Answer first

What do I do with a stuck major business decision?

A stuck major decision has an unnamed controlling element from capital, control, ownership, authority, or consequence. Name it; the decision moves. More information rarely closes a stuck decision. The work is structural, not informational.

Step one: stop adding information. If the decision has been open for four weeks and more data is not closing it, the missing piece is not data. It is the controlling element.

Step two: write down the visible decision and the unspoken decision underneath it. They are often different. The visible decision is a symptom; the unspoken one is what must close.

Step three: test which of the five elements is the lock. Capital (does the call hinge on money). Control (does it hinge on who decides next). Ownership (does it hinge on who has the stake). Authority (does it hinge on rights). Consequence (does it hinge on a downstream cost that has not been named).

The useful next move is not always to decide immediately. Sometimes it is to name the missing owner, the missing boundary, the missing fact, or the cost of waiting. Once that is named, the decision usually becomes smaller and less theatrical.

How to move a stuck decision

• Write the decision in one sentence. If it takes a paragraph, the real decision is not named yet.
• Name what makes it hard: cash, authority, ownership, timing, team consequence, customer consequence, or reversibility.
• Set the next decision date and the owner of the call. More research only helps if it answers one named missing fact.