80% of business owners do not trust their own ability to make independent decisions. Gartner's research says they are right to feel that way. But the problem is not the decision. It is who they are turning to for input.
First Class Business | March 2026
Most business owners do not make bad decisions because they are careless. They make bad decisions because they are asking the wrong people.
Gartner surveyed 469 business decision makers and found that 22% do not consider a single financial implication when making material business decisions. Not because they do not care. Because they are operating without the right input, the right perspective, or the right person to challenge their thinking before they commit.
The cost? Gartner measured it at 3% of earnings for companies with $5 billion in revenue. But that study was conducted inside large organizations with finance teams, compliance structures, and decision-support systems already in place. For the business owner doing $500,000 or $2 million without any of that infrastructure, the real percentage is almost certainly far higher. A single bad hire, a misguided marketing investment, or a partnership that collapses can represent 10%, 20%, or more of annual revenue in a single decision. Most business owners know this from experience. They just do not connect it to the input that shaped the decision.
The research is consistent: when buying teams reach genuine consensus, they are 2.5 times more likely to call the outcome a high-quality decision. But 74% of buying teams experience what Gartner calls "unhealthy conflict," which is a polite way of saying the wrong voices are dominating the conversation.
The question is not whether you need input before making a significant decision.
The question is whether the people you are turning to are equipped to give it.
"Nobody understands what it's like to be an entrepreneur or CEO unless you've been one."Scott Divitkos, Mineola Search Partners
The people closest to you often have the most to lose from your decision. That does not make them bad people. It makes them the wrong sounding board.
The family embeddedness research from Aldrich and Cliff (2003) established that family roles and relationships influence the entire entrepreneurial process, from organizational emergence to venture success. That influence is not always positive. Au and Kwan (2009) found that family-to-business interference can undermine firm performance, and Hsu et al. (2016) found it can lead entrepreneurs to consider exiting their own ventures entirely.
The mechanism is straightforward. A spouse or family member whose financial security is tied to the business has an inherent bias toward preservation. Their input is not strategic. It is protective. And the research from the Journal of Family Business Strategy found that when family and business systems pull in opposite directions, resources get drained and conflict escalates in ways that harm both the relationship and the firm.
The assistant or team member has a different but equally compromising bias. Their livelihood depends on continuity. Advocating for bold change is a personal risk they are rarely incentivized to take. That is not disloyalty. It is rational self-interest operating below the surface of every recommendation they make.
The coaching dynamic carries a different structural flaw. The ICF's 2025 Global Coaching Study reports 122,974 practitioners worldwide, with 60% also offering consulting and 57% offering training. The boundaries between coaching, consulting, and advising are not enforced by the industry itself. The entry-level ACC certification requires as few as 60 hours of training. Compare that to the thousands of supervised clinical hours required for a therapist, or the years of residency required for a physician. The gap between what the credential implies and what it qualifies someone to do is enormous.
Behavioral decision-making research from Bonaccio and Dalal confirms the deeper pattern. People judge advisors on two factors: perceived expertise and perceived positive intentions. A spouse scores high on intention and low on expertise. A coach may score moderate on both but operates at the wrong altitude. When either condition is missing, the advice either gets rejected or, worse, gets followed into a decision that neither party can reverse.
Research from MacGeorge et al. found that the emotional support provided by an advisor directly influences the perceived quality of the advice. In other words, people evaluate advice as "better" when the advisor makes them feel good while delivering it.
That means the advisor who challenges you is statistically less likely to be heard than the one who agrees with you.
And the advisor who agrees with you is statistically more likely to be wrong.
"Most small business owners are hesitant about getting advice from business consultants, even though the rate of success among small businesses is low."Journal of the International Council for Small Business
The research points to a specific profile for the kind of input that actually improves decision quality. It is not about finding someone who agrees with you. It is not about finding someone who challenges you for the sake of it. It is about finding someone who has three qualities simultaneously.
Not read about it. Not coached others through it. Done it themselves. The Challenger Sale research found that the top-performing advisors lead with insight from direct experience, not frameworks borrowed from a textbook. When the person in the room has navigated the same terrain you are standing on, their input carries a weight that theoretical advice cannot match.
Having a financial stake in the outcome does not automatically disqualify someone from offering good input. People perform better with incentive, and the desire to win together can be powerful. The issue is whether the person can be objective about their stake and transparent about their limitations. Family can be an extraordinary asset on your team when they are qualified for the role they are filling, or when they have the self-awareness and confidence to name what falls outside their expertise. The same is true for any advisor. The disqualifying factor is not the stake. It is the inability or unwillingness to be level-headed about it.
Dalal and Bonaccio's research demonstrated that advice accompanied by emotional support is evaluated more positively and more likely to be implemented. This is not about being soft. It is about creating the conditions where the business owner can actually hear the input, process it without defensiveness, and act on it with confidence. Expertise without care gets rejected. Care without expertise gets followed off a cliff.
This combination is rare. And that rarity is precisely why so many business owners default to the wrong people. The right person is harder to find than the convenient one. But the research is clear: the investment in finding them is one of the highest-return decisions a business owner can make.
There is another side to this problem that rarely gets discussed. In many organizations, the people with the most relevant operational insight are the ones least likely to be consulted.
Gallup's research has consistently shown that only 23% of employees worldwide are engaged at work. The remaining 77% are either quietly disengaged or actively disengaged. When you operate in an environment where three out of four team members do not feel invested in the outcome, the input you receive from them will reflect that disengagement.
But the problem runs deeper. Many team members who do have valuable perspective feel overlooked, undervalued, or overpressured. They stop offering input because their input has been ignored before. They stop pushing back because pushing back was punished. They stop contributing strategically because they were hired to execute, not to think.
The business owner then turns to their spouse, their assistant, or their coach because the people who actually know the business have been systemically silenced.
The fix is not asking your team for advice once. It is building a culture where honest input is inspired, protected, and rewarded. That is a structural problem, not a conversational one.
"When buying teams reach consensus, they are 2.5 times more likely to call the outcome a high-quality decision."Gartner, 2025
This is not an article about hiring a consultant. It is an article about recognizing that the quality of your decisions is directly determined by the quality of the input that shapes them.
If the people you are currently turning to for business decisions cannot be objective about their own stake, cannot name the limits of their expertise, or are operating at the wrong altitude for the problem at hand, the research says your decisions will suffer. Not because you are incapable. Because the system around your decision-making is broken.
Audit who is in the room. Before your next significant decision, write down who you plan to consult. Then ask: does this person have direct experience with this type of decision? Do they have a financial stake in my choice? Can they challenge me without it costing them something? If the answer to any of those is concerning, you need a different voice in the room.
Separate emotional support from strategic input. Your spouse can be the person who helps you process the stress of a decision without being the person who shapes the decision itself. Those are two different roles. Combining them puts unfair pressure on the relationship and produces compromised strategy.
Invest in the right advisory relationship. The research from Dalal and Bonaccio is clear: the best outcomes come from advisors who combine genuine expertise with genuine care. Finding that combination takes effort. But every piece of data in this article points to the same conclusion: the return on that effort is one of the highest in business.
Before your next major decision, ask yourself one thing:
Who is in the room?
Not who do you wish was in the room. Not who is convenient. Not who will tell you what you want to hear.
Who is actually qualified to help you get this right?
Gartner, 2018. Bad financial decisions by managers cost firms more than 3% of profits. 22% don't consider a single financial implication. 469 decision makers surveyed.
Gartner, 2025. 80% of clients express uncertainty in their own ability to make independent decisions. 74% of buying teams experience unhealthy conflict. Consensus = 2.5x more likely to produce a high-quality decision.
Edelman, L. et al. 2016. Family members' financial support is negatively related to entrepreneurs' startup decisions.
Au, K. and Kwan, H. 2009. Family-to-business interference undermines firm performance.
Arregle, J. et al. 2015. Family embeddedness can place resources at risk and negatively impact entrepreneurial outcomes.
Hsu, D. et al. 2016. Family-to-business interference can lead entrepreneurs to consider exiting.
Aldrich, H. and Cliff, J. 2003. Family embeddedness perspective on entrepreneurial processes.
Eddleston, K. and Jennings, J. 2024. Family and business symbiosis. Journal of Family Business Strategy.
ICF Global Coaching Study, 2025. 122,974 coach practitioners worldwide. $5.34 billion annual revenue. 60% also offer consulting. Average income $52,800.
International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring. "A gap in scientific understanding about the direct advantages of coaching for organizations."
Bonaccio, S. and Dalal, R. 2010. People judge advisors based on perceived expertise and positive intentions.
MacGeorge, E. et al. 2017. Emotional support from an advisor influences perceived quality of the advice.
Gallup. State of the Global Workplace. 23% of employees worldwide are engaged.
Dixon, M. and Adamson, B. The Challenger Sale. CEB/Gartner, 2011.
If this article made you reconsider who you are turning to for your most important decisions, the ecosystem goes deeper.
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