Separate the quality of the decision from the outcome

A good decision can produce a bad outcome, and a bad decision can produce a good outcome — do not confuse them.

Why it works

Resulting — judging a decision by its outcome rather than the quality of the reasoning — is the central error the framework addresses. Outcomes are partly luck; the decision is the only thing you controlled. Systematically grading yourself on outcomes rather than process trains the wrong skill and distorts how you update your decision-making going forward.

How to do it

1. After any significant decision plays out, write a brief evaluation: "was the reasoning sound given what I knew at the time?"
2. Evaluate that separately from: "did it work out?"
3. Look for bad processes that worked (lucky) and good processes that failed (unlucky) and treat them accordingly.
4. Resist congratulating yourself for a good outcome that came from poor reasoning.

Evidence

Resulting is well documented in hindsight bias research — people reconstruct decisions as obviously right or wrong based on outcome, obscuring the uncertainty that existed at decision time. The practice of process-based evaluation is recommended in forecasting and decision science but not itself studied in an RCT. (mechanistic)

Separating process from outcome is conceptually sound; doing it reliably in practice requires explicit record-keeping since hindsight bias operates automatically.

Sources

• Fischhoff (1975), hindsight bias and outcome knowledge, Journal of Experimental Psychology

Common mistake

Believing you can distinguish luck from skill retroactively without pre-commitment records — hindsight makes good luck look like skill and bad luck look like bad process.