Judgment…..

I haven’t written much about Judgment, nor do I see many others writing about it. Ironically, Judgment is probably one of the most important capabilities for leaders and business professionals. It’s importance is magnified as we look at the escalating disruption, change, and complexity each of us, our teams, our organizations, our customers, and our partners face.

It’s a skill to help us make decisions when there are no cut and dry answers, where we may have incomplete information, where there may be massive uncertainty. There is no roadmap to making and executing the best decisions. It’s the constant application of judgment that enables us to move forward. It helps each of us, our organizations, and our customers move forward, when that path isn’t clear.

I’m not sure judgment can be taught, at least I’m not tasking enablement teams to come up with training programs on developing our skills in judgment. But I am certain it can be modeled, consequently we can learn much from others. And I think the role of great leaders is not only in exercising great judgment, but modeling it in everything they do.

What is judgment? I think it’s the combination of knowledge, experience, intuition, values/purpose, and situational awareness in making decisions in uncertain and ambiguous environments. And, while others may disagree, I believe great judgment need be based on strong ethical and moral standards.

And judgment requires confidence.

What are critical skills in helping us make judgments? I think the ability to gather and collect as much relevant information as possible, though not obsessing on the completeness of that information. The ability to think critically, to analyze the information, understanding what’s most important. It’s the ability to apply disciplined problem solving skills in making decisions. It’s the ability to synthesize disparate pieces of information, disparate points of view, It’s the application of intuition and instinct, driven by what we have learned from our past experiences. It’s the ability to understand and empathize with those involved in or impacted by the decision. All this culminates in the ability to act decisively, confidently and with intention.

Judgment doesn’t end with making a decision, it requires us continually assess the results and outcomes. It requires us to adjust the decisions to more effectively achieve the desired outcomes. It demands immediate recognition that we may have been wrong, and action to correct it. And it demands we learn from the experience building our abilities for the future.

All these are critical to judgment, but we can make good or bad judgments.

What contributes to bad judgment? Probably two of the biggest contributors to bad judgment is overconfidence (perhaps false confidence) and lack of self awareness. Too often, short termism–seeking immediate gain—cause us to fail in achieving the long term results we had hoped for. Confirmation bias, anchoring, groupthink, too much reliance on our POVs versus including others all contribute to bad judgments.

How do we improve our ability to make good judgment? Beyond the areas I’ve spoken about already, we can see dramatic improvements when we leverage the “wisdom of the crowds.” There is significant research showing the greater the diversity of people involved in making decisions, the higher the quality of the decision.

The power of the group, helps overcome some of the weaknesses cited earlier. We have the potential of reducing cognitive biases, expanding our information and understanding of the issues, expanding our experience base upon which we make decisions.

But just as individually we may fall victim to groupthink, confirmation, and anchoring biases—these may become even more difficult to recognize in group decisionmaking. There is also the pressure of social conformity and potential of a few strong personalities dominating the work.

Another power of leveraging collective judgments is that as we move forward in execution, everyone is aligned around the why, what, how of the decision.

What are you doing to improve your judgment abilities? What are you doing to help the people you work with to improve theirs? What are you doing to help your customers become confident in their judgments.

Afterword: Here is the AI generated discussion of this article. Enjoy!