Bias Towards Action: The Principle
The one unconscious bias that you want to cultivate.
The context.
I was speaking with a friend this past week and we were both talking about how we know that there are certain items that we need to take action on right away, but there's a tendency to put them off because we feel that there is more information to be gathered or more preparation to be done before we can begin.
Fortunately, if you're reading this piece from leadership in the making, you already recognize the importance of changing that habit of indecisiveness. You're already one step closer to cultivating a “bias towards action”. Let's dissect what it means to have a “bias towards action”, why we tend to have “biases towards inaction”, and how we can continue to create sustainable biases towards action.
What is a “bias towards action”?
The phrase comes from Amazon’s Leadership Principles. Amazon’s site explains that
Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study. We value calculated risk taking.
In other words, having a bias towards action means being willing to act when you have gathered enough information to make an informed decision.
Sounds like a simple enough concept, right?
But there are two baseline ideas that one needs to understand in order to actually cultivate a bias towards action.
In the description of this leadership principle, Amazon highlights two key insights:
“many decisions and actions are reversible”.
“many decisions and actions…do not need extensive study.”
For Jeff Bezos and his team, having a “bias towards action” does not assert that we should act without study, nor that we need to cling unyieldingly to the action once we have made it. On the contrary, it means that we should collect enough information to take well-informed action, and understand that this action most likely can be reversed, rolled back, or otherwise amended.
*Don’t get it confused (as I did at one point) with the idea of “staying busy” or favoring action instead of inaction1.*
This mindset is at the heart of iterative processes and is the reason that companies like Amazon and Xiaomi have found success in their industries. It’s also the reason that we leaders in the making need to understand and embrace this mindset.
When we get too focused on perfect, we lose sight of the goal. We pay so much attention to the action or the product that we forget about the people who we're trying to serve. So how do we avoid this? We do our best to gather what we need to ensure as safe and beneficial a result as we can, then we act and wait for feedback.
Perfect, like leadership, is a journey , not a destination, and both cannot start until we are willing to take the first step.
See this interesting analysis of favoring action over inaction, or “action bias”— similar name, different concept—to learn more about why this can be detrimental to performance.