Judge decisions by the process, not the result

A good decision that produces a bad outcome is still a good decision.

Why it works

Outcome bias — judging decision quality by what happened rather than by what was known before the decision — is pervasive and damaging. It causes people to reverse correct processes that got unlucky and to repeat incorrect processes that happened to succeed. Expected value thinking separates these: a decision is good if it correctly used available information to maximize expected payoff, regardless of which outcome the probability dice rolled.

How to do it

1. After any significant outcome, separately evaluate: (1) what was known at decision time, (2) whether the process used that information well, and (3) what the outcome was.
2. Resist the urge to infer decision quality from outcome quality alone.
3. Keep a decision journal: record your reasoning before the outcome, so you can compare process to result honestly later.
4. Ask: "Given what I knew then, would I make the same decision again?" If yes, a bad outcome is a bad roll, not a bad decision.

Evidence

Outcome bias is well documented: people give lower evaluations to the same decision when it is paired with a bad outcome, even when the outcome was due to chance. Baron and Hershey (1988) provide the foundational experimental evidence. (rct)

Distinguishing process from outcome is easy in principle and genuinely hard under social pressure; colleagues who judge by results may not share your framework.

Sources

• Baron & Hershey (1988), outcome effects in decision evaluation, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Common mistake

Feeling retrospectively foolish about a correct decision that went badly, and adjusting future decisions toward "safer" options that lower expected value to reduce regret.