How Much Info Does One Need To Make A Judgement or Decision?

Posted by Rich Crowley in management, psychology

It’s been said that one of the main differences between entrepreneurs and corporate managers is that the former are much more comfortable making decisions with relatively fewer facts than are the latter. I’m one who is more comfortable making decisions or forming judgments with less information than more. I do find it frustrating sometimes that corporate environments require more facts than I believe are necessary to justify decisions or courses of action.

I think one of the drivers behind those who need less information is that they are impatient and very time driven. That is certainly true in my case. I suspect that many entrepreneurs fall into this camp as well since the smaller enterprises they are running often don’t have the luxury of time to study things further as do larger organizations.

However, there is a fair body of research that shows how those like me can have their intuition blind them through cognitive foibles such as confirmation bias.