How do you know if you are making good decisions?

How do you know if you are making good decisions?

You can look at the process and/or you can look at the outcomes.

You can take solace in the fact that you followed a good, objective, humble, open-minded process; and let the outcomes be what they may.

Or you can cut to the chase and only look at the outcomes. You can look to see if you are getting the results you wanted, and if so, then take solace in the fact that your decisions are having the impact you hoped.

Obviously either of these approaches would seem to be better than no analysis at all. But are either of them good enough? I would argue they likely are not, at least in a way that can give you true confidence in your decision making.

It absolutely is important to follow a good process as stated above, BUT are you accounting for the fact that our minds aren’t always working with us on this? Are you accounting for the fact that our minds want things to be simple, comfortable, and make us feel good? The implication being, you may not always be a reliable source to determine if you are following a good decision-making process. It can be surprisingly easy to convince ourselves we followed a good process or did the “right” thing, even if it is far from true (e.g., my team always tells me when they think I’m wrong or I always keep our values in mind when making decisions).

I would argue, unless we think we are perfect, we have a responsibility to go above and beyond to try to see where we might be breaking bad (note: it doesn’t mean we are breaking bad, but we need to check to see if we might be). For leaders with great power and influence that responsibility becomes exponentially larger.

That same type of risk exists, even for those that just focus on the outcomes. Of course, there are aspects of achieving your goal which seem to be objectively good. You can and should feel good if you have a vision, objective, or target—and you achieve it. But we all know that is not the full story, right?

Firstly, how do you know that vision, objective, or target was actually the optimal one? Those same biases, blind spots, and mental limitations we referenced above come into play again. How can you be sure that the outcome you think is so important and meaningful to achieve, is actually what you think it is? Or, even further, have you thought deeply enough to consider the consequences or costs of achieving that outcome?

Have you done the work to challenge your own mind, to pressure test your assumptions, and to give yourself confidence that the outcome you achieved is actually net positive? Again, I think as leaders with great power and influence, whose decisions impact so many, you have a responsibility to constantly be doing this work.

It does not mean if you haven’t been doing it that you are a monster, or reckless, or caused unnecessary suffering on the world. It does mean it is possible though. It does mean you haven’t done everything you can do to try to minimize that possibility.

So why not start now? Why not start thinking about ways you can challenge yourself more and gain more clarity the decisions you make?

We in the corporate world spend so much time, money, and resources on things that at best are equally as important as gaining clarity on your decisions (although I think most would argue very few things are as important).

So, what are you investing to live up to your responsibility as a leader? What are you doing to check yourself and account for the known blind spots and mental flaws we all have?

This may sound harsh, but if you are reading this and feel like you are totally good and are investing enough in this already—you are probably most in need of this work. I believe that those who are most living up to this responsibility, are the ones who openly acknowledge how much more work they still have to do. Because this is not easy work. This is not finite, check the box work.

For people in positions of power, particularly in the corporate world, there is a never-ending gravitational pull away from this work and away from true clarity on your decisions. We feel the pull to move faster, grow more, make our shareholders happy, serve our customers better, improve our performance—and those are all good things. That is what makes the gravitational pull so strong, it makes us feel confident we are doing “good.”

That is why it is important to acknowledge the challenge of balancing our responsibility for clarity with the gravitational pull for activity. We must account for it and do the work to balance against that gravitational force, to ensure we are actually using our power to impact the world in the way we hoped.