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Just Make a Decision Already! The point is, a decision was made, a path taken and followed to its end. The results were that the organization got off the dime and started making progress. The typical trap of spending so much time making the decision is that little time is left for actually enjoying the benefits. The economic consequences of belaboring the process are too high to justify the investment in th e time required by prolonged decision-making.

So how is your buying time behavior? Is it inexplicable or rational? Is it full of fury or aloof and dispassionate? Management is supposed to be a cold, calculating affair, organizing the elements of the enterprise--capital, equipment, people--in the interest of a clear goal. Instead, the buying process seems full of vagaries, such as institutional knowledge, organizational roles, political constraints, and so forth--not really a repeatable process.

To get beyond this problem, I suggest a simple formula. If you are spending more money, in peoplehours, making a decision than the actual cost of the target--stop! Document the original goal. Make sure that goal is a real business imperative. If it's not, then why bother? Buy/evaluate the leading contender, and go with it. There's a very small chance that you'll need to beg for forgiveness later and a very large chance that you'll be successful.

To progress, you have to introduce change. To introduce chang e, you have to manage the buying process consistently. To motivate the staff, you have to allow the responsibility for decision-making. This alone will cut down the size and frequency of the wringing of hands over every buying deci sion.

Follow up by insisting on a safe environment that allows people to fail--that is, to fail quickly, within boundaries, in a small way, allowing them to learn from mistakes and profit from success.

Brian Walsh is a senior consultant with Cap Gemini America, based in Portland, Ore. He can be reached at bwalsh@nwc.com.