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Obama makes Afghan military decision

Although not announced officially, President Obama has made
a decission on Afghan troop levels. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

President Obama has offered a variety of triggering criteria before issuing his decision. The most recent trigger was Afghanistan’s presidential election rerun being certified. With the withdrawal of the opposition candidate, Afghan election officials have declared current President to be the winner by default yet no announcement by the Obama on troop levels.

The lack of an official announcement is a decision in and of itself. It is really nothing more than a decision to continue the current situation as acceptable.

We have seen the impact of deciding to wait to decide throughout business history.

Royal Crown Cola was once the top selling soft drink in America. It was a time that soft drinks were sold only at soda fountains and diners and Royal Crown was well positioned at both, enjoying great market share. New technology arrived that would allow soft drinks to be bottled. Royal Crown leadership saw this as a deflection to their focus and thought that bottling could damage their relationships at soda fountains. They decided not to decide on a bottling strategy until they saw it was more than a fad. When they ultimately made a decision to go into the bottling business their market share had fallen, reducing their ability to invest in bottling operations, and retailers had already filled their shelves with Coke, Pepsi, and others.

Kmart was known as the low-price leader throughout the 60s, 70s, and 80s. A regional southern chain was working hard to prove to customers they were able to deliver the same products at prices even lower than Kmart’s retails. Pressure mounted on Kmart CEO Joseph Antonini to develop a strategy to counter inroads into the deep discount domain. Antonini decided to handle that issue at a later time because Kmart needed to focus on becoming the world’s largest retailer. His lack of a decision was to keep with the status quo -- which gave Walmart the time they needed to take over as the low price leader. Incidentally, Kmart would never take over the top spot in retailing as the year they past Sears in annual sales, Walmart zoomed past both companies to become the King of retailing.

Strategy and leadership in business depends on the CEO, President, or Owner having the vision and courage to take decisive action when necessary for the progress of their company or organization. As seen at Kmart and Royal Crown, and countless others, putting off a decision can have severe consequences.