Today I heard about an interesting technique. The objective is to improve your decision-making by getting feedback on the thought process you used to make a decision, not the outcome. The outcome of a decision isn’t a reflection of decision quality. Bad decisions end up turning out well, and vice versa, because of chance and randomness.

The technique involves sharing your thought process, including the variables you considered, with credible people who make good decisions. How did you think about the decision? What information did you factor in? The twist is that you don’t share outcomes with them (ask for feedback on decisions that have had good and bad outcomes). These people then explain the shortcomings and strengths they see in your thought process. They might even tell you how they would approach the decision if they were in your shoes. From all this feedback, you’ll learn how other people approach making decisions and improve your own decision-making.

This technique caught my attention because most people ask for feedback on decisions by leading with the outcome. This is completely different but makes a lot of sense to me (in theory). I’m curious to try it out and see how it works in practice.