Being wrong can be painful and costly. We can lose clients, lose staff, lose money, damage relationships, and more...
But these nasty consequences are normally the result of being wrong over a long period. Short-term wrong decisions are rarely that costly unless we stay wrong.
A plane flying from London to New York is actually off course for 80% or more of it's journey. It's going the wrong way! But frequent evaluations allow course corrections to be made so it doesn't end up in Canada...
We Must Take Action Though...
Sometimes we're afraid of being wrong and we delay taking action. But if we don't do something, we're actually guaranteed to be "wrong" and stay that way. Michael Jordan said "We miss 100% of the shots we don't take." It doesn't matter if we're wrong, as long as:
There are frequent check-ins with people involved
We remain open and unbiased to the evidence
And we allow ourselves to change our minds.
Beware of confirmation bias.
While we're looking at evidence and feedback, we can make the mistake of seeing only evidence that supports our decisions and disregard observations that contradict it. Psychologists call this confirmation bias. It's very dangerous and surprisingly easy to do. If we only see what we want to see results can be disastrous (...our plane can end up in Canada!*). We need to remain objective and take the positive with the negative.
Start
So, gather enough information to take action: decide and move forward. If you're not sure, say so, and inform the team that re-evaluation and course-corrections are likely.
* I've travelled quite a bit in Canada. It's stunningly beautiful and it's people are very friendly. Winding up there would only be a disaster if you bought a ticket to somewhere else.
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