Decide and Conquer by David Siegel

Author:David Siegel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harpercollins Leadership
Published: 2022-01-03T00:00:00+00:00

Challenge 23: When do you tell the kids?

Decision 23: Immediately

Behavioral psychologists refer to status quo bias as the preference of most individuals to maintain the status quo. It is the reason that the majority of students will sit in the same seat that they chose on day one, since that initial seat is now the status quo. This bias is a result of the endowment effect, where people endow greater value to their current situation than is warranted. Status quo bias often leads to inertia in decision-making. In other words, leaders don’t decide anything.

In my career, I’ve had the opportunity to meet with a number of management luminaries who have taught me this important lesson. The first is John Sculley, the Apple CEO who took over for Steve Jobs and was later replaced by him when Jobs returned. Prior to Apple, he ran PepsiCo and is considered a marketing genius. When I was in business school and interviewing for one of his portfolio companies, I asked him, “What made you such a successful leader?” His answer: “Anytime I have something to do, I do it immediately.” That was it. Be speedy. I often see CEOs and other leaders afraid to make a decision, yet they seldom realize that the act of not making a decision is a decision in itself.

When I was CEO of Investopedia, I found myself sitting next to the late, great Jack Welch at a board dinner. Jack Welch was on the board of Investopedia’s parent company, IAC. I asked him, “You were Fortune magazine’s manager of the twentieth century. Insane. What made you such an effective leader?” He responded, “The most important thing you can do is to build employee trust, and the best way to do that is through transparency.” Words to live by. And with the WeWork announcement, I had a chance to act on those words both in my professional and personal life.

I’ve also made the mistake of not acting boldly and with speed in my career and missed out on an opportunity that would have been worth over $100 million in equity today. On December 16, 2011 (I still have the email!), I received the following note from Bruce Brown, the managing partner at a search firm retained by a tiny San Francisco startup called Uber. “David, I know several folks in my organization have reached out in the past . . . I’ve been asked by the board to go back at you on the GM for Uber in NYC. Bill Gurley @ Benchmark insists on talking to you on an exploratory/confidential basis.” Uber was looking for a head of their next city and a start of their enormous expansion. I asked my lifelong mentor, David Rosenblatt, what I should do. His response: “Benchmark and Bill Gurley are tier 1 investors and great people. Bill is high on Uber, but I don’t know anything about them . . . If you end up meeting the Uber people, it is less interesting.” I didn’t follow up fast and with much interest and let the opportunity of a lifetime slip away.

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