Musings at Altitude

At the speed of….???

When do you know if you’re moving too fast?

Your body will certainly tell you if you’re doing too much.

Your friendly neighborhood law enforcement officer will tell you if you’re driving too fast.

Your family and friends will hopefully tell you if you’re taking on too many things.

Those are all good things (except maybe the cost of the ticket).

So there’s a check and balance of sort.

But how do you know if you’re thinking too fast?

Experience allows you to get to answers much quicker than you could without any experience.

History gives you a foundation for decisions that intensifies the certainty and speeds up the decision making process.

Relationships give you references that can be used almost instantly thus accelerating the path to action.

And all three of these – experience, history, relationships – provide great comfort during the rapid acceleration of the thought process.

It’s very similar to riding in a luxury car on the highway thinking you’re going 65 when you’re actually going 90.  It’s such a comfortable ride you don’t sense speed, and thus don’t sense danger.

Same with decision making.

You can get so comfortable and confident in decision making that you’re going much faster than you should be and oblivious to the danger.

That’s not good.

Knowing the right pace to get to the best possible decision is the ultimate risk management issue.

Some decisions (though very few) warrant a sludge-like pace to an answer.

Many (if not most) should never have time to breathe during the decision process.

Knowing the right pace for getting to that decision is what separates the great from the good and the brilliantly successful from everyone else.