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Lee Iacocca - "Even a correct decision is wrong when it was taken too late." · the Daily Quote - Positive Daily Inspiration and Motivational Quote of the Day

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  Podcasthero.com Welcome to The Daily Quote, the podcast
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  designed to kick start your day in a positive way.
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  I'm your host, Andrew McGivern, and this episode is brought to
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  you by the Great News Podcast. Tired of all the doom and gloom
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  news for mainstream media? You'll get none of that there.
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  Instead, you'll find inspiring stories and developments making
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  the world a better place. Where can you find it?
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  The link is in the show notes. Today's quote comes from Lee
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  Iacocca, the man who created the Ford Mustang.
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  One of my favorite cars. The original 1 anyways.
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  And he was famously fired by Henry Ford the second after 32
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  years with the company. And he then walked into a
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  bankrupt Chrysler and turned it into one of the greatest
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  corporate comebacks in American history.
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  A man who built his entire career on the power of decisive
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  action and under impossible pressure.
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  He once said even a correct decision is wrong when it was
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  taken too late. Now, most of us were raised on
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  the idea that the goal of decision making is to get it
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  right, gather the information, weigh the options, consider
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  every angle and wait until you're sure and then, and only
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  then, decide what to do. Iacocca spent a lifetime showing
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  why that instinct taken too far is its own kind of failure.
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  He had a way of illustrating it, that it's kind of interesting.
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  He used to talk about duck hunting.
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  You can aim at a duck and get it in your sights, but the duck is
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  always moving. In order to hit that duck, you
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  have to move your gun ahead of where the duck is now.
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  But a committee faced with a major decision can't always move
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  as quickly as the events it's trying to respond to.
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  By the time the committee is ready to shoot, the duck has
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  flown away. That image is exactly what this
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  quote is all about. The world does not pause while
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  you deliberate. Markets are moving,
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  opportunities close, relationships shift.
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  The moment that was available to you yesterday may be gone
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  tomorrow. Not because the decision was
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  wrong, but because the window for it had passed.
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  Iacocca understood this because he lived it in one of the
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  highest stakes business environments in history.
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  When he arrived at Chrysler, the company was weeks from collapse.
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  There was no time for endless analysis.
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  Every day of an action was a day the company moved closer to
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  bankruptcy. The decisions he made weren't
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  always perfect, but they were made, and making them in time
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  was as important as making them correctly.
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  He put it another way, too. If we wait until we've satisfied
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  all the uncertainties, it may be too late.
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  Certainty is a luxury that real decisions rarely have.
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  Waiting isn't prudence. It's paralysis dressed up as
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  thoroughness. The question Iacocca is really
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  asking is this. What is the cost of waiting?
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  Because that cost is real. It just doesn't always announce
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  itself as loudly as a wrong decision does.
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  A bad decision makes noise. A delayed decision often just
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  quietly closes the door you didn't notice shutting.
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  I can look back at decisions I delayed far past the point when
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  they needed to be made, not because I didn't know what the
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  right call was, but because I kept waiting until I felt more
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  certain, more ready for sure. And in almost every case, the
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  delay cost more than any imperfection in the decision
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  itself would have. Iacocca is right.
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  Sometimes the timing is the decision.
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  So here's the question. What decision have you been
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  sitting on? One that you already know is
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  probably right, but you're still waiting to make it because the
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  duck is moving. The window that's open today may
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  not be open tomorrow. And the most correct decision in
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  the world made too late, is no decision at all.
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  You don't need certainty. You need courage, and you need a
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  deadline. Decide before the duck flies.
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  That's it for today. I'm Anna McGivern, signing off
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  for now but I'll be back tomorrow.
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  Same pod time, same pod stationed with another daily
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  quote.