Jeff Bezos has a simple decision-making framework.[i]
He thinks of decisions as doors. Some are one-way doors. Others are two-way doors.
One-way doors are irreversible. You have no idea what’s on the other side. And you can’t get back through them if you make a mistake.
Two-way doors are reversible. You can go back by reopening them if you make a mistake.
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A few days after the Chernobyl nuclear accident, scientists were worried about a new problem unfolding below the nuclear reactor.
There was a possibility that the uranium fuel in the reactor would become so hot that it would melt the cladding around it and turn into lava. The lava would then potentially burn through the concrete foundation and enter the water table. That would’ve resulted in a catastrophe because the water table could seep radioactive liquid into the nearby Pripyat River, which drained into the Black Sea.
So the government asked 400 coal miners from neighboring towns to help with a solution.
They were asked to dig a tunnel underneath the concrete pad and excavate a room to install a liquid nitrogen heat exchanger. The idea was that the super-cold liquid nitrogen would reduce the heat of the lava above it by cooling it down and averting a disaster.
The mission would subject the miners to a lot of risks. There was a high chance they would be exposed to lethal doses of radiation given the proximity to the leaking nuclear reactor above them.
Nevertheless, the authorities decided to move forward with the plan.
After the miners finished digging the tunnel and were getting ready to install the cooling system, the scientists realized they didn’t need it anymore. The fuel self-cooled and didn’t melt through the concrete slab as they expected. So they ended up filling the tunnels with more concrete to make the foundation stronger.
It was reported later that around 100 out of the 400 miners died due to radioactive-related diseases. The mission incurred a high human cost that could have been avoided.
Although the leaders knew there was only a possibility of a meltdown, they made a difficult but necessary decision.
As Craig Mazin, creator and writer of the HBO mini-series Chernobyl, explained:
“I would put myself in [Valery] Legasov’s shoes . . . and you start to realize the cruelty of the situation; you have no choice. A 50-50 chance that you’re going to poison the Black Sea forever is not acceptable.”[ii]
In other words, a decision to do nothing was a one-way door.
Poisoning the Black Sea was irreversible, so leaders asked miners who had a 25% chance of dying to help fix the problem.
A recent picture of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant
How to use this mental model
Think of all business decisions as one-way or two-way doors. Some are reversible. Others are not. Take your time analyzing one-way doors (especially when the impacts are disastrous) and execute quickly on the two-way ones.
This post is an excerpt from “Mental Models for Effective Managers.”
[i] From the 1997 Amazon shareholder letter that Bezos wrote, as well as this Inc. article.
[ii] The short story is based on a few sources, including the HBO Chernobyl series and this article. The quote is from a podcast episode called “Open Wide, O Earth” during a conversation between Craig Mazin and Peter Sagal at around the 15-minute mark [image source].
