(Daughter to Father)
The idea for this blog originated with a conversation I had with my daughter regarding a new business venture she was orchestrating. Both my wife and I had managerial backgrounds, so, we were questioning her recent business moves—a lot of “what if” statements. She patiently responded to all of these queries with what was in my mind sound business and organizational logic. At some point in the questioning process, I sensed my daughter was becoming somewhat frustrated with the barrage of “what if” questions. In the middle of one of my “what if” questions she made the comment that introduces this blog: “Dad there are no bad decisions. People keep looking for certainty, for safety, for decisions that are not bad. But, you don’t grow in a job, in life, in anything you do without learning from bad decisions. You have to find out what works for you.”
As I thought about my daughter’s comment, I reflected on the countless decisions I had made in my job and personal life. They all fall on a continuum from the highly rational to the highly emotional. As an individual prone to a rational decision-making model, I focused on the decision-making process: identify the problem>gather information>evaluate alternative solutions> and select the option with the highest utility. I discussed my thoughts with my wife who said to me: “Al, you missed the point of what our daughter said.” She went on to explain that it is not the process for making a decision that should be examined, but rather the process you use when it turns out to be a bad decision.
What struck me with this response is the feedback function, which is what my daughter was focusing on, and the most important function in the act of learning, is exactly the function schools pay little attention to. Yes, schools do provide feedback, in fact, mountains of feedback, but, it is in the form of red pen notations or perfunctory recitation of correct answers on a forced choice testing instrument. There is little attention paid to the “why” of a wrong answer, or a process for checking for wrong answers, or for considering how some wrong answers but be corrected in different circumstances. The source of these poorly designed feedback functions is in assessment instruments that are not designed to analyze decisions, but, to identify wrong answers. After school, however, in the real occupational world, bosses are not looking for the right answers, but rather the effective enactment of goals, policies, and plans.
The source of the effective enactment of goals, policies, and plans is a repertoire of leadership and managerial moves that are built around bad decisions or the often-repeated organizational axiom: “I won’t do that again.” This short axiom illustrates workers in the trades and professions engaging in a feedback function that has examined the causes and effects of a process that resulted in bad outcomes. Most importantly, within that process, the worker has determined what he or she ought to have done. Those of us in leadership or managerial roles have our private thought process for analyzing bad decisions—mine in particular was the “five whys tool” which for me always led to the root cause of the bad decision.
Returning to my daughter’s comment, over time the knowledge base developed over the analysis of bad decisions, produces sound professional judgment and what works for you—there are no bad decisions.
Alan C. Jones 