“Perfect decisions require perfect information. Great decisions require enough information, sound judgment, and the courage to move.” – MJ Martin
The Myth of Perfect Information
There is no such thing as a perfect business decision because there is almost never perfect information.
Executives are routinely asked to make consequential decisions while some of the facts remain unknown. Markets change. Customers change their minds. Competitors respond. Governments change policies. Technology advances. Interest rates move. Even carefully constructed forecasts are ultimately estimates of a future that has not happened yet.
The objective, therefore, should not be to make a perfect decision. It should be to make the best defensible decision possible with the information available at the time.
Think of leadership like driving at night. Your headlights may illuminate only a few hundred metres of highway, yet you can travel thousands of kilometres. You do not need to see the entire road before leaving home. You need sufficient visibility to safely reach the next point, continually adjusting as more of the road becomes visible.
The Canadian Reality
Canadian businesses currently provide an excellent demonstration of this problem.
The Bank of Canada reports that uncertainty surrounding trade policy, tariffs and economic conditions can cause businesses to postpone investments because future revenues become more difficult to predict. Yet delaying investment also carries a cost. Equipment ages, productivity improvements are postponed and competitors may move first. (Bank of Canada)
The challenge remains significant in 2026. Statistics Canada reported that 48.8 percent of Canadian businesses expected inflation to be an obstacle during the second quarter, while 28.4 percent identified input costs and 23.5 percent identified interest rates and debt costs. (Statistics Canada)
Meanwhile, the Bank of Canada continues to describe uncertainty as high, particularly around trade and the economic outlook. (Bank of Canada)
Waiting for uncertainty to disappear is therefore not really a strategy. It is simply another decision, and sometimes an expensive one.
Replace Certainty With Probability
Strong decision makers think in probabilities rather than absolutes.
Instead of asking, “Will this investment succeed?” ask, “Based upon what we currently know, what is the probability of success, what happens if we are wrong, and can we survive the downside?”
That distinction is critical.
A decision offering an estimated 70 percent probability of success with manageable consequences if it fails may be considerably better than postponing action for six months while searching for another 10 percent of certainty.
McKinsey research involving more than 1,200 respondents found that organizations making decisions quickly were twice as likely to report making high-quality decisions as slower decision makers. Speed and quality, in other words, do not necessarily oppose each other. (McKinsey & Company)
Know Which Decisions Can Be Reversed
Not every decision deserves the same amount of analysis.
Some decisions are effectively permanent. An acquisition, major factory, long-term financing arrangement or fundamental strategic change deserves extensive due diligence.
Others are reversible. A pilot project can be stopped. A marketing campaign can be changed. Software can be tested with one department. A new product can be introduced into one market before a national rollout.
Treating every decision as irreversible creates organizational paralysis.
The intelligent approach is often to reduce the size of the initial commitment rather than postpone the decision. Test, measure, learn and expand.
Confidence Is Not Certainty
There is an important distinction between confidence and certainty.
Certainty says, “I know what will happen.”
Confidence says, “I understand what we know, what we do not know, the risks we are accepting and what we will do if circumstances change.”
That is leadership.
The best executives are not fortune tellers. They are navigators. They gather evidence, challenge assumptions, listen to dissenting opinions, calculate consequences and establish reasonable thresholds for action. Then they decide.
The greater danger is sometimes not making the wrong decision. It is allowing the search for the perfect decision to prevent a good decision from being made while the opportunity still exists.
Questions Worth Asking
Before your next major decision, ask yourself:
What information would genuinely change my decision, rather than merely make me feel more comfortable?
What is the cost of waiting another week, month or year?
Is the decision reversible?
What happens if my assumptions are wrong?
Have I deliberately invited someone to challenge my preferred conclusion?
Finally, at what point do additional information and analysis stop improving the decision and simply postpone it?
Perhaps the most important question is this: Are you waiting for better information, or are you waiting because making the decision requires courage?
About the Author:
Michael Martin is the Vice President of Technology with Metercor Inc., a Smart Meter, IoT, and Smart City systems integrator based in Canada. He has more than 40 years of experience in systems design for applications that use broadband networks, optical fibre, wireless, and digital communications technologies. He is a business and technology consultant. He was a senior executive consultant for 15 years with IBM, where he worked in the GBS Global Center of Competency for Energy and Utilities and the GTS Global Center of Excellence for Energy and Utilities. He is a founding partner and President of MICAN Communications and before that was President of Comlink Systems Limited and Ensat Broadcast Services, Inc., both divisions of Cygnal Technologies Corporation (CYN: TSX).
Martin served on the Board of Directors for TeraGo Inc (TGO: TSX) and on the Board of Directors for Avante Logixx Inc. (XX: TSX.V). He has served as a Member, SCC ISO-IEC JTC 1/SC-41 – Internet of Things and related technologies, ISO – International Organization for Standardization, and as a member of the NIST SP 500-325 Fog Computing Conceptual Model, National Institute of Standards and Technology. He served on the Board of Governors of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) [now Ontario Tech University] and on the Board of Advisers of five different Colleges in Ontario – Centennial College, Humber College, George Brown College, Durham College, Ryerson Polytechnic University [now Toronto Metropolitan University]. For 16 years he served on the Board of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), Toronto Section.
He holds three master’s degrees – in business (MBA), communication (MA), and education (MEd). As well, he has three undergraduate diplomas and seven major certifications in business, computer programming, internetworking, project management, media, photography, and communication technology. He has completed over 80 next generation MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) [aka Micro Learning] continuous education programs in a wide variety of topics, including: Economics, Python Programming, Internet of Things, Cloud, Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive systems, Blockchain, Agile, Power BI, Big Data, Design Thinking, Security, Indigenous Canada awareness, and more.
Martin in a volunteer, a photographer, a learner, a technologist, a philosophizer, and a romantic optimist.