One of the hardest parts of being a CEO is making decisions without having all the information. In industries like healthcare and mining where I’ve spent much of my career, you rarely get perfect clarity. You have to move quickly, often under pressure, and trust that your judgment will hold up under scrutiny.
Over time, I’ve learned that being a strong operator isn’t about having every answer. It’s about having a compass, a reliable sense of direction, that helps you stay aligned with your mission while moving fast enough to keep the business alive and growing.
Here’s how I think about making fast calls without losing strategic north.
Clarity Before Speed
The first rule of fast decision-making is that speed means nothing if you’re sprinting in the wrong direction. Every time I feel pressure to decide quickly, I pause and ask one question: What are we actually trying to achieve?
In healthcare, that might mean balancing patient outcomes with cost and compliance. In mining, it might mean weighing safety, output, and environmental risk. The variables are different, but the principle is the same. When you’re clear on the objective, even partial information becomes more useful.
Many CEOs mistake activity for progress. They chase short-term wins that look good on paper but pull the company away from its real purpose. Clarity keeps you anchored. Once you know your north, speed becomes an advantage instead of a liability.
Build a Framework, Not a Formula
You can’t build a decision-making formula that works for every situation. The world changes too fast. But you can build a framework, a set of principles, that guide how you evaluate choices.
My framework has three questions:
- Does it align with our mission?
- Is the risk acceptable and reversible?
- Can we execute this without losing focus on our core operations?
If I can answer those three with confidence, we move. If I can’t, we slow down just enough to get clarity.
The key is balance. Move too fast and you create mistakes that take months to fix. Move too slow and opportunities pass you by. A good operator knows when a 70 percent answer is enough to act.
Trust the Data, but Listen to the Room
Data is critical. It grounds you in facts when emotions run high. But I’ve also learned that numbers can’t always see around corners. In both healthcare and mining, I’ve seen perfect-looking spreadsheets that ignored human realities, staff fatigue, regulatory shifts, morale, or community trust.
When the data points one way but your gut says something’s off, that’s not a reason to ignore the data. It’s a reason to ask better questions. The best decisions come from blending structured information with lived experience.
As a leader, I rely on pattern recognition, the quiet signal that tells me I’ve seen this type of challenge before, even if it looks different on the surface. That sense comes from time in the trenches. It’s why operators who’ve lived through chaos often make better calls than those who’ve only studied it.
Build a Culture That Can Move with You
Fast decision-making isn’t a solo act. You can’t lead a team that freezes every time something unexpected happens. The more your people trust the process, the faster and cleaner execution becomes.
That means training your team to think like operators, not followers. Teach them to analyze, challenge, and decide inside their lanes. When everyone understands the mission and the guardrails, you can move fast without losing coordination.
At CTS, one of the things that kept us strong during growth phases was that every department understood not just what they were doing, but why. When everyone knows the direction, you don’t have to micromanage. You just have to steer.
The 80 Percent Rule
One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned is that most decisions don’t need to be perfect. They need to be good enough to move the business forward.
If you wait for perfect information, you’ll never act. In healthcare, regulations change mid-project. In mining, commodity prices shift overnight. By the time you think you have all the facts, the facts have changed.
My rule is simple: when you have 80 percent of the data and 100 percent of the mission clarity, decide. You can course-correct later if needed. Momentum is often the difference between survival and stagnation.
Emotional Control Is a Skill
Pressure reveals character. In crisis moments, teams look to the CEO not just for answers, but for calm. If you’re erratic, they panic. If you’re measured, they stay grounded.
I’ve had moments where the stakes were enormous, regulatory audits, major deals, unexpected setbacks. The temptation to react fast and emotionally is strong. But real leadership means staying composed. You don’t ignore the fear, you manage it.
That kind of calm comes from mental conditioning. For me, it’s built through daily habits like running, reflection, and setting boundaries. The mind, like a muscle, can be trained to stay steady when everything else feels unstable.
Keep the Compass Visible
A compass only works if you check it. Every few weeks, I revisit the big picture with my leadership team. Are we still heading where we said we would? Are our quick decisions moving us closer to that vision or drifting us off course?
It’s easy for execution to become a blur of to-do lists. The best CEOs create pauses for reflection. They don’t just run faster. They make sure they’re running the right race.
The longer I lead, the more I believe this: speed doesn’t separate great companies from average ones. Direction does. The ability to move fast and stay true to the mission is what defines real operational excellence.