Article · · By Innam Dustgir
How to Make Decisions Faster as a Founder
Most founders I know are not short of ideas. They are short of decisions. A pricing question sits open for two weeks. A hire waits for one more interview. A product change gets discussed in three meetings and settled in none. Nothing is broken, but everything moves a little slower than it should.
I have learned that learning how to make decisions faster is less about thinking faster and more about knowing which decisions deserve your time. Speed is not a personality trait. It is a habit you build, and a few simple rules make it much easier.
Why Founders Slow Down on Decisions
When you run a company, every decision feels like it carries your name. That is true, and it is also the reason founders hesitate. We want more data, one more opinion, a cleaner moment to commit. The wait feels responsible.
The cost of that wait is mostly invisible. A delayed decision does not show up on a report. It shows up as a team waiting for direction, a client waiting for an answer, or an opportunity that quietly goes to someone who replied first. When I run more than one business at once, I feel this even more, because every open question I hold becomes a queue that several teams are standing in.
There is another reason we slow down. Many decisions arrive without a clear owner. If nobody knows who decides, the question floats back to the founder by default, and the founder becomes the bottleneck.
Sort Decisions Before You Make Them
The most useful question I ask is simple: if this turns out to be wrong, how hard is it to undo?
Most decisions are easy to undo. Changing a price for a month, testing a new offer, trying a different process for a team, rewriting a page. These deserve a quick call, often the same day. If the result is poor, you change it and you have lost very little.
A smaller number of decisions are hard to reverse. Bringing in a senior leader, signing a long contract, entering a new market, taking on a partner. These deserve real thought, more voices and more time.
The mistake I see, and have made myself, is treating easy decisions like hard ones. We give a small test the same caution we would give a major contract. Once you start sorting decisions this way, you find that most of what slows you down never needed that much care.
Set a Date to Make Decisions Faster
One change that helped me more than any framework: decide when you will decide.
An open question has no natural end. It expands to fill whatever time you give it. When I say "we will make the call on Thursday," the conversation changes. People bring what they have by Thursday. The missing information either shows up or we accept that we will decide without it.
For reversible decisions, I try to keep that window to a day or less. For harder ones, I still put a date on it, even if it is two weeks away. A deadline does not force a careless choice. It forces a finished one.
It also helps to agree in advance what information is enough. You will rarely have everything you want. If you wait for certainty, you are not being careful. You are just late.
Give Every Decision One Owner
Fast decisions need clear ownership. For each type of decision in a business, someone should be able to say "this one is mine."
That does not mean the owner decides alone. They gather input, listen to people who disagree and then make the call. Input is not the same as agreement. When a team waits for everyone to agree, the decision moves at the pace of the slowest objection.
This is also where delegation matters. If every decision still needs the founder, the business can only move as fast as one calendar. I have written before about how to delegate effectively without losing control, and decision ownership is the practical side of that. Hand over the decision, not just the task.
Match Your Speed to the Moment
Faster is not always better. Some moments call for a quick move, and some call for patience. A sudden problem with a client may need an answer within the hour. A change in direction for the whole company deserves weeks of honest thinking.
Harvard Business Review recently made a similar point in a masterclass with Nitin Nohria on leadership tempo: the leader's job is not to push speed everywhere, but to choose the right pace for each situation. That matches what I see in practice. A founder who rushes everything creates as many problems as one who stalls everything.
The real skill is knowing the difference. When something is unclear, I often slow down to understand the problem before acting, which is why I believe business strategy starts with diagnosis. Once the problem is clear, the decision itself can usually be fast.
Review Your Decisions, Not Just Your Results
The last habit is the one most founders skip. After a decision, write one or two lines about what you decided and why. Then look back at those notes every week or two.
This does two things. It makes you clearer when you decide, because you have to explain your thinking in a sentence. And over time it shows you patterns. You will notice which kinds of decisions you overthink, which ones you rush, and where your judgment is stronger than you assumed.
That review is what makes speed safe. You are not just moving faster. You are learning from each call, so the next one comes easier. For founders running multiple businesses, this habit is what keeps several teams moving without every question waiting in line for one person.
Decision speed is not about being bold. It is about being clear on what matters, who owns it and when it will be settled. Get those three right, and faster decisions follow.
Frequently asked questions
How can a founder make decisions faster without making mistakes?
Sort decisions by how hard they are to reverse. Decide reversible ones quickly, and give the few irreversible ones more time, more input and a fixed deadline.
What slows down decision making in a startup?
Unclear ownership, waiting for complete information and treating small choices like major ones. Naming one owner per decision and setting a decision date removes most of the delay.
Is making decisions fast always a good idea?
No. Speed should match the situation. Quick calls suit reversible, low-cost choices, while decisions that are hard to undo deserve more careful thought.
How do I improve my decision making speed at work?
Set a date for each decision, agree what information is enough and review your past decisions regularly. The review builds judgment, which makes future decisions quicker.
Originally published on LinkedIn