The 3 Decision-Making Rules You Should Steal from This SWAT Commander Inspector Kevin Cyr cuts through chaos with three clear rules — business leaders should use them to make tough calls under pressure.

In the first article, we looked at how Inspector Kevin Cyr makes tough decisions under pressure. As the leader of a SWAT team, he's created a clear system for handling high-stakes situations.

I spoke to Cyr, who relies on a set of guiding rules to cut through uncertainty and avoid common decision-making traps — insights that any business leader can apply.

Maxim 1: Separate "if" decisions from "how" decisions

One of Cyr's most powerful insights is the importance of distinguishing between two questions that leaders frequently conflate: deciding if action should be taken versus determining how that action should be executed.

He illustrates this through a tactical scenario where his team needed to clear a house where a dangerous suspect might be hiding.

"If I conflate the decision of if I want to clear that house with how I want to clear that house — if I conflate those two into a single question — I'm asking for trouble," Cyr says. "Once I walk through that door of that decision, I'm in the room. I need to act like I belong there."

The evidence in this case wasn't conclusive, but the situation demanded resolution. Rather than letting uncertainty about the suspect's presence (the "if" question) influence his tactical approach (the "how" question), he recognized these as distinct decision points requiring different analytical frameworks.

The psychological benefit of this separation is profound. When we merge these questions, we often find ourselves caught in a cycle of perpetual deliberation, where the complexity of implementation becomes a subconscious excuse for delaying the directional decision.

By separating them, we create space for more strategic thinking about the core issue.

When Cyr's team considers whether to enter a potentially dangerous location, he intentionally walls off discussions about tactical approaches until after the foundational decision has been made. This prevents operational complexities from contaminating the more fundamental strategic question.

For leaders, this might mean cleanly separating the decision to enter a new market from the specific implementation strategy. Leaders often hesitate on strategic pivots because they're intimidated by operational complexities that should be addressed only after making the initial directional decision.

"What I decide is that if I try to mitigate risk by attenuating the aggressiveness of my action, it's the worst of both worlds," Cyr says. "People think it's the best of both worlds but you're taking all the risk of taking action without taking action that you know is going to be effective."

This principle applies to virtually all significant business decisions: restructuring organizations, launching new products, pursuing acquisitions or implementing major technology transformations. By first establishing clarity on the "if" question, leaders create the psychological commitment necessary to navigate the inevitable complexities of "how."

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Maxim 2: Make your job boring through risk mitigation

Counterintuitively for someone in his profession, Cyr believes that excitement in tactical operations generally indicates poor planning and inadequate risk management.

"People think I have an exciting job. My job is to make my job boring, painfully boring," he says. "I want to mitigate as much risk as possible."

Cyr uses a vivid metaphor to illustrate this principle: the difference between walking across a two-by-four beam placed on the ground versus one suspended a thousand feet in the air over shark-infested waters. The physical action is identical, but the consequences of a misstep are dramatically different.

"It is more exciting to walk on the two-by-four over the shark-infested waters. And if you fall and survive, you are called an expert swimmer. This can feel very rewarding. But you need to ask yourself why you were up there in the first place. We fail in two realms simultaneously. We don't mitigate the risk in the first place. If we survive, we congratulate ourselves on how awesome we are."

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His perspective directly challenges the cultural glorification of crisis management and heroic leadership — the leader who saves a failing project at the eleventh hour or the manager who works around the clock to resolve a self-inflicted problem. These scenarios aren't triumphs of leadership but symptoms of inadequate planning and risk assessment.

For business leaders, this principle translates to investing disproportionately in preventative measures rather than reactive capabilities. The goal isn't to eliminate all risk — this would paralyze an organization — but to transform catastrophic risks into manageable ones. Effective risk mitigation requires a comprehensive approach that includes:

• Stress-testing strategic plans against various failure scenarios
• Building financial and operational buffers beyond what seems necessary
• Establishing early warning systems to identify emerging problems
• Creating decision frameworks that remove any unnecessary emotional responses
• Developing contingency plans that have been rigorously rehearsed

This systematic preparation creates an environment where decisions can be made with clarity rather than panic, even when unexpected challenges arise. As Cyr notes, "Almost no single decision has the ability to make or break anything. Effective leadership is a game of inches. And ideally, it's a game of inches to make your job super boring."

The irony, of course, is that leaders who excel at making their jobs boring rarely receive recognition precisely because they've successfully eliminated the dramatic moments that attract attention, despite the fact that their organizations consistently outperform those led by celebrated crisis managers.

Maxim 3: Recognize when you're observing problems, not solving them

A subtle trap that Cyr identifies in crisis management is confusing information gathering with problem-solving. This manifests particularly in incident command situations where leaders become fixated on collecting information because it feels productive and safe.

"What I always say is that they're observing the problem, they're not solving the problem," Cyr says. "It's like a boxer in the ring. You can only dance around with your back to the ropes for so long. Eventually, you have to be willing to throw a punch and take a punch, and that's the only way you're going to actually win the fight."

The comfort of information-gathering creates an illusion of progress while actually delaying necessary action. In tactical situations, this can prove fatal; in business contexts, it often means missing market opportunities or allowing problems to escalate beyond manageable proportions.

This tendency is pronounced in high-stakes situations where the consequences of a wrong decision seem overwhelming. Leaders subconsciously delay choosing by convincing themselves they need more information — thereby avoiding the psychological discomfort of committing to a course of action with uncertain outcomes.

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Cyr has observed this pattern repeatedly in law enforcement: "We see that a lot with our incident commander training, where they want to keep collecting information because it feels good. It feels like they're doing something. They feel busy. It's satisfying. They're learning more. But what I always say is that they're observing the problem, they're not solving the problem."

Part of the challenge is that continuous information-gathering provides a convenient shield against criticism. If a decision proves wrong, the leader can claim they were still in the process of building situational awareness. Yet this safety is illusory — in truly consequential situations, indecision often carries greater risks than imperfect decisions.

To combat this tendency, Cyr recommends several approaches:

• Establish clear transition points from information-gathering to decision-making phases
• Define in advance what "sufficient information" looks like for specific decision types
• Create accountability for decision timelines, not just decision outcomes
• Separate analytical and decision-making meetings to create clear psychological boundaries
• Develop confidence in making and documenting "provisional decisions" that can be adjusted as new information emerges

Cyr particularly emphasizes the importance of embracing discomfort in decision roles:

"Just expect it. Expect that feeling that you're not going to feel sure ever. If you're looking for people to be 100% confident in their decisions, there are no worthwhile decisions to be made that require that. That's just process. If you're only making decisions that are 100% obvious, then you can be replaced by a spreadsheet; input data and the decision gets spit out. "

For business leaders, this maxim challenges the prevalent tendency to demand ever more data before making strategic choices. While analytical rigor is valuable, it can become a substitute for judgment rather than a supplement to it.

Recognizing when we have moved from productive analysis to unproductive delay requires self-awareness and organizational discipline.

Putting it all together

What ties Cyr's three decision maxims together is the idea that good decision-making goes beyond just analytical tools; it requires psychological courage. True leadership shines when we have to make decisions without knowing the details and when we have to act, even with incomplete information. It's about having the guts to choose rather than getting stuck in indecision.

These principles apply equally whether you're commanding a tactical unit in a life-or-death hostage scenario or leading a business through market disruption. The context changes, but the cognitive and emotional challenges remain remarkably consistent.

As Cyr reflects: "I don't think it's that I'm not afraid. I think everybody feels fear. I think what I'm better at, if in fact I am better, is knowing what to do with that fear."

For business leaders, developing this capacity for psychological courage may be the most critical competitive advantage in an increasingly complex and uncertain environment. By adopting these maxims, leaders can create cultures where decisions are made with appropriate speed, rigor and clarity—even when certainty remains elusive.

Part 2 of a 2-part series on tactical leadership lessons for the corporate world. Click here to read Part 1.