Innovation Miracle: Half the Decisions We Make Daily Are Wrong!
In my Amazon bestselling book, Mistakes Millionaires Make, I made a bold statement that had been passed down to me during the course of my business career, undoubtedly by someone who was older, wiser, and had far more business battle scars than I did:
“Half the decisions you make on a daily basis will be wrong.”
And I’m positive that (at the time) I had the same exact reaction most people reading those words for the first time would have: What? Are you serious? Gimme a break!
But the funny thing about hearing any kind of dire, ominous warning is that you start to see it and feel it everywhere, to really know it to be true when you’re faced with a daunting situation. You start to think to yourself, “Man, this is just like that guy told me.”
Really think about that concept: half the decisions we make each day are wrong. I was first taught the idea while attending the three year program at MIT called Birthing of Giants, from 1993 to 1996. We heard it discussed by two top entrepreneurial CEOs. After a great and lengthy discussion on what inner meaning that warning held, it became apparent that every organization, no matter how big, powerful, or careful, will not fare better than a 50% error rate on their decisions.
Let it sink in. If you’re still in disbelief, go back and read it again.
When you finally come to realize that there might be some truth to it, it’s pretty scary, isn’t it? At first it sounds threatening, or maybe even debilitating. And if you’re not careful, you can let it take over all of your decision making processes and let it control you to the point that you’re frozen in place.
And you’re not alone in feeling that way. When I discuss this idea in my speaking engagements, the response is typically scoffing rejection, followed by surprise and then need for control. But in actuality, when the idea of a 50% decision making error rate is embraced by the company culture, this fact can be liberating.
If you let it take root in the right way, it can be one of the single biggest contributors to innovation.
Let me explain:
- Identify the Mistakes That Will Kill You– It is critical for your entire organization to identify the few decisions that, if made wrong, can be a true threat. Make sure everyone in the organization understands this concept so they can feel confident in calling out when a key decision is facing the organization. That way, additional resources can be focused on those relatively few crucial, mission-critical decisions to improve the chances of making a better decision.
- Most Decisions Don’t Matter- The reality is that most decisions don’t really matter. You’re not going to do better than making correct decisions more than half the time anyway, right? Then why not let your team members learn and grow by being responsible for making the decisions that have little to no consequence to the company?
- Make It Safe for Them to Fail- Innovation can only flourish if you allow your teams to make wrong decisions and fail miserably. Teach them to fail fast, evaluate the process, and course correct as soon as it’s safe to do so—there’s nothing worse than taking bad corrective action on a failing decision, so make sure the time frame for correcting it is right. If you resist this process or make your teams afraid to fail, your company will be doomed to be mediocre. Over time, embracing failure as an innovation and growth process can transform the company.
- Difficult Decisions– Sadly, even when we know a decision is key and can wipe us out, we often still make the wrong choices. I highlight in my book several decisions that I made that were dead wrong, and it led to huge losses to me personally and to my employees. Here’s what really bothers me: even when we made decisions that we’d already identified as being critical ones, when we had brainstorming sessions and carefully considered the potential outcomes, we still made the wrong decisions.
There is no crystal ball and there are just too many unknowns to make the right decision every single time, but without the safety net of acknowledging the benefits of bad decisions, you have nowhere to go but an ever-downward spiral once the worst happens.
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