Most Decisions Are Reversible
Teams deliberate small, reversible decisions as if they were permanent. Bezos called these two-way doors. Treating them like one-way doors is why your organization is slow.
Jeff Bezos splits decisions into two kinds. One-way doors are hard to reverse: you walk through, and there's no coming back, so you deliberate carefully. Two-way doors are reversible: if it's wrong, you walk back out and try something else.
His warning: most decisions are two-way doors, but organizations treat nearly all of them like one-way doors. So they apply heavyweight process (more meetings, more sign-offs, more analysis) to choices they could simply undo.
The cost is speed, and it compounds. Every reversible decision dragged through a one-way process teaches the organization that deciding is dangerous. People stop deciding. They escalate instead, and the whole system slows to the pace of its most cautious meeting.
The discipline is to sort first. Before the next big deliberation, name the door. If you can reverse it within a quarter at modest cost, it's a two-way door.
The nudge: For two-way doors, set a rule: decide today, with whoever's in the room. Save the careful deliberation for the doors that don't swing back.
Source: Jeff Bezos, 2015 Amazon Letter to Shareholders
