By: John S. Morlu II, CPA
Picture the donkey again — but give him a title: CEO, Founder, Managing Director. He’s sitting in a glass office, caught between two identical strategies.
Option A: “Expand into Market X.”
Option B: “Expand into Market Y.”
Both have market research. Both have consultants nodding. Both have PowerPoints with hockey-stick graphs. Both have feasibility studies with optimistic timelines. The financial models look identical, down to the last decimal.
The donkey-CEO? He can’t decide. He demands perfect clarity. He wants the “100% certain” option. He calls more meetings. Hires more analysts. Spins up more reports. Commissions more “sensitivity analyses.” Meanwhile, competitors are eating both piles of hay — quietly setting up shop in Market X, dominating Market Y, and moving on to Market Z before his board finishes their next retreat.
And his company? Starves.
The Corporate Paradox
Buridan’s ass is the poster child of analysis paralysis. It’s the boardroom where:
- Two identical vendors compete for the contract, and leadership debates for six months while operations grind to a halt. Meanwhile, supply chains break and customers walk.
- Management dithers between two product lines, so neither gets launched — and when they finally do, the market has moved on.
- HR can’t decide between two equally qualified candidates, so the role stays empty for a year — leaving existing staff burned out and the business limping along.
- IT debates between two cloud providers, writing endless pros-and-cons lists, while competitors are already scaling globally.
- A merger offer sits on the table for months while lawyers draft “what if” scenarios. By the time they decide, the deal is gone.
The donkey in a suit is no different from the donkey in a field. Only the hay is now called “opportunities” — markets, partnerships, deals, innovations. And the starvation isn’t literal. It’s measured in lost revenue, eroded market share, collapsing employee morale, and eventual irrelevance.
Satirical Reality Check
You know a Buridan’s ass company when:
- They hire McKinsey, Bain, and BCG — and still don’t act. Three sets of slides, same conclusion, no decision.
- The CEO has a 400-slide deck but no signed decision memo. The presentation becomes a monument to hesitation.
- The board congratulates itself on “robust discussion” while their stock price free-falls. They clap for the dialogue while the market punishes their delay.
- They run pilot projects for two years without scaling any of them — innovation theater with no curtain call.
- Every executive offsite ends with “further review required.” Translation: we ate the catering, but not the hay.
In other words: donkey behavior, but with a higher burn rate. The only difference between the donkey and the corporation is that the donkey starves quietly, while the company issues quarterly earnings calls explaining its “measured pace of strategic alignment.”
The Lesson for Leaders
Buridan’s ass isn’t just a fable. It’s a mirror. It shows what happens when leaders confuse thinking with deciding.
- Don’t wait for perfect information. It doesn’t exist. By the time you have it, the opportunity will be gone.
- Don’t demand zero risk. Risk is the entry ticket. If you can’t tolerate it, you’re in the wrong chair.
- And don’t waste away in meetings when the world rewards movement. You don’t get points for discussion — only for execution.
Because in leadership, like in life, you don’t die from lack of options. You die from lack of decisions. And the market doesn’t care whether you died from hunger or from hesitation — all it knows is you’re gone.
Author: John S. Morlu II, CPA is the CEO and Chief Strategist of JS Morlu, leads a globally recognized public accounting and management consultancy firm. Under his visionary leadership, JS Morlu has become a pioneer in developing cutting-edge technologies across B2B, B2C, P2P, and B2G verticals. The firm’s groundbreaking innovations include AI-powered reconciliation software (ReckSoft.com) and advanced cloud accounting solutions (FinovatePro.com), setting new industry standards for efficiency, accuracy, and technological excellence.