If you want to make better judgements, then this may help.

In the cultural sector you are often called upon to make judgements, decisions with no firm or good or bad outcomes, they may be creative they may be operational, but they have no clear right or wrong answers which is why they called “judgement calls”.

So, it’s important to get better at this. Of course, experience plays a part but developing a process which improves how you make key judgements will definitely help you and the organisation be more effective

Given cultural organisations tend to be small these judgements are often one-offs, and because of this you may think having such a process is a bit over the top. And yet the judgements you make are significant for your work and the people you work with, why wouldn’t you want to get better?

Research proves that having a robust process in place will significantly improve how you make these judgements.

“Noise” the latest book by Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman has insights worth reflecting on and has come up with these suggestions for getting better at judgements.

You don’t need to use all of them but use these ideas to build a structured thinking approach to judgement making.

1.    Remember the goal is getting this right and is not individual expression. Just because there are options, do not allow your personal preferences to skew you thinking.

2.    If possible, draw upon statistics and/or get an outside view. Independent insight such as underlying numbers of getting a second opinion or more will help bring solid clarity to your thinking.

3.    Structure the judgement call. Break it down into sub-judgement elements and make decisions on that basis. Then weight them and see which the best judgement is.

4.    Resist your intuitions. First thought often is the best thought butt hold off until you have brought rigor to the process. Working on gut relies on successful decisions you made in the past. But that was then and this is now. Those situations were different and should not be relied upon today.

You do have to work harder but with resources tight and getting ever tighter this may save you lots of pain in the shirt and long run.

Hope you found this helpful.

Keith