Thoughtfully Ruthless

Chapter 2The Cost of Doing Nothing

We are all taught from a young age to be cautious and studious: Watch your step, don't run with scissors, practice those violin lessons, study every possible topic in case it comes up in your exam. But this obsessive overreliance on being too thoughtful can ingrain behavior and habits that are too cautious. This deep-seated behavior continues to show up in the workplace, resulting in leaders who become frozen with inaction because they want to make sure they make the right decision rather than a decision.

This chapter explores the cost of delaying action and the reasons why understanding what's behind your procrastination can be the secret to becoming more thoughtfully ruthless. People strongly fear taking the wrong step, but rarely do I hear complaints from leaders who have made the wrong choices or too hasty choices. The regrets I hear are about inaction and indecision. If you know and understand what causes you to lose your discipline by creating your lost discipline list, then you can avoid sliding down the desperate spiral of gloom. This will help you shatter bad habits and embrace new ones, at record speed.

What is the cost of not acting fast enough? Perhaps Microsoft could have beaten Apple in the mobile space or had a greater probability of getting ahead sooner? While hindsight is easy, especially a decade later when you see how the market has played out, Robbie Bach, author of Xbox Revisited and former president of Entertainment and ...