Thinking Probabilistically; Thinking Pragmatically
Review of: Robert Rubin: The Yellow Pad: Making Better Decisions in an Uncertain World…
Decision-making in the face of uncertainty. Robert Rubin is a master at it. In The Yellow Pad: Making Better Decisions in an Uncertain World, he tries to give a flavor of how he does it, and guide people in a direction in which they will be able to do it too.
In my career, I have been able to take five things from Rubin that have been very, very useful indeed:
At the end of every meeting, make sure you think—and ask—what a week from now, a month from now, a year from now, two years from now, ten years from now, will we wish we had just decided to do?
Every time things have gone well, make sure to ask and think hard about: were we smart, or were we just lucky—and how could we have been even smarter?
Every time things have gone badly, make sure to ask and think hard about: were we dumb, or were we just unlucky—and how could we have arranged things so that being unlucky would not have mattered?
The real boss move is to say: I don’t know enough about this to have the best perspective and opinion, but I know that X does know enough, and I trust them, and they think Y. I don’t need to take credit and would rather give it is the best way to go through life.
Without compelling need, deciding to do X or not-X is usually not the best move: the best move is to wait for more information to arrive, and to meanwhile take time and energy to get better information.
Plus always remember—not from Rubin but from along the same lines—this from science-fiction author Lois McMaster Bujold’s novel The Vor Game: “the key of strategy, little Vor,” she explained kindly, “is not to choose a path to victory, but to choose that all paths lead to a victory…”