When Fast Starts Feeling Right

About this episode

Laurent Cohen discusses the pitfalls of rapid hiring decisions and the internal changes that lead to mistakes in leadership.

Most leadership mistakes don’t look like mistakes in the moment. They feel necessary. In this conversation, Laurent Cohen reflects on what happens when hiring decisions speed up under pressure — and how intuition gets quietly overridden as momentum builds. Drawing from 30+ years of building companies across Europe, the U.S., and Israel, he describes how judgment narrows, why teams stop pushing back, and how leaders end up fixing decisions that once felt completely right. This episode isn’t about hiring frameworks. It’s about what changes internally — before anything breaks. Learn more about GetOblic https://getoblic.com If you’ve had to fix decisions that felt right at the time → https://joesteele.com Chapters 00:00 — The decision that didn’t feel wrong (cold open) 00:11 — Where expensive decisions actually hide 00:40 — When hiring starts to speed up 02:01 — Why trust, not technology, becomes the constraint 03:00 — The shift toward problem solvers 04:11 — Confusing speed with clarity 05:18 — When the cost hasn’t shown up yet 05:57 — Measuring performance vs reading people 06:35 — How AI is changing the workforce 07:35 — The mistake of treating employees like family 08:48 — Why…

People in this episode

Host: Joe Steele

Guest: Laurent Cohen

Topics covered

• leadership
• hiring decisions
• intuition
• team dynamics
• decision making
• business strategy

Keywords

• leadership mistakes
• hiring under pressure
• intuition in decision making
• team dynamics
• business strategy

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: GetOblic, joesteele.com

More episodes of Decision State with Joe Steele

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• You Thought You Could Fix It Later · May 19, 2026 · 32 min
• The Check You Almost Wrote · May 12, 2026 · 25 min
• The Fix That Made It Worse · May 5, 2026 · 30 min