How to decide well?
All entities, whether it be people, companies, or governments pursue goals, and always have. Throughout history, this has been key to raise the standard of living in the world, and to accomplish great things. However, aside from all successes, many entities fail to reach their personal, organizational, or governmental goals. Although exceptions are always there, a lot has to do with not being transparant towards each other and failing to argue well to make the best possible decisions in a given situation. Very often, emotions play a big role in arguments and these often cause the decisions that are being made to be inferior to decisions that are the result of objective arguments. Inferior decisions, in turn, lead to lower-quality outcomes, so why not just argue well and do it right from the start?
First of all, I am neither a guru when it comes to arguments nor am I experienced in arguing within different cultures or business structures. What I do have is my own experience. Consequently, I know what works well for me and what does not. Furthermore, having been able to observe arguments of a a variety of people over time, I understand what tends to work well and what doesn't.
Every entity has a reason for what it’s doing every day, or a "just cause", in terms of Simon Sinek (2019) which can be narrowed down to goals. With this in mind, short-term goals should be aligned with higher-level goals as that helps to determine what's most important.
To accomplish goals, whether it be short-term, long-term, or higher-level goals, decisions have to be made. If you’re dealing with more entities than just yourself, disagreement is often the rule rather than the exception. To get past disagreement, and to make better decisions, people tend to argue with each other. If that is being done well, it will improve both the decisions that are being made and the process as “1+1=3"; 2 people who collaborate well will be about 3 times as effective as each of them operating independently (Dalio, 2017).
From my own experience, I can conclude that arguing based on facts and being objective is superior to arguing based on emotions. Making decisions based on emotions is, in many cases, good for one but not necesarilly good for the other. For example, buying into stocks because the stock-market has been rallying for months and you feel like missing out, may not be a wise decision to make.
Furthermore, people who overweigh the first-order consequence of their decision, and ignore the effects of the second and subsequent order consequences, rarely reach their goals. For example, when you're goal is to make a lot of money, and you're taking a full-time job as a cashier, you're wasting your time to create real value and pursue your initial goal.
So, what can you do to improve the decisions you make? What works for me is reaching out to or reading the works of highly believable people who have relevant track records yet potentially other perspectives. When you have done so, be transparent with each other, and have thoughtful disagreement with the relevant stakeholders of your decision-making. Furthermore, don't let emotions get involved in the process by objectively assessing what should be done to reach your goal. Finally, think about the second and subsequent order consequences of the potential decisions you could make rather than only focusing on the first-order consequence. Doing that well will improve your probabilities of being right. Consequently, it improves the decisions you make and brings you closer to your (higher-level) goals.
References:
Dalio, R. (2017). Principles. Simon & Schuster.
Sinek, S. (2019). The Infinite Game. Van Haren Publishing.
