Quotes About Decision

We treat outcomes as good signals for decision quality, as if we were playing chess. If the outcome is known, it will bias the assessment of the decision quality to align with the outcome quality.

A common, simple way to develop kill criteria is with "states and dates:" "If by (date), I have/haven't (reached a particular state), I'll quit.

Essentially, regardless of the history they have with the decision, they ask themselves, "If I were approaching this decision fresh, would I want to enter into this course of action?

But, while a group can function to be better than the sum of the individuals, it doesn't automatically turn out that way. Being in a group can improve our decision quality by exploring alternatives and recognizing where our thinking might be biased, but a group can also exacerbate our tendency to confirm what we already believe

We are much more bothered by the downside potential of changing course than we are by the downside potential of staying on the path we're already on.

Quitting on time will usually feel like quitting too early. If you quit on time, it's not going to seem like anything particularly dire is happening at that particular moment.

For any single decision, there are different ways the future could unfold—some better, some worse. When you make a decision, the decision makes certain paths possible (even if you don't know where they lead) and others impossible. The decision you make determines which set of outcomes are possible and how likely each of those outcomes is. But it doesn't determine which of that set of outcomes will actually happen.

Luck exerts its influence between your decision and which of the possible paths you end up on. It is the element you have no control over that determines which of the possible outcomes you actually observe in the short run.

Switching to something, like a new job or a new major or a new relationship or a new business strategy, is perceived as a new decision, and an active one. In contrast, we don't really view the choice to stick with the status quo as a decision at all.

One of the steps to becoming a better quitter is to not accept "I'm not ready to make a decision right now" as a sentence that makes sense. At every moment of your life, you have a choice about whether to stay or whether to go. When you choose to stay, you are also choosing to not go. When you choose to quit, you are also choosing to not continue.

In most of our decisions, we are not betting against another person. Rather, we are betting against all the future versions of ourselves that we are not choosing. We are constantly deciding among alternative futures:

The corollary of this is also true. When people quit on time, it will usually feel like they are quitting too early, because it will be long before they experience the choice as a close call.

For the decision swear jar, we identify the language and thinking patterns that signal we are veering from our goal of truthseeking. When we find ourselves using certain words or succumbing to the thinking patterns we are trying to avoid because we know they are signs of irrationality, a stop-and-think moment can be created. You can think about this as a way to implement accountability

to come up with ways a decision or plan can go bad, so the team can anticipate and account for them.

Every time we can force our opponents into a bad decision, we win.

most of our decisions, we are not betting against another person. Rather, we are betting against all the future versions of ourselves that we are not choosing.

When you make a decision, the decision makes certain paths possible (even if you don't know where they lead) and others impossible. The decision you make determines which set of outcomes are possible and how likely each of those outcomes is. But it doesn't determine which of that set of outcomes will actually happen.

But this is irrational. If you wouldn't buy a stock today, you ought not hold it today, because a decision to hold is the same as a decision to buy.

Because any decision determines only the set of possible outcomes (some good, some bad, some in between), this means good outcomes can result from both good and bad decisions, and bad outcomes can result from both good and bad decisions.

I'm certainly not knocking these books. But whether you say "pivot" or "moving on to the next chapter" or "strategic redeployment," all of these things are, by definition, quitting. After all, stripped of its negative connotation, quitting is merely the choice to stop something that you have started.

When we identify the goal and work backward from there to "remember" how we got there, the research shows that we do better. In a Harvard Business Review article, decision scientist Gary Klein summarized the results of a 1989 experiment by Deborah Mitchell, J. Edward Russo, and Nancy Pennington. They "found that prospective hindsight—imagining that an event has already occurred—increases the ability to correctly identify reasons for future outcomes by 30%.

When you overfit decision quality to outcome quality, you risk repeating decision errors that, thanks to luck, preceded a good outcome. You may also avoid repeating good decisions that, because of luck, didn't work out.

Your friend complains about being in a bad relationship. If you ask, "Why don't you just break up?" they'll frequently say, "Because I've put so much time into trying to make this relationship work.

Success means following a good decision process, not just crossing a finish line, especially if it is the wrong one to cross. That means appropriately following kill criteria, listening to our quitting coaches, and recognizing that the progress we've made along the way counts for a lot.