Decision Thinking · Lesson 4 of 4

Decision journals and post-decision review

Review assumptions, not outcomes. A right answer for wrong reasons teaches you something false.

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Writing a decision down before the outcome is known is the only way to review it honestly later. Memory rewrites: once you know what happened, you remember having expected it, and the lesson disappears.

Record the decision, why now, the options you considered, what you knew, what you did not know, what you assumed, and what you expect. Then set a date to look again. The date is the feature — without it this is a diary.

At review, the question is not whether it worked. It is which of your assumptions held. A decision that worked for reasons you did not anticipate is a warning, not a success, and it is invisible without the record.

See it happen

You reviewed a hire you made nine months ago. It worked out well.

The read that arrives on its own

Good call. My read on people is sound — I should trust that instinct more often.

The same situation, with this idea

The note from the time says you chose them because they had shipped something similar. In fact they struggled with that and carried the team on something you had not considered. Right outcome, wrong reason.

What changed

Reviewing outcomes would have confirmed a theory of hiring that is not true. Reviewing assumptions caught it — and that is the difference between a journal and a diary.

The takeaway

Review assumptions, not outcomes. A right answer for wrong reasons teaches you something false.

Easy to take the wrong way

Only reviewing the decisions that went badly. A right answer reached for a wrong reason is the one that goes unexamined, and it is the one that repeats.

Try this

Write down one decision you are making this week, including what you expect and why.