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Continuous Learning in Decision Making

Feedback from the results of a decision compared against the expectations when it was being made makes even moderately endowed executives into competent decision makers.

In no area is it more important than in decision making to build continuous learning into the executive’s work. And the way to do this is to feed back from results of the decision to the expectations when it was being made. Whenever executives make an important decision, they put down in writing what results are expected and when. And then the executive, nine months or a year later, begins to feed back from the actual results to the expected ones and keeps on doing this as long as the decision is in force. So in an acquisition, for example, an executive compares the actual results to the expected ones for the two to five years it takes fully to integrate an acquisition.

It’s amazing how much we learn by doing this and how fast. And physicians have been taught since Hippocrates in Greece 2,400 years ago to write down what course they expect a patient’s condition to take as a result of the treatment the physician prescribes, that is, as a result of the physician’s decision. And that, as every experienced physician will tell you, is what makes even moderately endowed doctors into competent practitioners within a few years.

ACTION POINT: When you make an important decision, make sure to write down the expected “prognosis.” Then at a time appropriate for the particular decision, go out and look at what results have transpired. Compare results to your prognosis. Use what you learn in subsequent decision situations.

The Effective Executive
The Elements of Decision Making (Corpedia Online Program)

* Source: The Daily Drucker by Peter F. Drucker

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