Hi there, this is Jon & Mark from Salt & Light.
The meeting has been in the diary for weeks.
A leadership team with a blank page and a decision that matters. Which direction to take the business, which market to enter first, and which go-to-market strategy to back?
Everyone has done their homework. The table is covered. Reports. Data. Analyst perspectives. Case studies gathered. Opinions from people who've been in the industry for decades.
Two hours later, they're no closer to a decision.
Not because they didn't have enough information. They had more than enough.
The problem was simpler than that, and harder to fix.
Nobody had asked what the information was actually for.
Were they still exploring? Building a picture, widening the options, challenging their assumptions? Or were they evaluating and weighing up what they'd found and moving toward a clear choice?
Those are two different jobs. And without knowing which one you're doing, more information doesn't produce more clarity.
It just produces more noise.
Information is everywhere. Opinions. Data. Expert perspectives. Research papers. Case studies. Your own instinct and experience and feelings.
We are not short on information.
But here's the uncomfortable truth. Most of it isn't intelligence. Not yet.
Intelligence is information that's useful, purposeful, and actionable. It changes something in how you see the decision in front of you. Raw information just sits there, waiting to be shaped by the right question.
That leadership team had plenty of information and decades of collective experience around the table.
What they didn't have was the right question.
Because before you gather anything, there's something more important to establish first.
What is this intelligence for?
Are you still exploring? Looking for options and angles, you haven't considered yet.
Or are you evaluating? Weighing up what's already in front of you.
Those are two different jobs. And they need two different filters for intelligence gathering.
We call them WIDEN and WEIGH.
WIDEN
When you're still in exploring mode, this is your filter. Use it to test whether a source of intelligence is genuinely opening things up — or just reinforcing what you already think.
Before you act on a piece of intelligence, ask:
Worthy — do we trust this source enough to let it shape our thinking?
Insightful — does it reveal meaning and patterns, not just facts?
Disruptive — does it challenge our current thinking, or just confirm it?
Expansive — does it open up new ways of seeing or acting?
Necessary — if we ignored this, would our options be poorer?
That leadership team never asked a single one of these questions. Every report felt worthy. Every opinion felt insightful. None of it was disruptive. None of it was expansive.
They weren't gathering intelligence. They were gathering noise.
WEIGH
When you've finished exploring and you're ready to evaluate, switch to this filter. It tests whether your intelligence helps you move toward a decision. Ask:
Weight — does this clarify what matters most, the priorities and trade-offs?
Evidence — is this credible and quantified where possible?
Impact — does this show how much better or worse one option is?
Gamble — does this describe the risks and probabilities involved?
Highlight — does this illuminate our confidence in each option?
Most leaders reach for the WEIGH filter first. It feels more decisive. More like progress.
But if you haven't run WIDEN first, you're not weighing your best options.
You're just weighing the ones you happened to find.
Think about a decision you're carrying right now.
Not hypothetical. A real one that's been sitting in the back of your mind, half-formed, waiting for clarity that hasn't come yet.
Now ask yourself honestly. Which filter do you need?
If you're still circling the problem, still not sure what your real options are, you need WIDEN. Seek out the intelligence that disrupts your current thinking, not the kind that confirms it.
If you genuinely have your options in front of you and you're ready to evaluate, you need WEIGH. But be honest with yourself. Most leaders reach for WEIGH way too early 😉
That leadership team had the information. They just didn't know what to do with it.
Here's your challenge before the next issue:
Pick one piece of intelligence you're currently relying on for your decision and run it through the WIDEN filter. Is it worthy? Is it insightful? Does it actually disrupt your thinking or does it just tell you what you wanted to hear?
This is a starting point, not a complete audit. But it's often enough to reveal whether your intelligence is doing its job or just keeping you comfortable.
If it doesn't pass that third test, go and find something that does.
What's one source of intelligence you've been avoiding and what are you afraid it might tell you?
If you'd like to explore how better decision-making could work across your team — whether that's our decision-making course or a conversation about what you're facing right now — we'd love to talk.
Jon & Mark