During the 2010 NBA finals, the Lakers were playing the Boston Celtics in a deciding Game 7. For Kobe Bryant, this was about legacy—avenging a brutal 2008 Finals loss to Boston. However, Kobe was having a nightmare shooting night (6-of-24). The Lakers were trailing for most of the game, and the offense was stagnant.
With about a minute left, the Lakers were up by only three points. The shot clock was winding down, and the ball found its way to Metta Sandiford-Artest (Ron Artest) at the top of the key. Artest was a career 34% three-point shooter and was known for “questionable” shot selection. In a Game 7, with Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol on the floor, the “correct” play is almost always to get the ball to your stars or run a structured play to kill the clock. Phil Jackson famously said he could hear himself shouting in his own head, “Ron, don’t shoot!” Kobe Bryant later admitted his first thought when Artest squared up was a string of profanities. Even the crowd at Staples Center let out a collective gasp of “No!” as the ball left his hands. Artest drained the three pointer while being fully contested by Paul Pierce. The lead went to six, essentially ending the game and securing the Lakers’ 16th championship. This is a great example of a bad decision with a good outcome and in these moments, luck plays a larger role rather than good thinking.
Focusing only on results makes it difficult to improve. If you have a successful outcome through a reckless mistake but conclude you did well because you “won,” you are likely to repeat that mistake. It’s easy for us to fall into the misconception of equating the quality of a decision with the quality of its outcome.
If you work in healthcare, you understand that we’re constantly triaging problems and making decisions. I can think of countless scenarios where a crisis occurs, all hands are on deck to resolve the issue and eventually the crisis is averted. We are all familiar with the feeling that comes with a negative outcome and the confidence/self assurance that comes with a positive outcome but we can’t let that blind us from . It’s after those moments, where a significant decision was made, where I question whether my decision making was appropriate despite the end result. I’ve become driven to be a better decision maker consistently over time. For example, thinking in probabilities forces me to evaluate different scenarios and how I would navigate, which allows me to be more prepared in the moment. How often as leaders, as decision makers, do we evaluate the process of our decision making?
In the book Thinking In Bets, Annie Duke describes a concept in poker called “resulting” (also known as outcome bias). It involves mistakenly judging a strategy as bad solely because it resulted in a loss, or a good move because it won. All of us are susceptible to falling into this trap. Life, just like poker, involves significant elements of luck and uncertainty, a “good” decision can still lead to a “bad” outcome, and vice versa. A resulter judges the outcome rather than the logic and information available at the time the decision was made. A process oriented thinker judges the quality of the decision making process to identify whether it was sound at the time. Process oriented thinking is how we all become better decision makers consistently over time.
Here are a few tools you can draw upon when needed and begin implementing to be a better process oriented thinker.
- Document Significant Decisions: Begin intentionally documenting decisions and the decision making process. A simple framework when evaluating includes:
- Good decision / Good outcome → easy to evaluate
- Good decision / Bad outcome → bad luck, not bad thinking
- Bad decision / Good outcome → dumb luck, not good thinking
- Bad decision / Bad outcome → expected result
- Think in Probabilities, Not Certainties: Instead of saying “I know X will happen,” assign rough probabilities — “I think there’s a 70% chance of X.” This forces intellectual honesty and acknowledges that uncertainty is always present. It shifts you away from black-and-white thinking.
- Reframe Decisions as Bets: Every decision is essentially a bet on an uncertain future. Consciously framing it that way forces you to ask: What are the odds? What’s the expected value? What am I risking? It removes the illusion that any decision is a sure thing. The most accurate thinkers are comfortable saying “I’m about 60% confident.” Calibrated uncertainty is more honest and more useful than false confidence.
- Hindsight Based Question: Ask yourself “would I have made the same call if I knew the outcome in advance?”
- 10-10-10 Rule: To reduce the emotional distortion of the present moment and short sighted choices, you can ask yourself, how will I feel about this decision in
- 10 minutes
- 10 months
- 10 years
- Acknowledge “Resulting” in Both Directions – don’t take too much credit for good outcomes either. If your process was sloppy but you got lucky, that’s just as much a distortion as beating yourself up over a well-reasoned decision that went badly.
When you reflect on the last five significant decisions you made, how would you judge your decision making process? Would you make the same decision based on what you know now, regardless of the result? I challenge you to spend more time assessing your decision making process. We all owe it to those we have the privilege of serving.