Friday, December 08, 2006

The Secret to Success – Good Decisions


In new hire training at my company, a question that is often asked, “How can I make my project or career successful?” My answer to them is “Success is based on regularly making good decisions.”

Of course, this begs the question of how to develop the skill of good decision making. I use an explanation shared in the book Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis. The following paraphrases a discussion below between a bond trading trainer and a trainee.


Q: How does one make good decisions?
A: Good judgment.

Q: How does one develop good judgment?
A: Experience.

Q: How does one get experience?
A: Bad judgment.

Good judgment is the important skill to develop. It’s ok to make mistakes, and good judgment prevents making the same mistake twice. The challenge is learning from experience and transforming understanding into good judgment :-)

Photo Credit: morgueFile.com, Pamela Benn

This is not financial or career advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2006 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Small modification:

Q: How does one get experience?
A: Learn from other people's mistake.

Just a quite plausible answer to that one :)

Super Saver said...

GolbGuru,

Thanks for the comment and excellent point. Better to learn from the mistakes and experiences of others. I had considered including the idea, but decided to save it as a topic of a future post:-)

It will be another Liar's Poker analogy.

Anonymous said...

:D

good one!

i've made so many mistakes, i can't even list them all!