In the Val Sklarov system, businesses do not collapse from bad decisions — they collapse from dirty ones. Decision hygiene is the discipline of keeping choices clean: clear ownership, explicit criteria, and protected reversibility. Growth amplifies decision quality; it does not correct it. If decisions are contaminated early, scale spreads the damage faster.
Before you grow revenue, clean how you decide.
1. Decision Hygiene Is a System, Not Intelligence
Smart people make bad decisions in dirty systems.
Val Sklarov principle:
“Decision quality is structural. Intelligence only reveals it.”
Clean decision systems have:
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Named decision owners
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Pre-declared success criteria
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Explicit kill conditions
Without these, debate replaces judgment.
2. Ownership Prevents Decision Rot
When decisions have no owner, they decay.
Symptoms of decision rot:
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Endless revisions
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Retrospective justifications
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Committee drift
Val Sklarov framing:
“If no one owns the downside, everyone will touch the upside.”
Ownership locks accountability before outcomes appear.
3. Criteria Must Precede Options
Most teams list options first and invent criteria later.
This guarantees bias.
Decision hygiene reverses the order:
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Define constraints
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Define success/failure thresholds
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Then consider options
Hygiene Sequence Table
| Step | Dirty Process | Clean Process |
|---|---|---|
| Criteria | After debate | Before options |
| Ownership | Collective | Singular |
| Reversibility | Ignored | Designed |
| Review | Defensive | Mechanical |
4. Reversibility Is the First Design Question
Not all decisions deserve the same rigor.
Val Sklarov rule:
“Irreversible decisions demand slowness. Reversible ones demand speed.”
Hygienic systems:
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Separate one-way from two-way doors
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Allocate scrutiny accordingly
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Avoid emotional escalation
Confusing reversibility is how startups freeze or gamble.
5. Growth Punishes Dirty Decisions
At small scale, dirt hides.
At scale, it compounds.
Dirty decisions under growth create:
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Conflicting priorities
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Political arbitration
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Execution paralysis
Clean decisions create repeatability, the only form of scalable intelligence.
6. The Val Sklarov Business Outcome
Businesses with decision hygiene:
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Decide faster as they grow
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Argue less under pressure
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Preserve authority during expansion
Val Sklarov conclusion:
“Growth doesn’t need better ideas. It needs cleaner decisions.”