6 ms·

The lede really stuck out to me: "Most decisions should probably be made with somewhere around 70% of the information you wish you had. If you wait for 90%, in

The lede really stuck out to me: "Most decisions should probably be made with somewhere around 70% of the information you wish you had. If you wait for 90%, in most cases, you’re probably being slow" At what point is the information you have available for a key decision enough? You always want more. This exactly mirrors a MAJOR decision-making framework taught in the Marine Corps--we actually call it the "70% solution." All of our warfighting doctrine is built around the principle of rapid and decisive action, but the problem is you're in an uncertain, rapidly changing world where there are opposing actors operating around you and you never have all the answers. They emphasize in officer training that a key limiter is being paralyzed with uncertainty and wanting to wait until more information is available, and that you must actively counter this feeling. Indecision is a decision (and often the worst one). I have personally found this one of the most difficult and perpetual factors I've encountered in both military and civilian careers. It's interesting that Bezos espouses this principle.

matwood 9y ago
> They emphasize in officer training that a key limiter is being paralyzed with uncertainty and wanting to wait until more information is available, and that you must actively counter this feeling. Indecision is a decision (and often the worst one) Analysis paralysis happens frequently with analytic types of people.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
AndrewKemendo 9y ago
My favorite must-memorize Patton quote that sums this all up is: "A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week."
- paganel 9y ago
  It also helps if you've got superior firepower and human resources compared to your adversaries, because otherwise Operation Barbarossa was quite the violent plan executed at just the right time (there are many reports saying that the Soviets were also preparing to attack first) but which failed miserably in the end. Nobody quotes generals Model or Guderian, who were just as competent if not more compared to Patton. Survivor bias at its best.
  - niuzeta 9y ago
    I agree with the survivor bias imbued with this sentiment, but I don't know if Operation Barbarossa is a good parallel to draw in this case. The Wehrmacht was targeting Moscow, the capital, then Hitler changed his mind, and overruled the generals. Combine with his later orders to never give up Stalingrad, I doubt his case is applicable for the poitns 3) and 4) of the article.
    - paganel 9y ago
      I thought about Hitler not pushing hard enough for Moscow after I had submitted my comment, and then I remembered that taking Moscow had been in vain for Napoleon (basically the guy who invented modern warfare), so not sure if that would have helped the Germans that much. I'm a big fan of Clausewitz and of strategy discussions in general, but I think that we tend to focus too much on providential men who, naturally, can only take providential decisions (like Bezos, or Napoleon), and we tend to ignore the "longue durée", as the French historians called it (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longue_dur%C3%A9e https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longue_dur%C3%A9e), the long course of history which should have informed Hitler that his country did not have the necessary resources (logistical, military etc) to defeat both the Soviets and the English (and the Americans after the Pearl Harbour attack). It may sound deterministic, but IMHO most of the battles (either in war, finance, in politics) have been won before the two sides started engaging in conflict. Some of those involved just didn't know it yet.
      - niuzeta 9y ago
        I would argue that Hitler's capture of Moscow would have yielded result scores different in both strategical significance and political, than Napoleon's, and it would have handed him a great advantage in 1942. The strategic importance of the city was hundred-fold different. The Napoleonic wars was a time where the modern states first started engaging in national fights with significant casualty, but still continue the war effort. In this sense it was quite the first "modern" warfare, but the telecommunication technology was still in its infancy; scout messengers were still used and reconnaissance was still relatively rudimentary. Gathered information was a fraction of what the Wehrmacht could gather, and it meant the control center relied on smaller Staff office. Combine it with Napoleon's providential talent, you could essentially have a mobile command center and the army could still function. In 1940s the sheer amount of intel and volume of telecommunication wouldn't be handled by no other place than central capital. Imagine if Napoleon couldn't dispatch orders in time and get the intels that he needed. Moscow needed to be taken specifically because taking it would have damaged Russian effort more than it did in Napoleonic times. Note that in Napoleonic invasion Russian army set Moscow ablaze and left them to an empty city; in the Barbarossa they were willing to defend it to last man. Even Stalin refused to move away. Production prowess of modern city Moscow wasn't also nothing to scoff at, too. Von Clausewitz did write that war is a political means(I remember this from first few chapters from On War, though I forgot which translation I read) and one of the primary goals must be to 1) preserve one's own strength, while 2) deteriorate the opponent's fighting capability. Taking Moscow would have done exactly that. It also would have yielded a political gain, as Soviet army at the time was heavily dependent on a few personnel, especially after the Great Purge. Once you take Moscow and demean Stalin's infallibility, you also damage Soviet morale. I too believe that most of the battles are determined before the engagements. We know of the contrarian ones because they are rare. German generals(Model, Manstein, Rundstedt, Guderian to name a few) were perhaps the most competent ones in the second world war, but they hardly get mentions. (Perhaps deservingly for the ends they were aiming at)
agumonkey 9y ago
It's a bit like speed of light, you can't reach it.
RichardHeart 9y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimal_stopping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimal_stopping
BurningFrog 9y ago
If you structure things so you can change or revert your decisions later, it is also much cheaper to start executing them with not that much information. Not always possible, of course, but once you start thinking in those terms, you can get good mileage out of that habit.
hxta98596 9y ago
Nice comparison. I'm also familiar with "70% solution". One thing to add: officers, and hopefully business leaders, are taught how to build a theoretical list of what approximately 100% of the information, questions and answers might be...That way you know what 70% is in reference to. This is taught and one can easily memorize the checklists of decision making questions (it's a mnemonic device). To see why this matters imagine: Are we looking for 70% out of 5 questions? or 70% of 10 questions we have? If you think you only need to answer 5 questions before making a decision and answer 4. That's 80% and you would go...But if there are 10 questions to ideally check off before deciding and you only answer 4, that's way too low and dangerous. This is dangerous in the military and in startup land. Knowing the full list of questions to ask is more important than knowing the answers. Lastly, both Amazon and the military have huge structures, plans and support teams in place to encourage 70% as an OK threshold. Imagine if you have air support you can call in the marines should things go wrong, or you have your parents couch to crash on if your startup fails, those things would help a person be comfortable going on only 70% of the information.
- JacobJans 9y ago
  > Imagine if you have air support you can call in the marines should things go wrong, or you have your parents couch to crash on if your startup fails, those things would help a person be comfortable going on only 70% of the information. I would extend this to say that 50% of the knowledge needed for making a decision is understanding the downsides / risks of moving forward. For example, if you know you'll be OK if your fail, it is much easier to say yes to a big choice. However, if you're risking homelessnes, then it's probably better to find a different option. Even in less extreme scenarios, minor decisions I make are often based on understanding the risks, more than understanding the upsides. Maybe it is too conservative of an approach, but it is (unfortunately) based on experience.
- SquirrelOnFire 9y ago
  Mind sharing the list/mnemonic?
- maroonblazer 9y ago
  >But if there are 10 questions to ideally check off before deciding and you only answer 4, that's way too low and dangerous. Unless the time required to answer those 6 questions is enough time for a competitor to take your place...? Which is the better move? Do you gamble by waiting and hope they guess wrong, thus giving you more information that might help answer your 6 questions? Or do you roll the dice and make the best decision you can given everything you know?
Consultant32452 9y ago
Based on the results of the last 15 years of foreign policy it seems like we're working from far less than 70% of the information. :(
- azinman2 9y ago
  Or you just don't notice / ignore / know about all the things that went right / according to plan.
- sfifs 9y ago
  Or it's possible your (persumably you're American) foreign policy is indeed working with full information - the goals are different from what you think it is. After all weapons manufacturing capabilities expensively started up cannot simply be closed down once your own needs are met except in case of uniquely advantageous stuff like f22 or b2
fgimenez 9y ago
I like to borrow from the decision theory field. There are massive frameworks around the "value of information" or "value of clairvoyance"[1]. The best summation of their framework is "Make a decision when the probability of new information changing your mind is minimal." Of course, we need to quantify "new information" and "minimal", but it's a good framework to consider what new data points would change your existing course. [1] http://lesswrong.com/lw/85x/value_of_information_four_examples/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/85x/value_of_information_four_exampl...
oskarth 9y ago
I really like that this is an example from the real world. In the real world, people have skin in the game and their decisions matter. In the military field, of the boots on the ground variety, this distinction is crystal clear. People can die from the wrong decision. What happens if your Decision Framework Theory is wrong? Most likely nothing. If Bezos didn't develop this heuristic himself - through his own risk taking - I wouldn't be surprised if he got it from something like the Marine Corps.
thr0waway1239 9y ago
>> This exactly mirrors a MAJOR decision-making framework taught in the Marine Corps--we actually call it the "70% solution." This is ironic. Taken as an entire group, people who go to fight for their respective countries are routinely lied to, rarely have the full picture of the motives of those who are sending them out to fight, and end up causing destruction which is completely disproportional to the amount of knowledge they possess. As the saying goes, the first casualty of every war is the truth. Besides, is the 21st century war, where one side drops bombs on a technologically hapless group of people via UAVs, actually a level playing field from which you want to learn business principles?
- Lordarminius 9y ago
  > This is ironic. Well, to be fair, there are all sorts of sub-level scenarios within the larger political decision to go to war that call for independent decision making. Officers cannot be blamed for political decisions
ValleyOfTheMtns 9y ago
How do you even know what % of information you have?
psyc 9y ago
This is very valuable. My overall impression is that many people tend to be maximally risk-averse, regardless of scope. For example, rejecting a course of action due to fixating on a single unlikely thing that could go wrong. Rather than holding out for a choice that comes with no anxiety, I believe it's better to work on not being anxious.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
eevilspock 9y ago
See the *Secretary problem": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem
- draz 9y ago
  I was thinking of the same thing! 70% is "too slow" as well.
typetypetype 9y ago
> Indecision is a decision (and often the worst one). This is a great guiding philosophy!
SnacksOnAPlane 9y ago
Louis CK has adopted this rule: http://lifehacker.com/use-louie-cks-70-rule-to-avoid-decision-paralysis-1570223331 http://lifehacker.com/use-louie-cks-70-rule-to-avoid-decisio...

matwood 9y ago

> They emphasize in officer training that a key limiter is being paralyzed with uncertainty and wanting to wait until more information is available, and that you must actively counter this feeling. Indecision is a decision (and often the worst one) Analysis paralysis happens frequently with analytic types of people.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

AndrewKemendo 9y ago

My favorite must-memorize Patton quote that sums this all up is: "A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week."

paganel 9y ago
It also helps if you've got superior firepower and human resources compared to your adversaries, because otherwise Operation Barbarossa was quite the violent plan executed at just the right time (there are many reports saying that the Soviets were also preparing to attack first) but which failed miserably in the end. Nobody quotes generals Model or Guderian, who were just as competent if not more compared to Patton. Survivor bias at its best.
- niuzeta 9y ago
  I agree with the survivor bias imbued with this sentiment, but I don't know if Operation Barbarossa is a good parallel to draw in this case. The Wehrmacht was targeting Moscow, the capital, then Hitler changed his mind, and overruled the generals. Combine with his later orders to never give up Stalingrad, I doubt his case is applicable for the poitns 3) and 4) of the article.
  - paganel 9y ago
    I thought about Hitler not pushing hard enough for Moscow after I had submitted my comment, and then I remembered that taking Moscow had been in vain for Napoleon (basically the guy who invented modern warfare), so not sure if that would have helped the Germans that much. I'm a big fan of Clausewitz and of strategy discussions in general, but I think that we tend to focus too much on providential men who, naturally, can only take providential decisions (like Bezos, or Napoleon), and we tend to ignore the "longue durée", as the French historians called it (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longue_dur%C3%A9e https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longue_dur%C3%A9e), the long course of history which should have informed Hitler that his country did not have the necessary resources (logistical, military etc) to defeat both the Soviets and the English (and the Americans after the Pearl Harbour attack). It may sound deterministic, but IMHO most of the battles (either in war, finance, in politics) have been won before the two sides started engaging in conflict. Some of those involved just didn't know it yet.
    - niuzeta 9y ago
      I would argue that Hitler's capture of Moscow would have yielded result scores different in both strategical significance and political, than Napoleon's, and it would have handed him a great advantage in 1942. The strategic importance of the city was hundred-fold different. The Napoleonic wars was a time where the modern states first started engaging in national fights with significant casualty, but still continue the war effort. In this sense it was quite the first "modern" warfare, but the telecommunication technology was still in its infancy; scout messengers were still used and reconnaissance was still relatively rudimentary. Gathered information was a fraction of what the Wehrmacht could gather, and it meant the control center relied on smaller Staff office. Combine it with Napoleon's providential talent, you could essentially have a mobile command center and the army could still function. In 1940s the sheer amount of intel and volume of telecommunication wouldn't be handled by no other place than central capital. Imagine if Napoleon couldn't dispatch orders in time and get the intels that he needed. Moscow needed to be taken specifically because taking it would have damaged Russian effort more than it did in Napoleonic times. Note that in Napoleonic invasion Russian army set Moscow ablaze and left them to an empty city; in the Barbarossa they were willing to defend it to last man. Even Stalin refused to move away. Production prowess of modern city Moscow wasn't also nothing to scoff at, too. Von Clausewitz did write that war is a political means(I remember this from first few chapters from On War, though I forgot which translation I read) and one of the primary goals must be to 1) preserve one's own strength, while 2) deteriorate the opponent's fighting capability. Taking Moscow would have done exactly that. It also would have yielded a political gain, as Soviet army at the time was heavily dependent on a few personnel, especially after the Great Purge. Once you take Moscow and demean Stalin's infallibility, you also damage Soviet morale. I too believe that most of the battles are determined before the engagements. We know of the contrarian ones because they are rare. German generals(Model, Manstein, Rundstedt, Guderian to name a few) were perhaps the most competent ones in the second world war, but they hardly get mentions. (Perhaps deservingly for the ends they were aiming at)

agumonkey 9y ago

It's a bit like speed of light, you can't reach it.

RichardHeart 9y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimal_stopping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimal_stopping

BurningFrog 9y ago

If you structure things so you can change or revert your decisions later, it is also much cheaper to start executing them with not that much information. Not always possible, of course, but once you start thinking in those terms, you can get good mileage out of that habit.

hxta98596 9y ago

Nice comparison. I'm also familiar with "70% solution". One thing to add: officers, and hopefully business leaders, are taught how to build a theoretical list of what approximately 100% of the information, questions and answers might be...That way you know what 70% is in reference to. This is taught and one can easily memorize the checklists of decision making questions (it's a mnemonic device). To see why this matters imagine: Are we looking for 70% out of 5 questions? or 70% of 10 questions we have? If you think you only need to answer 5 questions before making a decision and answer 4. That's 80% and you would go...But if there are 10 questions to ideally check off before deciding and you only answer 4, that's way too low and dangerous. This is dangerous in the military and in startup land. Knowing the full list of questions to ask is more important than knowing the answers. Lastly, both Amazon and the military have huge structures, plans and support teams in place to encourage 70% as an OK threshold. Imagine if you have air support you can call in the marines should things go wrong, or you have your parents couch to crash on if your startup fails, those things would help a person be comfortable going on only 70% of the information.

JacobJans 9y ago
> Imagine if you have air support you can call in the marines should things go wrong, or you have your parents couch to crash on if your startup fails, those things would help a person be comfortable going on only 70% of the information. I would extend this to say that 50% of the knowledge needed for making a decision is understanding the downsides / risks of moving forward. For example, if you know you'll be OK if your fail, it is much easier to say yes to a big choice. However, if you're risking homelessnes, then it's probably better to find a different option. Even in less extreme scenarios, minor decisions I make are often based on understanding the risks, more than understanding the upsides. Maybe it is too conservative of an approach, but it is (unfortunately) based on experience.
SquirrelOnFire 9y ago
Mind sharing the list/mnemonic?
maroonblazer 9y ago
>But if there are 10 questions to ideally check off before deciding and you only answer 4, that's way too low and dangerous. Unless the time required to answer those 6 questions is enough time for a competitor to take your place...? Which is the better move? Do you gamble by waiting and hope they guess wrong, thus giving you more information that might help answer your 6 questions? Or do you roll the dice and make the best decision you can given everything you know?

Consultant32452 9y ago

Based on the results of the last 15 years of foreign policy it seems like we're working from far less than 70% of the information. :(

azinman2 9y ago
Or you just don't notice / ignore / know about all the things that went right / according to plan.
sfifs 9y ago
Or it's possible your (persumably you're American) foreign policy is indeed working with full information - the goals are different from what you think it is. After all weapons manufacturing capabilities expensively started up cannot simply be closed down once your own needs are met except in case of uniquely advantageous stuff like f22 or b2

fgimenez 9y ago

I like to borrow from the decision theory field. There are massive frameworks around the "value of information" or "value of clairvoyance"[1]. The best summation of their framework is "Make a decision when the probability of new information changing your mind is minimal." Of course, we need to quantify "new information" and "minimal", but it's a good framework to consider what new data points would change your existing course. [1] http://lesswrong.com/lw/85x/value_of_information_four_examples/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/85x/value_of_information_four_exampl...

oskarth 9y ago

I really like that this is an example from the real world. In the real world, people have skin in the game and their decisions matter. In the military field, of the boots on the ground variety, this distinction is crystal clear. People can die from the wrong decision. What happens if your Decision Framework Theory is wrong? Most likely nothing. If Bezos didn't develop this heuristic himself - through his own risk taking - I wouldn't be surprised if he got it from something like the Marine Corps.

thr0waway1239 9y ago

>> This exactly mirrors a MAJOR decision-making framework taught in the Marine Corps--we actually call it the "70% solution." This is ironic. Taken as an entire group, people who go to fight for their respective countries are routinely lied to, rarely have the full picture of the motives of those who are sending them out to fight, and end up causing destruction which is completely disproportional to the amount of knowledge they possess. As the saying goes, the first casualty of every war is the truth. Besides, is the 21st century war, where one side drops bombs on a technologically hapless group of people via UAVs, actually a level playing field from which you want to learn business principles?

Lordarminius 9y ago
> This is ironic. Well, to be fair, there are all sorts of sub-level scenarios within the larger political decision to go to war that call for independent decision making. Officers cannot be blamed for political decisions

ValleyOfTheMtns 9y ago

How do you even know what % of information you have?

psyc 9y ago

This is very valuable. My overall impression is that many people tend to be maximally risk-averse, regardless of scope. For example, rejecting a course of action due to fixating on a single unlikely thing that could go wrong. Rather than holding out for a choice that comes with no anxiety, I believe it's better to work on not being anxious.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

eevilspock 9y ago

See the *Secretary problem": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem

draz 9y ago
I was thinking of the same thing! 70% is "too slow" as well.

typetypetype 9y ago

> Indecision is a decision (and often the worst one). This is a great guiding philosophy!

SnacksOnAPlane 9y ago

Louis CK has adopted this rule: http://lifehacker.com/use-louie-cks-70-rule-to-avoid-decision-paralysis-1570223331 http://lifehacker.com/use-louie-cks-70-rule-to-avoid-decisio...