Latest / New Manager Conversations with Fexingo: First 90 Days, Managing Former Peers, and Leadership Basics / How New Managers Can Make Better Decisions Under Pressure
Transcript
- Lucas: So you are three weeks into your new manager role. Your team is preparing a campaign launch. Your boss just flagged that the creative might be off-brand. You have forty-eight hours to decide whether to scrap it and start over, or push forward and risk a half million dollar miss. What do you do? Luna: That scenario sounds terrifyingly specific. Has that happened to someone you know? Lucas: More or less. I talked to a marketing director at a mid-size consumer brand last month, and she told me that exact story was her first big test as a manager. She did not scrap the campaign—she made a call to revise the top three assets and keep the rest. But the process she used to get there is what I want to talk about today. Decision-making under pressure is probably the single skill that separates new managers who plateau from those who accelerate. Luna: It feels like a muscle you have to build, right? Because as an individual contributor, your decisions mostly affect you. As a manager, they ripple through the whole team. Lucas: Exactly. And the framework I keep coming back to is something called the OODA loop. It was developed by a fighter pilot and military strategist named John Boyd. OODA stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. It is a cycle, not a checklist. You move through it, then loop back. Luna: I have heard of it in startup circles. But how does it apply to, say, a new manager at a bank or a retail chain? Lucas: Great question. Let us walk through that marketing campaign example using the loop. Step one—Observe. The manager noticed her boss's concern. She also observed that the creative team looked exhausted, the deadline was tight, and the analytics from the last campaign showed a similar approach actually performed well. So she had data on both sides. Lucas: Step two—Orient. This is where most new managers get stuck. Orientation is about filtering what you observed through your experience, your team's capabilities, your company's risk tolerance. In her case, she realized the brand guidelines were flexible enough that a full scrap was unnecessary. She oriented around the idea of a targeted revision. Luna: So orientation is the 'analysis' step, but with a time limit. Lucas: Exactly. She gave herself a hard stop—ninety minutes to orient. Then she moved to Decide. She decided to keep the campaign but revise the hero image and the headline. That was her call. Then Act—she communicated the decision to her team, reassigned two people to the revision, and set a twenty-four-hour turnaround. Lucas: Now here is the key: after acting, you observe again. Did the team hit the deadline? Did the boss sign off? That feeds your next orientation. It is a loop, not a one-time thing. Luna: I love that. But what about the manager who overthinks? The one who stays in the Orient phase for two days and misses the window? Lucas: That is the classic trap. And it often comes from a fear of making the wrong call. One technique I recommend is something I call the five-minute decision script. When you feel analysis paralysis setting in, pull out a piece of paper—or a note on your phone—and write down three things: first, what is the worst case if I decide A? Second, what is the worst case if I decide B? Third, which worst case is easier to recover from? Luna: That forces you to compare downside scenarios rather than hypothetical upsides. Lucas: Right. And it connects to another framework I love—the idea of reversible versus irreversible decisions. Jeff Bezos talks about this. Type one decisions are irreversible—like launching a product or firing someone. Type two decisions are reversible—like changing a headline or rearranging a team. His advice: most decisions are type two. You can make them quickly and correct later. New managers tend to treat everything like type one. Luna: That explains so much. I remember my first management role—I spent three days deciding which project management tool to use. That was totally reversible. We could have switched in a week. Lucas: Exactly. And the cost of that delay? Your team sits idle for three days waiting for a decision. That is a real cost. So part of building decisiveness is training yourself to ask, 'Can I undo this?' If yes, decide fast. Luna: I also think there is a social dimension. New managers are often afraid to make a decision that might upset a senior stakeholder or a team member. It becomes about managing relationships, not making the best call. Lucas: That is so true. And that is where the Orient phase gets tangled. You start orienting around people's feelings rather than the data and the strategic goal. The marketing director I mentioned told me she had to consciously set aside her fear of disappointing her boss. She reminded herself: my job is to make the best call for the business, not to keep everyone happy. Luna: Speaking of keeping the show going—if you have found these frameworks helpful for navigating your own career decisions, we would love your support. This podcast is ad-free, and listener contributions are what keep it that way. If you have the means, you can buy us a coffee at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Lucas: Yeah, it genuinely helps. And it lets us keep digging into the practical stuff that actually helps new managers. Back to the OODA loop—one more element I want to highlight is that the loop should be fast. Boyd designed it for dogfights where you have seconds. In business, you might have hours or days. But the principle holds: speed beats perfection in most situations. Luna: So how does a new manager practice fast decision-making when they are not in a crisis? Lucas: Great question. I think you can deliberately create low-stakes decision moments. For example, when a team member asks you a question in a one-on-one, try to answer within thirty seconds instead of saying 'let me think about it.' Or when you see two equally good options for a meeting agenda, pick one immediately. You are building the habit of deciding. Luna: I also like the idea of journaling your decisions. Write down what you decided, why, and what happened. Over time, you get a record of your own pattern—where you tend to overanalyze, where you tend to act too fast. Lucas: That is excellent. And it feeds the Observe step of the next loop. You become a better observer of your own decision-making process. Let me give you one more concrete example. A friend of mine manages a customer support team. She had a decision to make about whether to extend the refund window from thirty to sixty days. Her first instinct was to run a two-week analysis. But she realized this was a reversible decision—if it hurt margins, she could always walk it back. So she made the call in one meeting, communicated it, and then measured the impact. Two weeks later, she had data that confirmed it was a good move. Luna: And if it had been bad, she could have reversed it. That is the power of the reversible frame. Lucas: Exactly. Now, what about decisions that truly are irreversible? Firing someone, for example. That is type one. For those, you should slow down. Bring in multiple perspectives. Make sure you have documented performance issues. But even then, the OODA loop still applies. Just take a longer cycle. Luna: I think there is also a cultural aspect. Some organizations punish mistakes so harshly that managers become terrified to decide. How do you handle that? Lucas: That is a tough one. If the culture penalizes mistakes, you need to build a reputation for making good calls quickly. That means over-communicating your reasoning. If people understand why you decided, they are more likely to trust you even when a decision turns out wrong. Also, you can frame it as experimentation. 'Let us try this for two weeks and see.' That lowers the perceived risk. Luna: That is a great reframe. It turns a decision into a hypothesis. Lucas: Yes. And I would add one more thing: new managers often overlook the cost of indecision. It is not just the delayed action—it is the signal you send to your team. If you waffle, your team starts to doubt your leadership. They may start waiting for you to make every call, which creates bottlenecks. Decisiveness builds trust. Luna: So the takeaway seems to be: identify whether the decision is reversible or not, use a quick framework like OODA or the five-minute script, and practice on small things. Lucas: Exactly. And remember that every decision you make is data for your next one. The goal is not to be right every time—it is to get better at deciding. Over a year as a new manager, that compound effect is enormous. Luna: I think that is a great note to end on. For our listeners, if you have a decision you are wrestling with right now, try the five-minute script. See what comes up. Lucas: And if it is a reversible one, make the call today. You can always adjust tomorrow.