Excellent! One of the most overlooked but important aspects of decision-making is promulgation. Sometimes it's tempting to keep a decision held close to avoid dealing with the stakeholders in disagreement, and maybe that makes sense in some cases, but if you design a decision well it should be most durable right after it's made and the best time to deal with objections. In general decisions should probably get weaker over time not stronger.
A very good point, and this is true for a large set of cases I think. But I wonder if it holds for, say, the decision to marry, and if there is something to be said for decisions that deepen over time and where commitment to the decision is actually what makes the decision valuable? But on promulgation absolutely - and curating decisions is another key thing that one could write an entire note on. How makes the decision is far less important, arguably, than who then owns the long term curation of the decision.
Marriage is an interesting example, and I think helps illustrate what I'm trying to suggest, unless you have very different views about marriage :) My view is that commitment to a marriage deepens when the relationship is mutually beneficial & self-reinforcing over time, not *because* you made a decision. The upshot of that in a wider context is - designing durable decisions is good, but commitment to them should only go as far as it's useful and healthy for you & the people it impacts.
Another objection might be that marriage is a different kind of decision altogether, with greater moral weight. We don't often go around making 'vows' to each other inside companies, though I suppose there's are cases where we make promises to the public (and regulators) or enter into long term partnerships where it might be a useful analogy.
I offered it partly in jest, so you are quite right. But I think it highlights another complication in the way we think about decisions -- that they are "made" and then the world changes. You could argue, instead, that decisions are performed and that the performances just start with the declaration of the decision -- and then the analogy with marriage is interesting: the vows are a way to conjure a very long performance of a decision, whereas other decisions just conjure a shorter performance. So it is not that our commitment to a decision - a point - is weakening, it is just that many / most decisions are very short performances, and as such should decline. There is something monstrous about the people who perform trivial decisions for too long (the man who once decided he wanted a model train and then re-builds his entire cellar to a mini-version of a railroad network (yes, we are looking at you Rod Stewart)) -- and something equally alien about the people who perform all decisions just briefly. Sometimes the right analogy is a piece of music: a decision is like that and the declaration that we have made a decision is just like announcing the key the music will be played in.
That sounds right to me and a good analogy. It also reminds me of the debate over whether judiciaries (especially high courts) actually have inherent power for change, or if their power is totally contingent on decision-implementers.
Excellent! One of the most overlooked but important aspects of decision-making is promulgation. Sometimes it's tempting to keep a decision held close to avoid dealing with the stakeholders in disagreement, and maybe that makes sense in some cases, but if you design a decision well it should be most durable right after it's made and the best time to deal with objections. In general decisions should probably get weaker over time not stronger.
A very good point, and this is true for a large set of cases I think. But I wonder if it holds for, say, the decision to marry, and if there is something to be said for decisions that deepen over time and where commitment to the decision is actually what makes the decision valuable? But on promulgation absolutely - and curating decisions is another key thing that one could write an entire note on. How makes the decision is far less important, arguably, than who then owns the long term curation of the decision.
Marriage is an interesting example, and I think helps illustrate what I'm trying to suggest, unless you have very different views about marriage :) My view is that commitment to a marriage deepens when the relationship is mutually beneficial & self-reinforcing over time, not *because* you made a decision. The upshot of that in a wider context is - designing durable decisions is good, but commitment to them should only go as far as it's useful and healthy for you & the people it impacts.
Another objection might be that marriage is a different kind of decision altogether, with greater moral weight. We don't often go around making 'vows' to each other inside companies, though I suppose there's are cases where we make promises to the public (and regulators) or enter into long term partnerships where it might be a useful analogy.
I offered it partly in jest, so you are quite right. But I think it highlights another complication in the way we think about decisions -- that they are "made" and then the world changes. You could argue, instead, that decisions are performed and that the performances just start with the declaration of the decision -- and then the analogy with marriage is interesting: the vows are a way to conjure a very long performance of a decision, whereas other decisions just conjure a shorter performance. So it is not that our commitment to a decision - a point - is weakening, it is just that many / most decisions are very short performances, and as such should decline. There is something monstrous about the people who perform trivial decisions for too long (the man who once decided he wanted a model train and then re-builds his entire cellar to a mini-version of a railroad network (yes, we are looking at you Rod Stewart)) -- and something equally alien about the people who perform all decisions just briefly. Sometimes the right analogy is a piece of music: a decision is like that and the declaration that we have made a decision is just like announcing the key the music will be played in.
That sounds right to me and a good analogy. It also reminds me of the debate over whether judiciaries (especially high courts) actually have inherent power for change, or if their power is totally contingent on decision-implementers.
Exactly! That is not a far-fetched reading of the history of Marbury v. Madison!
Sharing without endorsement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hollow_Hope