The most expensive decision in your company is not the wrong one. It is the one you never close

The most expensive decision in your company is not the wrong one. It is the one you never close.

I spent the whole week working on strategy.

Most companies have no strategy. And it is not for lack of capability. It is a mix of not knowing, not wanting, and the comfort of waking up, going to work and living whatever day shows up. Without looking ahead. Without thinking about next year.

The most uncomfortable part is that nobody was caught by surprise. Everyone knew this year would be packed. Midweek holidays, Carnival, the World Cup, elections, tax change. It was all on the calendar, in plain sight, since last year. The only question is whether you organized yourself for it, or just let the year happen to you.

Because strategy is not a privilege of those who studied more or know more. It is the advantage of whoever looks at the whole year and decides, in advance, what to do so these events do not decide for him. That is where real Business Strategy comes in: the year working for you, not against you.

Before closing the week, three questions:

• How long has the same decision been coming back to the agenda and leaving without being closed?
• How much has the strategy nobody decided already cost, in cash and in position?
• Has postponement become the way your company works?

Every day you push it back seems free. At the end of the year, it becomes the sum of all the decisions you did not make.

A wrong decision can be corrected. A postponed decision comes with an invoice. And the invoice is always bigger.

That invoice does not wait for the December balance sheet. Every quarter you postpone comes out of your margin, and does not come back.

There is no recommendation. There is a decision.