Being decisive when facing contradictions
Looking at case studies you get the feeling that decisions are always clear-cut and data supportive. But in reality you will face contradictions more times than not.
In product and especially entrepreneurship, I learned to become increasingly comfortable with a high level of ambiguity. If ambiguity were a color, it would be grey. This miraculous color with infinite shades is neither black nor white. In my career, I've faced countless decisions where no amount of research and testing separated the options. Evidence and experts were pointing in different directions. The data was inconclusive.
Nevertheless, you need to be decisive and confident. Being ignorant would certainly be one way to cope. Ignoring alternatives in the first place or disconfirming evidence for your favorite solution, one can easily convince themselves that there is only one solution. The upside of this coping mechanism is that you will exude confidence about the decision. And even false confidence is, unfortunately, often more appreciated by management than any expressions of doubt.
The trick is to be open-minded and assertive simultaneously—you should hold and explore conflicting possibilities in your mind while moving fluidly toward whatever you think is most likely true based on what you know and learn. It goes along the way of "strong opinions. loosely held".
Barrack Obama described it nicely:
"People used to ask me, Why was I calm during the presidency? In addition to being from Hawaii, which really helped (we're just chill)," he joked, "part of the reason is I set up processes. So by the time I made a decision, I might not get the outcome I wanted, but it might be a 51-49 decision or a 60-40 decision, but I can say I heard all the voices involved -- gotten all the info, seen all the perspectives -- so when I made a decision, I was making it as well as anybody could make it."
The truth is every tough decision comes down to a probability, and certainty is an impossibility — which can leave you encumbered by the sense that you can never get it quite right. Instead of obsessing about the idea of data-driven decision-making, your process should include analyzing available data, but you should also be able to proceed when data seems inconclusive. Crippled by doubt, I have experienced PMs falling into a slump characterized by a backlog of fragmented marginal improvements and a complete absence of any big bets.
Test your understanding of the matter with the information you can get. But don't underestimate the value of quick decisions and the cost of hesitation. Being decisive in the face of contradictions has its worth.