When You’re Stuck, Stall

Written By Jeremy Utley

In her uproarious memoir, Bossypants, Tina Fey describes one of the most pivotal decisions in her career (whether she’d portray an upstart Vice Presidential candidate from Alaska on Saturday Night Live) thus:

“We decided not to decide. This is another technique I learned from Lorne. Sometimes if you have a difficult decision to make, just stall until the answer presents itself.”

Sounds a lot like Frank Lloyd Wright, doesn’t it? As spy-turned-researcher Donald MacKinnon illuminated in his landmark study of practical creativity, often what distinguishes “the greats” from the rest is a willingness to not decide, yet. Answers have a tendency to “present themselves” to folks who delay decisions, especially to the ones who expect good ideas to keep coming.

The key, however, is to actually care about the solution. If you don’t care, you’re just procrastinating; delaying a decision when you care about the outcome, however, is totally different: it’s a productive strategy to court serendipity.

Related: Delay Decisions
Related: Expect Good Ideas to Come Late
Related: Drive Innovation Through Care

Click here to subscribe to Paint & Pipette, the weekly digest of these daily posts.

Featured
Malpractice
Malpractice

Last email: did AI help? Last presentation: did you get AI feedback? Last difficult conversation: did you practice with AI first? If you're answering "no" to most of these, you're not behind on AI adoption. You're committing professional negligence.

The Recursive Loop: How Sharing Creates What's Worth Sharing
The Recursive Loop: How Sharing Creates What's Worth Sharing

Most teams think they need more AI training. What they actually need is a loop: a reason to share, experiment, and learn in public. Here’s how to build that culture—one commitment at a time.

Update Your Priors
Update Your Priors

If the MIT study of AI failure rates surprised you, you need to update your priors. Innovation is about shots on goal, not perfect plans. Time to recalibrate how many attempts you’re making.

Admit You Don't Know: Reverse Mentorship With An AI Sherpa
Admit You Don't Know: Reverse Mentorship With An AI Sherpa

Most leaders think credibility comes from having all the answers. In the AI era, it's the opposite—credibility comes from admitting you don't know and doing something about it. Here's how to become the kind of leader who can actually drive organizational change instead of just demanding it.

Be the Prompt: The One Thing AI Will Never Do (And Why That's Your Competitive Advantage)
Be the Prompt: The One Thing AI Will Never Do (And Why That's Your Competitive Advantage)

AI can do almost anything you ask—faster and better than you imagined. But it will never do the one thing that makes you irreplaceable. Here, I share how a piece of career-saving advice from my dad, a billion-dollar insight from Sam Altman, and lessons from leaders like Meta’s Josh To reveal the skill that keeps you indispensable in an “agentic” era.

Stop Operating, Start Orchestrating: Why Innovation is Now a Parallel Process
Stop Operating, Start Orchestrating: Why Innovation is Now a Parallel Process

Cleverly deploying AI is not merely speeding up innovation—it's unlocking a fundamentally different relationship with the creative process. Here’s how to shift from operation, to orchestration.

Don’t Be Fred! 8 Bad Habits to Lose in 2025
Don’t Be Fred! 8 Bad Habits to Lose in 2025

You know that moment when someone tells a story so perfectly out-of-step with the times that you laugh—then realize you're guilty of your own version? That's exactly what happened when Brice Challamel, Head of AI at Moderna, shared the origin of their company AI transformation mantra, "Don't be Fred".

What's Your Question? The Missing Skill That's Killing Innovation
What's Your Question? The Missing Skill That's Killing Innovation

Most organizations don’t fail at AI because of the tech. They fail because leaders reward critique over curiosity. Here’s how to flip the script before your next breakthrough dies in the room.

Hire Yourself
Hire Yourself

Much ink has been spilled about the plight of college graduates. Because of all the hand-wringing about entry-level positions disappearing and AI automation stealing opportunities, no one is saying the quiet part out loud:

No one wanted a "job" to begin with. In that sense, there's never been a better time to enter the job market.

From Efficiency to Impossibility: How the Trail Blazers Prove AI Creates Value, Not Just Captures It
From Efficiency to Impossibility: How the Trail Blazers Prove AI Creates Value, Not Just Captures It

Most companies get AI adoption wrong because they're trapped in "value capture" mode. Efficiency plays might deliver measurable ROI, but they’re essentially defensive moves, and defense alone doesn't put enough points on the board to win. The real competitive advantage comes from "value creation."

Jeremy Utley
Previous

Look At Nothing
Next

Curate Learning Partners