My Big Decision: Alan Webber’s defining moment

Thursday, February 24, 2011 | Posted by: Fiona Cullinan
Categories: My big decision | Tags: business, my big decision, podcasts, Alan Webber, indecision

We celebrate our 10th My Big Decision podcast with a critical moment of indecision. We talk to former Harvard Business Review editor, Rules of Thumb author and business columnist Alan Webber on the weekend many years ago that sealed his fate.

It was a weekend when Webber’s two competing dreams finally came to a head: making the college baseball team and becoming a leader on the college newspaper. What would he decide? How would he choose between the two? Where would his loyalties lie?

Unfortunately, it was not a decision that Webber wanted to make. Instead it was left to fate to decide…

Find out what happened in Alan Webber’s My Big Decision interview – in which he also remembers his life-changing moment more for the valuable lesson he learnt: that not making a decision is the worst decision of all.

It is also somewhat ironic that, despite not choosing journalism that day, Webber went on to achieve an illustrious career as a business journalist, becoming editorial director of the Harvard Business Review before founding the highly successful Fast Company business magazine.

He has also written several business-related books, including Rules of Thumb: 52 Truths for Winning at Business Without Losing Your Self, and now writes for the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, USA Today and other leading US business publications.

Grant Thornton’s My Big Decision series interviews prominent business leaders about critical moments in their lives. You can subscribe to the series in iTunes – or just click the links below to catch up on previous interviewees.

Check out previous My Big Decision podcasts
Browse our index of My Big Decision posts – or go directly to the individual podcasts on the links below:

• Pizza Express entrepreneur, Luke Johnson
• Marketing guru, Seth Godin
• Coffee Republic’s founder, Sahar Hashemi
• Dotcom entrepreneur turned investor, Julie Meyer
• King of the High Street, George Davies 
• Freakonomics author, Stephen Dubner
• Financial Times economist agony uncle, Tim Harford 
• Online theorist, Chris Anderson 
• Cultural commentator, Fons Trompenaars