A while back, I read a book titled Blink. It is an interesting book about making decisions, especially decisions that have to be made quickly, in the blink of an eye. Police and military decisions are discussed, but also doctors, food tasters, art appraisers, and others. The book explores the qualitative side of decision making, and how often in our quest for perfect decisions, we gather so much data that it obscures critical information, leading to a poor decision.
I was reminded about this recently during a meeting of the State Investment Board when we were discussing the performance of some of our fund managers. One of our in-house experts cautioned us against rigidly using scores to evaluate. He told us we measure those things which are easy to measure, and it is simplistic to say that the things we can measure are the only ones that matter. Some very important things are qualitative and rely on judgment.
Such important things as someone’s love, the beauty of the arts, or teacher quality.
People often make major decisions based on emotions or “gut feelings” and far too often the feeling is the fear of looking foolish or making a mistake. People who allow fear to dominate their decisions are often scared of putting trust in the judgment of others and grasp for a concrete number or score, to place absolute faith in.
The best decisions are made when you let go of the fear and allow it to pass. What you are left with is the courage of your convictions which allows you to do what you know deep down is the right thing. Your decision may not be perfect, but if you are headed in the right direction, the size of your steps isn’t critical.
We find what we are looking for, and if we’re not careful, we miss the treasure that is really there.
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