Are You Trying to Be Right or Are You Trying to Get It Right? Part Three

Part Three – The System: Better judgment is also a system issue.

So far, I’ve been thinking about the individual: our assumptions, experience and tendency to seek evidence that confirms what we already believe.

But there is another dimension.

The quality of our decisions is also shaped by the systems in which we make them.

Steven Pinker’s discussion of noise (the variability in human judgment) has an important organizational implication. Think about succession, hiring or performance assessment. Smart, experienced leaders can look at the same evidence and reach very different conclusions. Sometimes the answer isn’t having the smartest person in the room. Rather it is challenging and improving the decision-making process. Think of putting in place clearer decision-making criteria. Including multiple perspectives. Making explicit assumptions. Welcoming constructive challenge. And giving time for a meaningful debate to expose our blind spots.

Before making an important decision, perhaps one of the most useful questions we can ask is: What would change my mind?

Not because we lack conviction. But because conviction without curiosity can become certainty. And certainty is often where judgment starts to deteriorate. The goal of leadership isn’t to have the strongest opinion.

The goal of leadership is to create the conditions for the organization to get it right.

And perhaps that is one of the most important leadership disciplines of all; being confident enough to have a point of view, and curious enough to keep testing it.