How do I sanity check a business decision before committing?

Picture someone about to do a skydive. The useful question right before the jump has nothing to do with feeling confident. The question that matters is: what has to be in place before this is safe to do?

The parachute may be packed. But that covers only part of the check. You would also want to know:

• whether the reserve chute is there
• whether the harness is clipped in correctly
• whether the weather has changed
• whether the landing zone is clear
• whether the person jumping knows what to do if the main chute does not open
• whether someone independent has looked over the kit
• and even what "ready" means here - ready to board the plane, ready to jump, or ready to land safely

So the real check has little to do with how confident the jumper feels. It comes down to the conditions around the jump.

⚡ Often the most useful sanity check is the one that checks what the decision depends on, not whether the decision sounds right.

Business decisions have the same problem. You can have a decision that sounds sensible, a plan that looks coherent, and a real feeling of being ready to move - and still be missing something. The useful check goes past "do I still like this decision?" and asks instead: what does this decision depend on, and has that been looked at properly before I commit?

For an owner-managed business, the version of the parachute check does not look like a long generic checklist. It works as a check on the conditions the decision actually depends on. The same things the skydiver checks have a business equivalent:

• The reserve chute - what protects the business if the main assumption turns out to be wrong.
• The harness - whether the decision connects to clear ownership, action, and follow-through, or just floats as an intention.
• The weather - whether the conditions around the decision have changed since it was first thought through.
• The landing zone - what the business will have to absorb once the decision is made.
• The emergency procedure - whether there is a practical way to respond if something gets blocked, contested, or stops being clear.
• The independent kit check - whether the decision has had a real challenge from someone, rather than just agreement or a bit of polishing.
• The meaning of "ready" - whether "ready" means it sounds attractive, that everyone has agreed, that it is understood, that it can actually be executed, or that it is safe enough to commit to. Those are not the same thing.

A sanity check earns its place because decisions usually go wrong at the edges rather than within the main area of focus. The main idea is rarely the thing that lets you down. What catches you out is something next to it that was not ready to support it.

So the real question goes past whether every possible weakness has been removed, and asks whether anything important is still unclear, untested, weakly challenged, or too loosely tied to action. That also separates a sanity check from simply thinking it through one more time. Another round of thinking tends to make the idea feel more right. A sanity check shows you whether there is enough structure around the decision to act on it.

⚡ A decision can sound right and still be invisibly unready to act on.

🚀 What to do next

If this feels familiar, start here:

👉 Run the Second Look Decision Diagnostic to check your decision
👉Read about checking business decisions

👉 📖 Read more on Second Look blog