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The best companies tend to rely on the professional judgment of their people. They hire good people and take their advice. Companies that are weaker apply metrics more mechanistically. R&D's job is to create a buffet of wonderful ideas. My job is to have good taste.

Knowledge is the treasure, but judgement is the treasurer of a wise man.

I think most big errors are errors of omission rather than errors of commission. They are the ones that companies never get held to account for—the times when they were in a position to notice something and act on it, had the skills and competencies or could have acquired them, and yet failed to do so. It's the opposite of sticking to your knitting: It's when you shouldn't have stuck to your knitting but you did.

Most of a leader's important calls reside in one of three domains: people, strategy, or crisis. People judgments—getting the right people on your team and developing up-and-comers who themselves demonstrate good judgment—are foundational. The people around you help you make good strategy judgment calls and the best decisions during the occasional but inevitable crisis. It's sometimes possible to repair the damage—to a company or a career—that results from misjudgments about strategy or crises, but it is almost impossible to recover from poor people judgment.

One of the pet phrases I have is "The road to self-insight runs through other people." Other people can often give us invaluable feedback that can really correct an illusion that we're suffering from.

One of my favorite, but most chilling, findings is from a study that surveyed surgical residents. They were asked about their surgical skills, and then they were given the standardized board exam. The residents' views of their skills didn't predict at all how well they did on the exam. But the impressions of their peers and their supervisors strongly predicted how well they did. Thus, there are times when what other people think of you can be an invaluable source of what you need to work on and what you're already good at.

Life is short, Art long, Occasion sudden and dangerous, Experience deceitful, and Judgment difficult.
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Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experience misleading and judgment difficult.