You will never have all the information. Not in business, not in a crisis, not in any decision that actually matters. The leaders who get bypassed are the ones who wait for certainty. The ones who advance are the ones who move.
TL;DR: The best executives I have worked with do not wait for complete data. They figure out the one or two facts that would change their answer, work hard to get those, then move. Decision quality comes from knowing which unknowns are fatal and which are just noise. Waiting for certainty is how you get bypassed.
The myth of complete information
Complete information is a story we tell ourselves to feel safe. It does not exist in any decision worth making.
The leaders who get stuck are the ones who keep asking for one more data point. One more meeting. One more analysis. By the time they have enough to feel comfortable, the moment is gone and someone else has already moved.
I have seen this at every level. Back when I ran Penebaker Enterprises, I had a chance to bid on a large roofing job where the drawings were incomplete and the scope was not finalized. My competitor walked away because they wanted clarity before pricing. I built a price with a clear set of assumptions, wrote them into the proposal, and won the work. The job came in on budget. The competitor watched from the sideline.
Information is not the same as certainty. You can have a stack of reports and still be wrong. You can have one good data point and be right. The job of the executive is to know which is which.
The two questions I ask before any hard call
When I face a decision with missing data, I ask two questions in this order.
First: what is the smallest set of facts that would actually change my answer?
If I am about to say yes to a senior hire, the facts that would change my answer are not the salary band or the start date. Those I already know. What would change my answer is whether the candidate has actually run a team this size, whether they will relocate, and whether their reference checks turn up anything that contradicts the resume. Three facts. That is the set.
Second: are those facts gettable in the time I have?
If yes, I go get them. A 30-minute phone call. A reference. A site visit. A test project. Most of the time, the facts that matter take hours to find, not weeks. The reason people wait is not because the facts are hard to obtain. It is because they have not bothered to figure out which ones matter.
Once I have those two answers, the decision usually makes itself. The unknowns that remain are noise. Noise does not get to vote.
How to tell a gut call from a reckless one
A good gut call is built on pattern recognition. You have seen this situation before, or one close enough, and your brain is doing math you cannot fully explain. The math is real even if you cannot show your work.
A reckless call has no pattern behind it. It is hope dressed up as instinct.
The test I use: can I explain my reasoning to someone smart who disagrees with me? If I cannot, I am probably guessing. If I can, even roughly, I am probably reading a real signal.
When I left Roofed Right America after eleven years, the call was not impulsive. I had watched the partnership dynamic for two years. I had run the numbers on every scenario. I had named the one thing that would change my mind, and that condition was not going to be met. The data was incomplete. The future was uncertain. But the reasoning was sound, and I could explain it to anyone who asked.
That is the difference. A good decision under uncertainty is not the absence of fear. It is fear plus a clear chain of thought.
Why waiting feels safe but is not
Delay feels responsible. It is not.
Every day you do not decide is a decision. You are choosing to keep the current state. If the current state is broken, you are choosing to keep the breakage. If a competitor is moving, you are choosing to give them room.
The cost of waiting is invisible until it shows up as a lost deal, a key person quitting, or a market window closing. Then it is too late to recover, and everyone wonders what happened.
I tell my team something simple. Indecision is a decision. Treat it like one. If we are choosing to wait, we name it as a choice. We write down why. We set a date when we will revisit. We do not let inaction wear the costume of caution.
There are times when waiting is the right call. When the cost of being wrong is catastrophic and the situation is genuinely about to clarify in days, not months. Those moments exist. They are rarer than people think, and they should be named, not defaulted to.
How to document your reasoning so the team trusts you
If your team does not understand why you made a call, they will not trust the next one.
I write a short note for every meaningful decision. It takes ten minutes. The format is the same every time.
- The question. One sentence.
- The options I considered. Three to five bullets.
- What I knew. The relevant facts.
- What I did not know but tried to find out. The facts I chased.
- What I did not know and accepted as risk. The unknowns I priced in.
- The call. One sentence.
- The trigger that would make me reverse. The single signal that would change my mind.
That last line is the most important one. It tells the team I am not married to the decision. I am committed to it, but I am watching for the signal that would make me update. That is the difference between conviction and stubbornness.
Conviction says, I have weighed this and I am moving. Stubbornness says, I made the call so I am right. The first leads a team. The second runs it into a wall.
When my team sees the reasoning written down, two things happen. They trust the call because they can audit it. And they bring me the trigger condition earlier than they would otherwise, because they know exactly what I am watching for.
A practical takeaway you can use today
If you are sitting on a decision right now and the data feels incomplete, run this.
Write the decision in one sentence. Not a paragraph. A sentence. If you cannot write it cleanly, you have not framed the problem yet.
Name the two or three facts that would change your answer. Be specific. Not “more market research.” A specific fact. A reference check. A pricing data point. A customer call.
Decide if those facts are gettable in the time you have. If yes, go get them today. If no, accept that you are deciding without them and move on.
Write the trigger that would make you reverse. The single signal that would tell you the call was wrong. Share it with your team.
Move. Tell the people who need to know. Start executing.
Then watch the trigger. If it shows up, update fast. If it does not, keep going.
That is the whole process. It works for hiring. It works for pricing a job. It works for entering a new market. It works for getting out of a bad partnership. It works because it forces you to separate the fatal unknowns from the noise, and then it forces you to act on the difference.
The leaders who move
The leaders who advance in any industry, mine included, are not the ones with the most information. They are the ones who decide with what they have, write down why, and stay loud about the signal that would change their mind. They build teams that trust the process because the process is visible.
Be that leader. Your team needs it. Your competition is counting on you not being it.
If your leadership team is stuck in analysis paralysis, or your people are afraid to move without perfect data, that is exactly the kind of conversation I love having on stage. Book Khary to speak and let’s talk about what decisive leadership actually looks like in your business.
About Khary Penebaker
Khary Penebaker is Division President at MetalMaster-RoofMaster, the Upper Midwest division of Wolkow Braker Roofing Corp. He previously built Roofed Right America from startup to $35M+ in revenue with 180 employees (2014-2025) and founded Penebaker Enterprises, growing it from $1.5M to $15M. A gun violence prevention advocate and former Everytown for Gun Safety Fellow, Khary brings two decades of leadership in commercial roofing, architectural sheet metal, and civic engagement.
Common questions
How do you decide when you do not have enough information?
I ask two questions. First, what is the smallest set of facts that would actually change my answer? Second, are those facts gettable in the time I have? If yes, I go get them. If no, I price the unknown as risk and move. The rest is noise.
What separates a good gut call from a reckless one?
A good gut call is built on pattern recognition you can at least roughly explain. A reckless call is hope dressed up as instinct. The test: can you explain your reasoning to someone smart who disagrees with you? If yes, you are reading a real signal. If not, you are guessing.
How do you document your reasoning so the team trusts your decisions?
Write a short note for every meaningful call. The question, the options, what you knew, what you tried to find out, what you accepted as risk, the call itself, and the trigger that would make you reverse it. That last line is the most important. It tells your team you are committed but not stubborn.
When is it right to delay a decision versus move with partial information?
Delay is right when the cost of being wrong is catastrophic and new information is genuinely arriving in days, not months. Otherwise, indecision is a decision. You are choosing to keep the current state. Name the wait as a choice, write down why, and set a revisit date.