Jeff Bezos, founder and chief executive officer of Amazon.com Inc., speaks during a discussion at the Air Force Association's Air, Space and Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, U.S., on Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2018.

Amazon is known as a detailed, data-driven company. But CEO Jeff Bezos said the e-commerce giant trains its staffers to understand that some decisions must be made with the gut. "You have to realize: decision making isn't one size fits all," said Bezos at a gala this month held in New York by FIRST, a global STEM education nonprofit. To know the difference, said Bezos, ask yourself two simple questions: "What are the consequences of this decision?" and "Is this decision reversible?"

Reversible decisions

Most decisions, says Bezos, are low consequence and reversible. These decisions can be made quickly with data and by junior teams. "If you make the wrong decision," Bezos explained, "the cost is low." Big companies can become less nimble when small, reversible decisions are made using a "big consensus process." Even if it isn't the best move, moving fast will still help you get a leg up on the competition. "The cost of being slow is so much higher than the cost of getting the answer exactly right," he said. Bezos has talked about his decision-making framework in past shareholder letters. In one from 2016, he said, "most decisions should probably be made with somewhere around 70 percent of the information you wish you had. If you wait for 90 percent, in most cases, you're probably being slow." Using this framework can empower workers. Once you determine that the risk for making a certain decision is low, "then by all means make it yourself," said Bezos.

Irreversible decisions