Decisions & Outcomes

I am increasingly convinced that people really do not want to cook. Yesterday I had two experiences that support this. The first was a simple one - I was running some errands with a friend, and they wanted to snag from French fries from Arby’s. Easy enough to order, but the wait for the food stress tested the notion of “fast food.” Yet there were plenty of cars lined up for this experience. A little later in the day, I myself was looking to have some lunch. I’ve never been to Warrio’s Beef & Pork, but have heard great things about them. So I swung by, peeked in the door, and the line snaked throughout the interior so much…I didn’t have the time to spare to wait in that queue, and luckily Katalina’s down the street was less slammed. I understand queuing up for something great (and I suspect Warrio’s is great), but for Arby’s? I’m ready to blame cell phones for this. Stuck in a line? No problem, just check social media or work on today’s crossword puzzle. We blame our phones for so much, why not this too?

I swear I’m not relying solely on Tim Ferriss’ podcast for inspiration, but for two weeks running now, his thought-provoking interviews have inspired me. This week he spoke with Seth Godin, another person whose perspective I highly value. This interview was so rich I feel compelled to re-listen to it later today.

A portion of their conversation was dedicated to the concept that decisions and their outcomes do not always line up, in terms of their quality. Good decisions do not always yield good outcomes, and vice-versa.

For example, consider Kodak’s decision to slow-roll their own invention of digital photography. Their film production and processing business was so massive and lucrative at the time, it seemed insane to cannibalize it too quickly. What they failed to appreciate was just how quickly competitors would emerge to grow this new category, effectively closing Kodak out of the new game while driving the legacy business to near-zero. Reasonably good decision, but bad outcome.

On the flip side, consider any person who wins the lottery. As decisions go, buying a lottery ticket can only be viewed favorably by hanging a high value on the hopes and dreams that may be spawned by such a purchase. In terms of pure math, the net present value of a lottery tickets is always far less than the ticket price. Paying $2 or $5 for something that is worth close to $0 is always a bad decision - regardless of the fact that people win lottery prizes every week.

So how does one stay focused on improving the quality of their decisions, and avoid getting too hung up on any given outcome when evaluating their decision-making ability?

Journaling can be a valuable way to memorialize our rationale for making important decisions. Therefore, we can review this rationale post-facto to see what we may have missed (as well as what we got right).

Developing a formal checklist or framework for different types of decisions can be helpful. Things like listing key assumptions, calculating expected value, and forcing ourselves to consider multiple scenarios can ensure a certain amount of rigor behind our decisions.

Reviewing other people’s big decisions can be informative as well. For well-documented decisions (and their supporting rationale), we can assess decisions made by others pretty rigorously, which we can then learn from and inform our own future efforts.

We can and should regularly evaluate our decision-making ability. We should also not allow a few bad outcomes here and there to doubt ourselves.

Sunday Supper

I’ve lived in the Buckeye State my entire life, and I’ve never heard of the Sloppy Bird sandwich. Yet I am intrigued by the prospect of a “Chicken pot pie on a bun…”. This Cabbage Roll Soup seems straightforward and satisfying on a cold February night. These Salmon Burgers also caught my eye…having missed out on Warrio’s yesterday, maybe I’m just looking for an excuse to eat a good sandwich…

Sunday Music

Lori and I snuck over to Pittsburgh last Sunday see Martin Sexton perform many of the songs from The Beatles’ Abbey Road album, as well as some of his own songs. This performance of “Oh! Darling” is from this current tour. In addition to seeing Martin perform, we also came across the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile in the pre-dawn hours as we made our way back to Columbus. (Dreams do come true.) Lastly, this complete recording of a performance by the group I’m With Her for WGBH in Boston from 2019 should brighten your day. Enjoy!

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Have a great week ahead!  Offer support to others.  Make good use of this day.  And let me know how I can help.



Peace & Love,