Decision-Making Under Uncertainty: Knowing When to Stop Gathering Facts

David Savoie, CEO, LaCorp

This article continues our leadership series exploring management lessons that have stood the test of time across my career in credit unions, public accounting, regulatory oversight, and military leadership. Each installment shares a principle that has proven useful to me over the years, and as always, I invite your thoughts, disagreements, and experiences. I am constantly impressed by the wealth of management experience within credit unions, so this is intended to spur discussion, not to be the last word on anything.

In this article, I want to explore one of the most difficult challenges for managers at every level: making decisions under uncertainty.

Most of us would like to believe that good decisions come from having all the facts. We want a complete file, a perfect comparison, a finished analysis and a clear answer. There is nothing wrong with wanting good information. In fact, responsible managers should gather facts, ask thoughtful questions, interview the right people, consider alternatives and understand the risks before making an important recommendation.

But there is a point where more information does not necessarily improve the decision.

In some cases, the continued search for more facts becomes a substitute for judgment. It can become a way to delay, avoid risk, or avoid being held accountable. A manager may believe he or she is being careful, but what is really happening is that the window for action is closing.

The competitor has moved. The opportunity has passed. The advantage has disappeared. The decision, by delay, has effectively been made.

Over the years, I have observed managers who had great difficulty making final decisions because they had very little tolerance for uncertainty. When faced with an important choice, their instinct was to gather more facts, ask more questions, request more analysis, or wait until the answer became obvious.

The problem is that many important management decisions never become obvious.

If they were obvious, they would not require management judgment in the first place. The reason you are in a leadership role is often because the answer is not perfectly clear. Your organization needs someone to weigh incomplete information, evaluate competing priorities, and make the best possible judgment based on the facts reasonably available.

That does not mean making decisions carelessly. It does not mean acting on a whim, trusting your gut without discipline, or ignoring red flags. Quite the opposite. A good decision under uncertainty begins with diligence.

But after diligence comes judgment.

That is the part many managers struggle with.

My thinking on this subject was influenced, in part, by the work of Dr. Tara Swart, MD, Ph.D., whose work I encountered during an MIT Sloan School of Management executive education course called The Neuroscience of Business. Her book, The Source, discusses the brain’s capacity for adaptation, neuroplasticity, intuition and the way our non-conscious mind processes far more information than we are actively aware of.

One idea that especially resonated with me is the neuroscience behind what we commonly call “sleeping on a decision.”

That phrase can sound informal, almost like folk wisdom. But Dr. Swart’s work helps explain why there is something very real behind it. The human brain absorbs a tremendous amount of information: facts, impressions, patterns, prior experience, emotional cues, and sensory input. Much of that information is not immediately available to our conscious mind in a neat spreadsheet or memo.

When we have gathered a reasonable amount of information and asked the right questions, there can be great value in stepping away for a short period of time. Sleep, rest, and even a brief pause can allow the brain to continue processing. Insights often surface after we stop forcing the issue.

This is not “new age” thinking or wishful spirituality. It is grounded in how the brain works. Dr. Swart’s work also emphasizes that the brain performs better when the body is properly supported through rest, hydration, nutrition, and exercise.

That lined up very well with what I learned in military training. The military places great emphasis on keeping the body in shape because physical readiness supports mental readiness. Proper sleep, reasonable nutrition, and fitness are not separate from leadership. They are part of leadership.

A tired, poorly fueled, overstressed manager is less likely to make sound decisions. That does not mean we always get ideal conditions. We do not. But it does mean we should take the connection between physical condition and judgment seriously.

One of the leadership lessons I have learned is that due diligence and delay can look very similar from the outside.

Both involve asking questions. Both involve gathering information. Both involve reviewing options.

The difference is purpose.

Due diligence is aimed at reaching a decision. Delay is aimed at avoiding one.

That distinction matters.

Years ago, I had a subordinate who, when asked for a conclusion, would often respond with another question seeking more information. On one level, I respected the desire to be thorough. It is better to ask questions than to be reckless. But when someone is asked for a conclusion and responds only with additional questions, two problems can arise.

First, the person may be unintentionally bouncing the work back to the supervisor. If your supervisor wanted you to brainstorm a list of questions, he or she would have asked for that. If you are asked for your conclusion, your job is to identify the relevant questions yourself, pursue the answers as best you can, consult the right people, and then apply your professional judgment.

Second, you may be asking your supervisor to become your research service. If the information is something you could have pursued yourself, then simply handing the question upward is not adding value. It may feel like caution, but it can become avoidance.

There are certainly times when it is appropriate to qualify your answer. You might say, “Based on the information available, my recommendation is X. The one fact we could not confirm is Y, and if that changes, it could affect the decision.”

That is professional.

What is less helpful is saying, in effect, “I cannot reach a conclusion until someone else answers all remaining questions for me.”

Leadership requires the ability to move from inquiry to judgment.

A practical example is vendor selection.

A few years ago at LaCorp, we went through the process of selecting a new IT managed services vendor. Anyone who has been involved in a decision like that knows there is no shortage of information to gather. You can review proposals, compare costs, check references, assess technical capabilities, interview the vendor’s team, evaluate cybersecurity practices, discuss service expectations and consider cultural fit.

All of that matters.

But you can also continue forever.

There will always be another reference to call. Another question to ask. Another comparison to make. Another concern to evaluate. At some point, if the process has been professionally handled, the responsible manager or team must stop the information-gathering phase, organize the facts, and make a recommendation.

That recommendation will never be entirely risk-free.

No vendor decision is. The best vendor on paper can disappoint. The lower-cost option may turn out to be more expensive in the long run. The most polished sales team may not deliver the best service. A smaller firm may provide better personal attention but have fewer resources. A larger firm may have greater depth but less flexibility.

This is why judgment matters.

The role of management is not to eliminate every possible risk. That is impossible. The role of management is to understand the risks, make a thoughtful decision, and then manage the outcome.

One way to think about this is to consider the disadvantage of not making a decision.

Managers often think of risk only in terms of action. “What if I choose the wrong vendor?” “What if I approve the wrong project?” “What if I recommend a strategy that does not work?”

Those are fair questions.

But inaction carries risk too.

If you continually defer your decision while a competitor makes one, even if the competitor makes the wrong decision, they may still gain an advantage. They act, learn, self-correct, and act again while you are still gathering information for your first move.

That is an uncomfortable thought, but it is often true.

In business, as in many areas of life, feedback comes from action. You do your homework, make the best decision you can, and then adjust as reality responds. Waiting for perfect certainty can prevent you from receiving the very information that only action can provide.

This does not mean being impulsive. It means recognizing that delay is not neutral.

Delay has a cost.

This topic is not only for middle managers and emerging leaders. It also applies to senior executives.

If we want developing managers to make good decisions, we need to set clear expectations. We need to explain the assignment carefully. Are we asking for research? A list of options? A recommendation? A final decision? Those are different assignments.

Senior leaders also need to create an environment where reasonable, good-faith judgment is supported.

That does not mean every decision is immune from review. It does not mean poor analysis should be excused. It does not mean managers should be shielded from accountability. But it does mean that if a junior manager performs a professional level of due diligence, applies sound judgment, and makes a reasonable recommendation, senior leadership should be careful not to punish the person simply because hindsight later reveals a better path.

There is no faster way to create indecisive managers than to criticize every reasonable judgment call after the fact.

When that happens, managers learn the wrong lesson. They learn that the safest course is not to decide. They learn to ask more questions, request more meetings, and push responsibility upward. Eventually, an organization can develop a culture where everyone is careful, but no one is decisive.

That is not leadership development.

That is risk avoidance disguised as management.

There is great wisdom in pausing before making an important decision. And thanks to recent research, we now know that this is more than folk wisdom, it is based on the application of neuroscience to business. Gather the facts. Ask the questions. Seek input. Then, when appropriate, step away. Sleep on it. Let your mind work.

But the pause should have a deadline.

“Sleeping on it” should not become “avoiding it.”

A useful practice is to set a decision point. For example: “We will gather information through Thursday, review the options Friday morning, and make a decision by close of business Friday.” That structure gives your mind time to process without allowing the decision to drift indefinitely.

The goal is not to rush. The goal is to move.

When you are facing a decision under uncertainty, these questions may help:

Have I gathered the information that is reasonably available?

Have I asked the most important questions, or am I now asking lower-value questions to delay the decision?

Have I consulted the people who are most likely to improve the quality of the decision?

What facts remain unknown, and are they truly knowable within the available time?

These questions do not guarantee a perfect answer. Nothing does. But they can help separate responsible diligence from unnecessary delay.

If you are in a responsible management position and reading this, you are not the type of person who makes reckless decisions without due diligence. Most conscientious managers have the opposite problem. They gather information too long. They want one more report, one more opinion, one more data point, one more meeting.

But leadership often requires us to act before certainty arrives.

Gather the facts. Ask good questions. Take care of your body so your brain can do its work. Give your mind a little time to process. Then make the best decision you can with the information available.

You will not always be right.

But if you are diligent, thoughtful, and acting in good faith, you will grow in judgment. And over time, that judgment becomes one of the most valuable things you bring to your credit union, your team, and the people who depend on your leadership.