Confidence is a percentage game
I work a lot with people who are facing important decisions. The conversations almost invariably turn to confidence. Do I feel confident this is the right decision? Will it be a good decision? How will it turn out if I do this as opposed to that?
What paralyses some people is the desire for unequivocal answers, for certainty, for 100% confidence
In her excellent book ‘Thinking in Bets’, Annie Duke: Author, Professional Speaker & Decision Strategist talks about her experience as a professional poker player. Poker players need to make decisions, hundreds of them, very quickly. They can never be 100% sure if the hand they hold is a winning hand. There is always an element of uncertainty, of luck (which some may call lack of confidence). The trick is to reduce the amount of luck. A good decision is one that reduces the amount of luck to an acceptable level. What is acceptable, depends on your appetite for risk.
The problem is, she says, that we tend to focus on the outcome of the decision, to judge whether or not we made a good decision, but the truth is:
·???????? Even if something does not turn out right, we may still have made a good decision.
·???????? Even if something turns out right, we may still have made a bad decision.
For example:
·???????? We know nothing about horse racing, but we bet on a 500-1 outsider (no-hoper!), because it has the same name as our favourite holiday destination, or we like the colours the jockey wears. It comes in. Good decision or lucky?
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·???????? We bid for a contract we have little hope of winning. We spend a lot of time and effort putting a bid together, ‘hoping’ we will be successful, rather than doing an honest assessment of our chances of success. We win it. Good decision or lucky.
If we care about the quality of our decisions, we constantly look to update our knowledge and skills to see patterns which will improve our decision making.
Here are the three factors I think are important in making good decisions:
·???????? Honest analysis – understanding and honestly evaluating the critical success factors – e.g. my own ability, competition, business climate, relationships. We do this to reduce the element of luck. Analysis paralysis kicks in when we try and reduce the element of luck to zero (not possible)
·???????? Gut feel – I think of this as more about the strength of my desire and willingness to give it my all
·???????? Luck!
The first two, we can do something about.
Cheers, Simon
Lean Six Sigma | Quality Culture | Pharma Training | AI Governance | GxP Audits | Mental Health First Aider | Mindfulness Workshops | Paintings
1 个月Very insightful, thank you for sharing your wisdom Simon! It reminded me the famous quote from Seneca: 'Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunities.' - the latter sometimes called 'life serendipities'. The mind tends to simplify things into duality (this is the Hermetic Principle of Duality): good or bad, right or wrong but to me it is only different shades of the same spectrum. It's more about who we become during the process of taking one path rather than the other, and most importantly embrace life events with an open mind and cherish each learning. We can't predict the outcome, but we can control the mindset we choose during the process.
Senior Career Transition Coach at LHH | Helping You Navigate Change & Imposter Syndrome | Imposter Syndrome & Trauma-Informed Coach | Resilience | Wellbeing | Training in Hypnotherapy & Psychotherapeutic Counselling
1 个月Thanks Simon Berry for sharing this. I like thinking about confidence as a percentage game. I also see it as an invitation to allow ourselves to do our best without setting unrealistically demanding expectations on us. It's a helpful way of using both our mind and our body to mitigate the element of risk while still giving ourselves permission to train our brain for flexibility amidst uncertainty.