Time Kills Deals: A Holiday Lesson for Young Leaders

A note to young leaders.

The period between Christmas and Australia Day is a graveyard for deals. Why?

Because investing is an act of faith. Strategy, feasibility and analysis get you to the precipice, but the decision to jump is emotional. If you let the feeling pass, odds are you won’t jump.

Not least because of “headline risk”. If you give people six weeks to think about a major decision – the odds are 9:1 that they’ll encounter more bad news headlines that scare them from doing the deal than good news headlines that encourage them to do the deal.

Time kills deals.

If you want to get a deal done, get it signed before Christmas.