Concept
Resulting
Resulting is Annie Duke's term for judging the quality of a decision by the quality of its outcome. Because good decisions can lose and bad ones can win, resulting teaches you to repeat lucky mistakes and abandon right choices.
The word comes from poker, where players who lose a hand played correctly are told not to result. Life has the same structure: you decide with information hidden and then the future deals a card. The coach who goes for it on fourth down is a genius if it works and an idiot if it fails, though the reasoning was identical. Resulting misjudges the past, and worse, it poisons the future, because the lessons you take are lessons from luck. The defence is to hold two questions apart: was the outcome good, and was the decision good given what was known at the time.
A real-life example
An architect who turned down a small firm that later thrived calls it her big mistake. At the time the firm had eight months of cash and two clients. The decision was sound; the outcome was bad; the lesson she took, always bet on the small one, is from luck.
How to use it
- 1When reviewing a decision, ask what you knew at the time, not what you know now.
- 2Say 'good decision, bad outcome' out loud when it is true; the sentence is the cure.