Making Necessary Decisions with Imperfect Data

If you could go back and give your 20-year-old self, one piece of advice about transformational leadership, what would it be?

So, I think you’ve got to get used to the discomfort that you inevitably feel as you gain more and more leadership experience. I’ve described it in the past, but this constant feeling of butterflies in your stomach, like, just face it, they’re never going to go away. Never let that feeling interfere with the work that you know you need to do to advance your career. Never let hard decisions get in the way of making the necessary decisions. I mean, especially for somebody like me that started out my career as an engineer, and then I moved into the business side of things. Engineers always like to have perfect information, perfect data in making decisions.

You are problem solvers, engineers are problem solvers.

Absolutely right. And you know what, you’re never going to have perfect information, as a leader of a business or company, for that matter, to help you in making all the decisions that you need to make, you’re going to have to make calls with imperfect data, imperfect information. I think, importantly, especially in high tech, you’ve got to always be open minded, open to change. And you’ve got to really be careful not to get myopic, in your perspective, and assume that just because something worked or didn’t work in the past, that that’s going to be what to expect in the future. So those are the big things that I’d say are important to look out for, the advice I’d give my 20-year-old self.