The last person catching the ball

While building anything of substantial value - whether it’s a system, asset or a team, I tend to make better decisions, if I am the one who owns the consequences for a substantial period of time.

It’s not that for a project that I am in for a short while, I would intentionally make a decision which would only be good in the short term. But, the reinforcement that one gets to make good long-term decisions if the incentives are aligned to do so, is much more powerful than just a good intent. But more on aligning incentives in a later post.

Sometimes, the situation is such that I won’t be owning the consequences at all. In those cases, I attempt to deeply think what decision I would take if I was on the other side of it for a long while. Although maybe not to the same effect as real ownership, but probably a better decision process none-the-less.

And when I talk about a good decision, I am not talking in terms of a successful outcome but the decision making process itself. Kahneman famously showed that the quality of decision making process has nothing to do with a successful outcome. Someone can make poor choices and still come out successful. I think the outcome is rarely in our control, but the decision making process and the implementation is.

This also allows me to make broad choices in life - the nature of the next big thing that I want to do in personal or professional life. I would prefer choosing something in which I own the long tail of the consequences, as compared to the one in which I have no skin-in-the-game.

This approach allows me in making better recommendations. And listening to suggestions of people owning no consequences with a pinch of salt.

The learnings accumulate as well and contribute towards developing an ownership mindset. Although I have a sample of only 15 years of conscious decision making (I’m in mid 30s now), I think this has and will allow me to live a life with much better and enriching experiences.