Why executive decision makers don’t make decisions.
Debbie Morrison • September 16, 2020

Why executive decision makers don’t make decisions.


As specialist executive recruiters for almost 25 years, it’s one of the most common frustrations we still hear from employers. Why are so many executive decision makers reluctant to actually make decisions?


The logic is simple enough. After all, when you’re recruited into a senior decision-making position, it’s only natural you’ll be expected to make decisions. Trouble is, every day managers all over Australia – and the world – struggle to actually do it, putting things off for all manner of reasons and generally erring on the side of procrastination and compromise. Even at a micro level, managerial indecision like this can have a significant impact on the bottom line. But when you extrapolate it to an entire economy, well, the impact is potentially seismic.


One problem. Many causes.

A raft of factors can trigger a lack of confident decision making in a workplace. In some instances, it might be personality related, something which can have ramifications all the way back to your executive recruitment, talent identification and HR processes. While in other situations it can be connected to external forces such as the working environment or corporate culture managers find themselves operating within each day.


While clearly every situation is different, here are some of the more common factors to watch out for if you’re looking to encourage more effective decision-making in your business. It can be particularly important to keep these things in mind when you’re actively looking to recruit new talent through an executive search process.


 

  • Failing to prioritise or delegate correctly – no matter how good a decision-maker may be, they can’t decide everything every time. Whether it’s done intuitively, or they’ve learned strategies to help them over the years, the most effective managers are typically adept at prioritising what they really need to take care of themselves – and delegating what they don’t to others.

 

 

  • Too much information – when we get overloaded it’s easy for our decision making to become bogged down as we struggle to process everything. The reality is too many options and opinions can be just as dangerous as not having enough. While it’s easy to assume that if we go through every conceivable scenario, and leave no stone unturned, we’ll be certain to make the right decision, more often than not we simply become overwhelmed. It’s why one of the greatest managerial skills lies in being able to filter the information you really need from that which is superfluous.

 

 

  • Uncertainty – in managerial circles the phrase ‘paralysis by over-analysis’ often draws a chuckle. But make no mistake, it can be crippling commercial problem if left unaddressed. Regardless of the business size or industry, the underlying cause is almost always the same: a lack of confidence and/or clarity within the business. Maybe a manager is fearful of losing his or her job if they make the ‘wrong’ call? Perhaps they don’t feel truly empowered and, as a result, are constantly seeking to second-guess their boss? Or maybe they’re wheel spinning as don’t fully understand the company’s strategy and vision? They’re all paralysing scenarios for a decision maker, slowing down the process at best, grinding it to a complete halt at worst. Uncertainty is the enemy of effective and efficient decision making.

 

 

  • The emotion of change – generally speaking, people don’t like change. Yet by its very nature, change is what decision making is all about. Whether it’s implementing new structures, new IT systems, new hires, new suppliers or even a new marketing campaign, the decision-making process is frequently more emotional that it might appear on the surface – both for the person making the decisions and also those who will be affected by them. For some managers this can create a heavy emotional burden which, in turn, can lead to procrastination and/or compromises which may not be in the long-term interests of the business.

 



By John Elliott June 26, 2025
You don’t hear about it on the nightly news. There’s no breaking story. No panic. No protests. Just rows of vegetables being pulled out of the ground with no plan to replant. Just farmers who no longer believe there’s a future for them here. Just quiet decisions — to sell, to walk away, to stop. And if you ask around the industry, they’ll tell you the same thing: It’s not just one bad season. It’s a slow death by a thousand margins. 1 in 3 growers are preparing to leaveIn September 2024, AUSVEG released a national sentiment report with a statistic that should have set off alarms in every capital city: 34% of Australian vegetable growers were considering exiting the industry in the next 12 months. Another one-third said they’d leave if offered a fair price for their farm. Source: AUSVEG Industry Sentiment Report 2024 (PDF) These aren’t abstract hypotheticals. These are real decisions, already in motion. For many, it’s not about profitability anymore, it’s about survival. This isn’t burnout. It’s entrapment. Behind the numbers are people whose entire identity is tied to a profession that no longer feeds them. Many are asset-rich but cash-poor. They own the land. But the land owns them back. Selling means walking away from decades of history. Staying means bleeding capital, month by month, in a system where working harder delivers less. Every year, input costs rise, fuel, fertiliser, compliance. But the farmgate price doesn’t move. Or worse, it drops. Retail World Magazine reports that even though national vegetable production increased 3% in 2023–24, the total farmgate value fell by $140 million. Growers produced more and earned less. That’s not a market. That’s a trap. What no one wants to say aloud The truth is this: many growers are only staying because they can’t leave. If you’re deep in debt, if your farm is tied to multi-generational ownership, if you’ve invested everything in equipment, infrastructure, or land access, walking away isn’t easy. It’s a last resort. So instead, you stay. You cut your hours. Delay maintenance. Avoid upgrades. Cancel the next round of planting. You wait for something to shift, interest rates, weather, prices and you pretend that waiting is strategy. According to the latest fruitnet.com survey, over 50% of vegetable growers say they’re financially worse off than a year ago. And nearly 40% expect conditions to deteriorate further. This isn’t about optimism or resilience. It’s about dignity and the quiet erosion of it. Supermarkets won’t save them, and they never planned to In the current model, supermarket pricing doesn’t reflect real-world farm economics. Retailers demand year-round consistency, aesthetic perfection, and lower prices. They don’t absorb rising input costs, they externalise them. They offer promotions funded not by their marketing budgets, but by the growers’ margins. Farmers take the risk. Retailers take the profit. And because the power imbalance is so deeply entrenched, there’s no real negotiation, just quiet coercion dressed up as "category planning." Let’s talk about what’s actually broken This isn’t just a market failure. It’s a policy failure. Australia’s horticulture system has been built on: Decades of deregulated wholesale markets Lack of collective bargaining power for growers Retailer consolidation that has created a virtual duopoly Export-focused incentives that bypass smaller domestic producers There’s no meaningful floor price for key produce lines. No national enforcement of fair dealing. No public database that links supermarket shelf price to farmgate return. Which means growers, like James, can be driven into loss-making supply contracts without ever seeing the true economics of their product downstream. But the real silence? It’s from consumers. Here’s what no one wants to admit: We say we care about “buying local.” We say we value the farmer’s role. We share those viral posts about strawberries going unsold or milk prices being unfair. And then we complain about a $4 lettuce. We opt for the cheapest bag of carrots. We walk past the "imperfect" produce bin. We frown at the cost of organic and click “Add to Cart” on whatever’s half price. We’re not just bystanders. We’re part of the equation. What happens when the growers go? At first, very little. Supermarkets will find substitutes. Importers will fill gaps. Large agribusinesses will expand into spaces vacated by smaller players. Prices will stay low, until they don’t. But over time, we’ll notice: Produce that travels further and lasts less. Fewer independent growers at farmer’s markets. Entire regions losing their growing identity. National food security becoming a campaign promise instead of a reality. And when the climate throws something serious at us, drought, flood, global supply shock, we’ll realise how little resilience we’ve preserved. So what do we do? We start by telling the truth. Australia is not food secure. Not if 1 in 3 growers are planning to exit. The market isn’t working. Not when prices rise at the shelf and fall at the farmgate. The solution isn’t scale. It’s fairness, visibility, and rebalancing power. That means: Mandating cost-reflective contracts between retailers and suppliers Enabling collective bargaining rights for growers Building transparent data systems linking production costs to consumer prices Introducing transition finance for smaller producers navigating reform and climate pressure And holding supermarkets publicly accountable for margin extraction But more than anything, it means recognising what we’re losing, before it's gone. Final word If you ate a vegetable today, it likely came from someone who’s considered giving up in the past year. Not because they don’t care. But because caring doesn’t pay. This isn’t about nostalgia. It’s about sovereignty, over what we eat, how we grow it, and who gets to stay in the system.  Because the next time you see rows of green stretching to the horizon, you might want to ask: How many of these fields are already planning their last harvest?
By John Elliott June 20, 2025
If you're leading an FMCG or food manufacturing business right now, you're probably still talking about growth. Your board might be chasing headcount approvals. Your marketing team’s pitching a new brand campaign. Your category team’s assuming spend will bounce. But your customer? They’ve already moved on. Quietly. Like they always do. The illusion of resilience FMCG has always felt protected, “essential” by nature. People still eat, wash, shop. It’s easy to assume downturns pass around us, not through us. But this isn’t 2020. Recessions in 2025 won’t look like lockdowns. They’ll look like volume drops that no promo can fix. Shrinking margins on products that no longer carry their premium. Quiet shelf deletions you weren’t warned about. The data’s already there. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, consumer spending is slowing in real terms , even as inflation eases. The Reserve Bank confirmed in May: household consumption remains subdued amid weak real income growth . And over 80% of Australians have cut back on discretionary food spending , according to Finder. They’re still shopping, just not like they used to. A managing director at a national food manufacturer told me recently: “We won a new product listing in April. By July, it was marked for deletion. The velocity wasn’t there, but neither was the shopper. We’d forecasted like 2022 never ended. Rookie mistake.” That one stuck with me. Because I’ve heard it before, just in different words.