We spend 90,000 hours at work, yet so much of it is wasted in stalled projects and drained energy. The most expensive choice isn’t the wrong one, it’s no choice at all. Disney showed that restraint can be strategic, Amazon proved that speed compounds, and both remind us that discipline, not debate, drives outcomes.
In this week’s email:
Corporate innovation: Why startups move faster and what to steal.
Energy economics: Treat energy like capital. Protect it, spend it, invest it.
Making tough decisions: 7 rules for sharper calls under pressure.
Around the Web: From CX as strategy to Uncle Sam as VC.
Meme of the Week: Indecision, perfectly captured.
The Deep Dive
Innovate at speed and with less chaos
Startups and corporates are often painted as opposites. One scrappy and quick. The other slow and bloated. In truth, both wrestle with the same problem: how to make decisions under pressure without wasting money or killing momentum.
Startups move fast because the clock forces them to. Every round of funding is a countdown that says ship something useful before the money runs out. That urgency creates discipline. Teams run short sprints. They set stage gates. At every checkpoint the choice is simple: stop, pivot, or scale.
Corporates, by contrast, can afford to sit in the room longer. Which is exactly why they shouldn’t. When deadlines stretch, decisions stall. Meetings pile up. Risk doesn’t vanish, it only becomes more expensive.
The lesson is not that corporates should mimic startups, which can also be chaotic. It is that they should borrow startup scaffolding. A few habits make the difference:
VC-style stage gates: Create artificial checkpoints every two weeks. Assign real budget. Then decide whether to continue, pivot, or shut it down.
Smaller bets: Spread risk by testing three small ideas rather than chasing one grand solution.
Visible calls: Document and circulate decisions. Clarity prevents drift and keeps teams aligned.
I have seen this work with a pharmaceutical client who adopted this model across a global portfolio. By introducing stage gates and smaller bets, the team consistently delivered new concepts and solutions at pace, without spinning in circles.
The same discipline shows up in other places. Disney, for example, tested AI during production of the live-action Moana. The system could map Dwayne Johnson’s face onto a double, saving millions in reshoots. They chose not to use it. Protecting the integrity of their characters (and IP) mattered more than short-term efficiency. Sometimes saying no is the most innovative move of all.
Amazon offers another lens. Jeff Bezos distinguished between “one-way doors” and “two-way doors.” One-way doors are decisions you cannot reverse. They deserve caution. Two-way doors are reversible. They demand speed. By teaching teams to move fast on the latter, Amazon kept innovation flowing while reserving care for the choices that really counted.
Taken together, these cases show what corporate innovation looks like at its best. It is not a choice between caution and speed. It is the discipline of structured motion, guided by values. Move quickly where you can. Slow down where you must. And never mistake delay for safety.
Energy economics: Treat energy like capital
The most limited resource is not money. It is energy.
Startups stall when the team burns through energy before they ship. Corporates stall for the same reason. The resources look different: venture cash on one side, global budgets on the other. The result is the same. Money and talent may be present, but without energy nothing moves.
The same principle applies at two levels, to yourself and to the teams you lead.
For yourself:
Protect it: Say no to work that drains without moving you forward. Guard your best hours.
Spend it: Use your peak energy on the task that matters most that day, not the easy one.
Invest it: Build habits that create compounding energy like sleep, exercise, and environments that give more than they take.
For teams:
Protect it: Cut projects that look impressive on a slide but sap focus.
Spend it: Point collective energy at the experiments with the biggest upside.
Invest it: Design rituals, spaces, and decision structures that keep momentum high over time.
In innovation, money already comes with rules. Funding flows to projects that prove progress and dries up where it does not. Energy deserves the same discipline. Leaders should be as deliberate in deciding where energy goes each week as they are with budget.
Money can be raised. Ideas can be generated. Energy, once wasted, is gone for good.
7 ways to make tough decisions under pressure
Indecision is usually more costly than the wrong call. Leaders who wait for perfect certainty often find themselves overtaken by faster movers. Colin Powell put it simply: if you have between 40 and 70 percent of the information, make the call. Less than that is guessing. More than that is paralysis.
Here are seven ways to move with confidence when the pressure is on:
Decide on time, every time. Even small choices deserve a time box. Twenty-four to forty-eight hours is often enough.
Decisive beats certain. Momentum matters more than perfection.
Action first, adjust later. If a decision can be reversed, move quickly and course-correct if needed.
Make it visible. Write decisions down and share them so the team aligns fast.
Live with the worst. If you can accept the downside, it is safe to move.
Three options max. Too many choices create fog. Narrow to the top three, then pick.
Trust your gut. Instinct is experience in disguise. Pause if it feels wrong before committing.
The best leaders make decisions a muscle, not a one-off act. They build a rhythm of calls that keep teams in motion and out of gridlock.
🌍 Around the Web
✨ CX as innovation — Officeworks, 7-Eleven and MECCA show that experience is now the most distinctive brand asset, driving growth through connected ecosystems.
🎧 Intel gets a new shareholder — The U.S. government is taking a 10% stake in Intel to keep its chipmaking alive. A new kind of free market economy for Uncle Sam.
🧠 90,000 hours at work — That is one-third of your life spent in meetings, office kitchens and email threads. No wonder mental health is the new ROI.
🧩 Decision fatigue is real — Google’s former Chief Decision Scientist says smart structure, not stamina, keeps choices sharp.
😂 Meme of the week
Michael Scott, Chief Decision Officer. Knowing the theory. Stalling on the practice.
That’s your Real FYI.
Now go make the call, protect your energy, and remember: standing still costs more than the wrong move. Decisiveness beats certainty every time.
— Toni
Founder, Real FYI
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