David Bland recently shared something that caught my attention: "Is the market changing faster than your organization is learning? I’m seeing decisions that used to take weeks now stretch into months." He added that this slowdown is not because leaders lack intelligence, but because "complexity outpaces clarity and confidence."

That framing resonates because it points to something many teams feel but struggle to name: decision-making does not fail only from poor judgment. It fails from the conditions around the decision.

Bland summarized the dynamic with a simple equation:

Decision Velocity = Clarity × Confidence ÷ Complexity

I want to expand on that idea because it gives leaders a practical way to diagnose why momentum is stalling and what to do about it.

What "decision velocity" really measures

Decision velocity is not "how fast we move" in a general sense. It is the speed at which an organization can:

Recognize a decision needs to be made
Gather enough signal to choose a direction
Commit resources
Learn quickly whether that choice worked

In healthy organizations, these steps form a loop. In struggling organizations, they become a queue. The queue grows when complexity increases, clarity decreases, or confidence erodes.

Bland’s equation is useful because it does not shame leaders for taking time. It shows which lever is stuck.

Complexity is not the enemy, but it is the tax

Complexity is the number of moving parts that matter to the decision.

It comes from:

More stakeholders, each with legitimate constraints
Interdependent systems (tech, processes, regulations)
Market uncertainty and competitive noise
Ambiguous customer needs
Organizational structure and handoffs

When complexity rises, the cost of being wrong feels higher. So the organization tries to "buy certainty" with more analysis, more meetings, and more approvals. That feels responsible, but it often increases complexity further.

A common pattern looks like this:

A decision touches multiple teams
Each team requests more detail to reduce its local risk
The combined request produces a larger decision packet
Leaders delay to avoid making a call on incomplete information
Time passes, context shifts, and now the decision packet is outdated

If you have ever watched a simple pricing change turn into a quarterly initiative, you have lived this.

The key is not to pretend complexity is lower. The key is to prevent complexity from dominating the other variables.

Clarity: the missing inputs are usually basic

In practice, clarity is the degree to which people agree on:

What problem we are solving
What success looks like
What constraints are real vs assumed
What options are on the table
What evidence would change our minds

When clarity is low, teams debate the decision using different definitions. One group argues about strategy, another argues about scope, and a third argues about risk. Everyone thinks they are being rational, but they are not talking about the same thing.

If decision velocity is dragging, a fast clarity test is to ask five questions in a meeting and see if answers match:

What is the decision we are making today?
Who is the decision owner?
What is the time horizon (this week, this quarter, next year)?
What is the smallest action that creates learning?
What would make this a "no"?

When answers diverge, you have found the bottleneck.

A practical clarity tool: write the one-paragraph decision brief

Before you schedule another meeting, try a one-paragraph brief that includes:

Context: what changed in the market or business
Decision: what you need to choose
Options: 2-3 real alternatives
Tradeoffs: what you give up with each option
Timing: by when the decision matters

This is not bureaucracy. It is compression. Compression creates shared language, and shared language creates speed.

Confidence: the overlooked multiplier

Confidence is not ego. It is the organization’s willingness to commit.

Confidence rises when people believe:

The process is fair
The data is good enough for the moment
The decision can be revisited based on learning
The team will not be punished for reasonable bets

Confidence drops when decisions are treated like permanent verdicts. If the culture punishes being wrong more than it rewards learning, leaders will stall. Teams will ask for more proof, not because they need it, but because they need psychological safety.

This is why Bland’s point about intelligence matters. Smart people can still hesitate when they feel exposed.

Build confidence with "reversible" decisions

One of the fastest ways to rebuild confidence is to label decisions explicitly:

Type 1: hard to reverse (architecture, acquisitions, compliance)
Type 2: easy to reverse (copy, small pricing tests, feature flags)

Many organizations treat Type 2 decisions like Type 1 decisions. That is a confidence killer.

When you reframe a decision as a testable bet, you do not eliminate risk. You make risk manageable.

Putting the equation to work: three levers, three plays

Bland’s equation suggests you can increase decision velocity by:

Increasing clarity
Increasing confidence
Reducing complexity

Here are practical plays for each.

1) Increase clarity with decision mapping

In complex environments, it helps to map the decision as a system:

What assumptions are we making?
Which assumptions are riskiest?
What evidence do we have today?
What evidence can we get in 1-2 weeks?

This aligns well with David Bland’s broader work on making risk visible and testable. When assumptions are extracted, mapped, and tested, the conversation shifts from opinions to learnable unknowns.

2) Increase confidence with pre-commitments

Try adding two pre-commitments to decisions:

"We will review results on X date."
"If metric Y moves against us by Z, we will roll back or adjust."

These guardrails reduce fear because they define what happens next. Confidence increases when people know there is a plan for being wrong.

3) Reduce complexity by narrowing the decision surface

You cannot simplify the world, but you can simplify the choice.

Reduce stakeholders to the smallest group that owns outcomes
Timebox discovery and analysis
Constrain options (three options beats ten)
Ship the smallest version that teaches you something

A useful question is: "What is the smallest decision we can make that still moves us forward?" Often the answer is not "approve the full program" but "run a two-week test with one segment" or "pilot in one region." That is complexity reduction without denial.

A quick example: the feature that took three months

Imagine a team debating a new onboarding flow. The discussion drags because:

Complexity: multiple platforms, analytics changes, legal review
Low clarity: no agreement on the primary success metric
Low confidence: past experiments were judged harshly, so nobody wants to own a bet

Applying Bland’s equation, the team could:

Create clarity: agree the decision is "test a new first-run experience," success metric is "activation within 7 days," and constraints are "no new PII collection"
Build confidence: pre-commit to a two-week A/B test, with a rollback threshold
Reduce complexity: pilot on one platform first behind a feature flag

Same market. Same intelligence. Different conditions. Faster decision.

The bottom line

When David Bland says decisions that used to take weeks now stretch into months, I hear a warning and an opportunity. The warning is that markets will not slow down to match internal cycles. The opportunity is that decision velocity is not magic. It is a function you can influence.

If you want to move faster, do not just demand speed. Improve the equation:

Raise clarity. Raise confidence. Actively manage complexity.

Because when complexity outpaces clarity and confidence, the organization does not just slow down. It stops learning.

This blog post expands on a viral LinkedIn post by David Bland, Author | Speaker | Creator of the EMT System (Extract-Map-Test) | Helping leaders make faster decisions by breaking down, sharing, and testing risk.. View the original LinkedIn post →