Starting up Smibs Inc. and building this companies first product puts me into a situation where I have to make critical decisions on a daily basis. Despite my experience of building businesses over more than 15 years, I still feel quite often that I just don’t have all the information and insight I need to be sure that I am making the ‘right call’. To improve and accelerate my decision making process I’ve developed and used a simple method that I’d like to share with you.
The hindsight on future failure method
When I am not certain which way to go, say investing in technology or not, hiring a person or spending money on advertising, I project myself into the future. Then I assume that the business (or product, or whatever you build or do) will have FAILED at that point in the future. Now from that future point in time I look back at the decision that I am about to make from an ‘envisioned hindsight’ perspective. Finally I ask myself one critical question: Do I still regard the decision as good idea although for whatever reason it just didn’t work out, or DO I LOOK LIKE A COMPLETE IDIOT having made that decision?
Every time I go through this quick thought process I find my perspective on the matter shifting quite significantly. If I find myself feeling like a complete fool about the way I handled that decision and the decisions impact on the project, I usually drop whatever I am about to do and go the other way. If, from that fake hindsight, I feel like I decided to the best of my knowledge and just ran out of luck I usually have a pretty good chance to succeed with my plans.
Over time I’ve come to realize that it is not so much about my decision based on if I had known this or that before. It is much more about how I will feel about myself looking back on that decision. For me this process connects logic and rationality with my gut feeling in a very productive way.
You can supercharge this method by putting yourself into other peoples shoes and envision how they will look back on your presumed failure. Envision people that are rational and others that are more emotional, try people that are involved in your industry and others that are not. This method helps me to bring instant clarity into the decision making process and it prevents me from making decisions that might look good right now, in the moment of excitement or frustration, but that turn into a pretty bad idea once you look at it from a distance.
Does this make any sense to you? Try it out and drop me a comment if it works for you or not.
