Do You Need to Know Everything Before You Decide?

Do you need to know everything before making a decision?

It sounds like an easy question. Most people would probably say yes. The more you know, the better your decisions should be.

But then I started thinking about the people who make decisions every day.

A CEO decides on finance, technology, legal, operations, marketing and people. A board member is expected to advise on the direction of an entire organisation. A minister is given a portfolio that may cover subjects they’ve never spent a career studying. Even in family businesses, leadership is eventually handed to the next generation. They don’t suddenly become experts in every department overnight.

So what exactly are they relying on?

I’ve never been convinced that the answer is simply “experience.” There are plenty of experienced people who still make poor decisions. I don’t think the answer is becoming the world’s leading expert in one thing either, because leadership isn’t really a specialist’s job. Specialists solve problems within a discipline. Leaders spend most of their time making decisions between disciplines.

Learning by accident

One thing I’ve realised, almost by accident, is that working in the training and consultancy industry changes the way you learn.

People usually think we’re the ones doing the teaching. In reality, I spend a lot of time learning.

Every programme brings together people who have spent twenty or thirty years becoming experts in something. Lawyers. Cybersecurity practitioners. Data Protection Officers. Engineers. Researchers. Governance professionals. Professors. People who have spent most of their careers looking at the same subject from every possible angle.

Our clients attend because they want to learn from these experts.

I end up sitting in the same room.

Not because I need another certificate, but because every session gives me another way of looking at a problem.

Where the disciplines meet

The training is only one part of it. Consultancy projects are where those ideas become real.

The lawyer sees legal risk. The cybersecurity consultant worries about threats. Operations worry about disruption. Finance asks about cost. The board worries about reputation. None of them are wrong. They’re looking at the same problem through different lenses, and somewhere in the middle, someone still has to decide.

After enough projects, meetings and conversations, something changes.

You stop trying to become the expert in every subject.

Instead, you start recognising where different subjects overlap.

Technology is no longer just technology. It affects governance. Governance affects operations. Operations affect people. People influence culture. Culture changes execution. Eventually you realise that most business problems don’t belong to one department. They sit between departments.

Is generalist really a weakness?

Maybe that’s why I’ve never fully agreed with the phrase, “Jack of all trades, master of none.”

Is being a generalist really a weakness?

Or does it depend on the role?

If you’re a lawyer, then yes, depth matters. If you’re an engineer, the details matter. Every profession needs specialists who understand things the rest of us don’t.

But if your role is making decisions, perhaps your job is different.

Perhaps your job is to understand enough to ask better questions.

Enough to know which expert to involve.

Enough to recognise when two experts disagree because they’re optimising for different outcomes, not because one of them is wrong.

Enough to admit when you don’t know enough.

That’s very different from pretending to know everything.

What AI still doesn’t replace

People sometimes ask whether AI changes this. If you can ask AI almost anything, why do organisations still send people for training? Why do companies still hire consultants? Why do experienced executives still spend time learning?

I don’t think it’s because information is difficult to find anymore.

Information has become cheap.

Context hasn’t.

Experience hasn’t.

Judgment hasn’t.

AI can explain a regulation. Someone who’s implemented that regulation across dozens of organisations can explain where companies usually struggle, what isn’t written in the guideline, and why two organisations following the same regulation can end up with completely different outcomes.

Those are different kinds of knowledge.

Access to different ways of thinking

Looking back, I don’t think the biggest advantage I’ve had is working across different industries.

It’s having access to different ways of thinking.

Every trainer, every consultant, every client, every project and every conversation adds another small piece. None of those pieces are particularly valuable on their own, but over time they begin connecting with one another. You stop collecting information and start recognising patterns.

Maybe that’s enough.

Or maybe that’s what leadership has always been.

Not knowing everything.

Just knowing enough to bring the right people into the room, ask better questions, and make the next decision with a little more perspective than the last.