Annie Duke

As you consider a past decision as a team, think about what you knew before you made it. What was revealed after the fact? Could you have known about it beforehand?

We tend to only review decisions that are associated with bad outcomes, like missing a sales target by 10%. But when you exceed that same target by 10%, there’s no meeting, no post-mortem. Just congratulations all around. But missing and exceeding targets are both signals that you possibly overlooked something in your forecast. Examining only one side of the equation not only causes you to miss out on half of your opportunities to learn, but it also encourages people to be too conservative in their projections because they’re afraid of being grilled when they miss.

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