Evaluating Decision-Making

With a hat tip to Robin Rubin’s com­mence­ment speeches at NYU (1999) and Har­vard (2000), Ven­ture Hacks implores us to eval­u­ate deci­sions by the decision-making process itself, rather than the results pro­duced.

Deci­sions tend to be judged solely on the results they pro­duce. But I believe the right test should focus heav­ily on the qual­ity of the decision-making itself.

[…]

It’s not that results don’t mat­ter. They do. But judg­ing solely on results is a seri­ous deter­rent to tak­ing the risks that may be nec­es­sary to mak­ing the right deci­sion. Sim­ply put, the way deci­sions are eval­u­ated affects the way deci­sions are made.