Startup Indecisiveness

In my last blog post I discussed the common tendency of people working for startups to criticise anything "corporate."

Now I want to take a quick look at a critique of startup culture as seen through a pair of corporate eyes.

If decisions at large, legacy corporations are slower to reach due to what are typically quite robust internal decision making processes, decisions at startups are lightning quick.

Due to the substantial investment (in time as well as money) that it takes to reach a final decision at large corporations, changing course after a decision has been made is very rarely possible - but it has been known to happen.

At startups though, while the ability to be quick and nimble in making decisions definitely has its advantages, the risk of the key decision makers flip-flopping and/or completely changing their minds after a decision was previously was made is very real, and if it is left unaddressed it is something that can begin to rot away the life force of a startups culture not to mention operational efficiency.

So what are some ways startups can avoid flip-flopping themselves to death?

Obviously accountability is important. The key decision makers should endeavor to keep themselves accoubtable and ask for help from others to keep themselves accountable for the decisions they decide to take. And actually that should probably pretty much apply to each member of a startup.

But beyond that, having a great memory and remembering all the little as well as big things that were already decided is, in my honest opinion, even more important than accountability. Because if you can't remember what you should do, how can you hope to hold yourself accountable?

And it's that attribute - the fantastic ability to remember seemingly sundry details - that seperates the operators of large, legacy corporations from average startup founders and employees. It's also an attribute that I am sure successful startups and their founders and early employees have.