CEOs Who Speed Up Decisions Beat Economic Uncertainty

Many business leaders believe uncertainty is a huge problem. The Conference Board’s survey of CEOs in the United States found that uncertainty is their biggest economic worry for 2026. Uncertainty has been mentioned by CEOs and CFOs of Intel, American Express, General Motors, IBM, and others.

Uncertainty often shows up in corporate decision-making as delays—delays for more data, more analysis, and longer approval timelines. A survey by West Monroe Partners found, “The need for additional data or certainty is what slows down leadership decisions most, followed by fear of risk or mistakes.” And of course, fear of mistakes leads to managers seeking more data or analysis. The executives in that survey estimated that revenues could be boosted by one to five percent by speeding up decisions.

Speeding Up Business Processes Reduces Risk

Speeding up business processes, especially decision-making processes, can reduce the danger of economic uncertainty. Companies produce products anticipating a market for the goods. Even if the product is made to order, the buyer’s circumstances can change. Either the buyer refuses to take delivery, or takes delivery but does not pay. The danger is even greater when production is for inventory. Anticipated buyers may not show up.

Economic turmoil—as caused by tariffs, immigration changes and other policy shifts—increases the risk to businesses that spend money now in the hopes of future revenue.

Not only can the sales environment change, but also costs. Construction costs for over a decade had increased by zero to five percent (over 12-month periods) as the nearby chart shows. Then they shot up in late 2021, eventually increasing by 24 percent. A Grant Thornton report explained the negotiation problem: “When a contract is signed but material prices double by the time they are purchased, the contractor may be left with an uncomfortable truth. They can’t accept a no-margin or negative margin job, but also understand that the owner won’t be enthusiastic about paying for additional (and potentially unbudgeted) costs.”

Shortening the time between contract signing and project completion reduces the risk of price fluctuation, benefiting both of the businesses. Even if the contractor absorbs the risk of materials price inflation, he will undoubtedly price that risk into the bid.

Speeding up business processes will save money as well as reduce risk.

How to Speed Up Business Processes

Measuring speed is a critical step to improving speed. That applies to the sales cycle, a physical production cycle, and a go/no-go decision on a new project. Some decisions are fuzzy about when the process began, but measurements don’t have to be perfect to be useful. They simply must be better than gut feel.

In order to measure processes, though, a map of processes is needed. People may think they have a map in their heads, but when they draw it out and share it with colleagues, they sometimes find more processes than they realized.

With a map of processes and an idea of how long each takes, managers will prioritize processes for speeding up. Those that are both critical and long make good targets. Clarifying responsibility for each process or decision becomes critical as we get closer to action. It’s common to find people following rules, sometimes written and sometimes oral traditions, of no known origin. Who mandated this procedure? Was it the compliance department, accounting, quality control or some long-retired boss? Identifying who made the rule and can authorize its change will enable speeding up some processes.

Benchmarking can help speed up activity. In some cases there may be published studies of particular processes. More often, though, a phone call to someone in a similar but non-competing business will help. That’s a good reason to attend industry conventions.

Paying for speed will make sense in some cases. A contractor building a spec house might want to pay more for subcontractors who can do the work sooner or more quickly. A faster marketing program or product development effort can help bring revenue in before conditions change.

In other cases, an investment of time now may save many hours in the future. A mandatory financial review at a large bank required time from seven highly-paid executives. A process reform developed by a few mid-level managers, including me, cut that committee time by two hours per month. The change paid for itself in a month or two, and the remaining time savings were clear gains. These steps are explained in more detail in a chapter of my book, The Flexible Stance.

Whenever we know conditions today but are uncertain about the future, faster execution will reduce risk.