy Grove, Intel’s legendary CEO, once warned:

Only the paranoid survive, but the paralysed perish.

Leaders who institutionalise speed, clarity, and accountability in decisions don’t just avoid Nokia’s fate – they define their industry’s future. The question isn’t whether your organisation can afford to decide faster, it’s whether you can afford not to.