I Hereby Decide: It Will Be Risked – Lessons on Decision Making from Leica

I recently visited the “100 Years of Leica” exhibition this past December. It was incredible to see the historical and iconic images captured by these cameras, but I was most surprised by the story of the company’s survival.

It all came down to a single moment in a boardroom in 1924.

The Context of 1924

Germany was in a deep economic depression. Leitz (the company) was struggling. An engineer named Oskar Barnack had a radical idea for a small, portable camera, but the financial advisors and board members were strictly against it.

They argued it was a “toy,” the market did not exist, and the financial risk would ruin the company. The data said “No.” The logic said “No.”

Ernst Leitz II listened to the arguments, stood up, and famously overruled them all:

“Ich entscheide hiermit: Es wird riskiert.” (I hereby decide: It will be risked.)

That decision did not just save the company; it created modern photography.

When Data Cannot Predict the Future

My takeaway from this story is that sometimes you have to make bold decisions: Go or No Go.

Most companies are organized to define exactly how much risk an individual can take. We love to take risks when we have data to back us up. But what happens when you are creating the future?

Leica did not know if there was a market for 35mm cameras. They went all in on uncertainty. They were right, and that sentence became history. Of course, many times these decisions are wrong, and they do not become history—or worse, they become a cautionary tale.

How to Handle Uncertainty in Daily Work

We cannot make all decisions based on assumptions—that will not fly in a modern engineering or sourcing environment. However, when the data ends and the future is uncertain, knowing “it will be risked” is sometimes the only way forward.

Here is how I suggest we handle this in our daily work:

• Acknowledge the Unknown: Always make the best decision you can with the information you have at that moment. Do not wait for perfect data that may never arrive.
• Document the “Why”: When you must rely on assumptions rather than data, make them evident. Document exactly what you assumed and why you assumed it.
• Avoid Hindsight Bias: It is too easy to judge past decisions with current information. If you document your context, you protect your future self (and your team) from unfair judgment later.

Have you ever had to make a “Go” decision without the data to back it up?