Buridan's ass

Robert Greenleaf, author and founder of the "Servant Leadership" movement wrote, “On an important decision one rarely has 100% of the information needed for a good decision no matter how much one spends or how long one waits. And, if one waits too long, he has a different problem and has to start all over. This is the terrible dilemma of the hesitant decision maker.”  

I am reminded of the old proverb, "He who hesitates is lost."  It's actually not that old.  I was thinking it came from ancient Greece or Rome, but it actually was adapted from the 18th century play Cato by Joseph Addison, which was reportedly one of George Washington's favorite plays!  The line was modified from its original, which read as follows: "“The woman that deliberates is lost."  

Apparently there is a famous paradox in philosophy known as Buridan's ass (the "ass" here refers to the animal, not the body part).  It is named after the 14th century French philosopher Jean Buridan (notably the word "ass" never appears in his writings), though several other philosophers described similar concepts, most notably the ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle and the 12th century Persian philosopher, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali.  The paradox refers to a hypothetical situation in which an ass (donkey) who is equally hungry and thirsty is placed exactly midway between a stack of hay and a pail of water.  Given that the donkey is just as hungry as it is thirsty, Buridan's philosophy of moral determinism would say that the donkey would choose whichever is closer, the water or the hay.  As both are the same distance, the donkey is unable to choose and therefore dies of starvation and thirst.  Buridan wrote "Should two courses be judged equal, then the will cannot break the deadlock, all it can do is to suspend judgement until the circumstances change, and the right course of action is clear.”  In some variants of the paradox, the donkey is forced to choose between two piles of hay instead.

The story of Buridan's ass is commonly used to describe situations in which an individual is unable to choose between two otherwise equally reasonable and good choices.  It was even featured in a 10th season episode of the television show, The Big Bang Theory.  Basically, the lesson here is that leaders will never have a nice, neat packet containing all the relevant information to review and ponder before making a key decision.  There is almost no such thing as "perfect information" , and the competition will never wait long enough anyway.  If leaders wait too long (like an ass / donkey), they will lose out and may even metaphorically starve to death.  Leaders who hesitate are lost.