Decision Making

“No one ever made a decision because of a number. They need a story.”

— Daniel Kahneman

It’s more advantageous to structure decisions to be easily reversible than to take too much time trying to make the perfect choice.

"When I was a brand-new lieutenant, I asked my father, “How would I know if somebody that I worked for or worked for me was going to be a good commander in combat? ... How would you tell in peacetime?” He says, “You won’t. You won’t know because people have capabilities or coping mechanisms that in peacetime look fine, that doesn’t play well in... See more

“Common causes of bad decisions:

1. Not asking, “and then what?”

2. Blindness to large trends (blind spots)

3. Assumptions based on small sample sizes

4. Conforming to expectations/authority/group

5. Wanting the world to work the way we want rather than the way it does.”

“For a long time, I looked for consensus. I think consensus is really the enemy of scale, and so I used to say, “Whenever we’re making an important decision, there should be winners in the room and losers. We shouldn’t find that negotiated settlement that everyone is happy with. Somebody should be unhappy, three or four people should walk out... See more