Being biased. Biased for Action

I am a bigot. There, I said it: I have a deep bias for people and companies that take action.

I have a deep intolerance for people who have to weigh up all the options, understand all their relative merits, consult all possible stakeholders and more often than not, do nothing. We see this everywhere: in corporations, in our government, and in the way most decisions get made. It’s not interesting, nor productive, nor useful, nor fulfilling.

Luckily, the whole world is not like that.

Most people don’t inherently believe that most decisions are, in fact, two-way doors. You can choose to walk through them and then walk back again. And when you are biased for action, that is exactly what you do. All the time.

In his 2016 letter to shareholders in Amazon – a fabled annual event – Jeff Bezos said: “Most decisions should probably be made with somewhere around 70 percent of the information you wish you had. If you wait for 90 percent, in most cases, you’re probably being slow. Plus, either way, you need to be good at quickly recognising and correcting bad decisions.”

Doing nothing is always costly. So is being in possession of 100 percent of the required data. Being wrong is sometimes costly and always informative, and only a small proportion of your actions take you through a one-way door.

In my opinion, you should only hold information-dependent decisions when the door you are walking through is one-way (irreversible). There are very few of those about, and generally in your life you should learn to recognise them.

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A biased argument

Compared to status quo and existing players, startups always have less: people, money, brand/reputation, time (cashflow), expertise and many other valuable assets. Based on my experience, the only advantage startups have against incumbents is their ability to move – the speed and cadence of action.  

If you need them written down, here are some reasons why this matters:

• You can evolve your proposition faster based on more effective feedback cycles. In other words, you can find out what happens in the real world (not a theoretical/meeting-room planet), make changes and receive continuous feedback from real users/buyers. 

• You learn faster and better, because you are learning based on personal experience. It’s not focus groups and preference data; it’s real world consequences. The learning is deeper too – it sticks.

• Many market opportunities are time sensitive. If you spend too long assessing the market, waiting for data and evaluating the options, the opportunity to win a market evaporates. This applies to capital too. Many of the investments go to whoever is winning early on. Many opportunities are fleeting by default.

• The cultural benefits are impactful too. When action-orientation is embedded into the character of a company, its people fear failure less, are more resilient and in the long term, deliver more. Action is also a ‘great equaliser’. Fancy language, extravagant plaid pants and expensive education matter a lot less once you are in the ring being punched in the mouth.

• It offers momentum. Getting a head start is useful in many other ways: it helps build your brand, is a magnet for talent, and generally helps attract the right kind of market attention.

A bias for action does not mean acting impulsively. Failing to consider the direct and indirect consequences of your actions is not smart (nor cool). Action orientation is making a determination that you have sufficient information to make a decision and take the next concrete steps of progress. And much of the time, you already do.

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Life choices

In some ways, a craving for action is a philosophical matter – a life choice of sorts. I have had my time in well-paying corporate jobs where I became excellent at PowerPoint. I was effective at conveying ideas in documents and artefacts in boardrooms, but all I really wanted to do was go outside and play.

Despite the crazy hours, the relatively low pay and the frequency of failure I have to deal with (investments, people, theses, market entries etc), I remain deeply interested in working with founders and their startups. I love the purity of action – the bravery of it. Yes, I am intellectually curious, analytical and love game theory, but nothing compares to the feeling of doing.

There is a poem in Wellington, where I live, describing itself as the ‘city of action, the world headquarters of the verb’. It resonates with me; it’s why I live here. And it’s why I am so deeply enveloped by startups and their founders.

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