# A good decision can still lose
Ownership · principle · https://build-here.africa/book/chapters/06-05-a-good-decision-can-still-lose.html

## The reflex

An initiative goes wrong. The result becomes the only argument for judging the decision, and nobody looks at what was known at the start.

## The builder's reflex

Examine the original reasoning, then the result. A bad result does not prove a bad decision; it does not prove it was a good one either.

## Why

A good decision can lose. A bad one can win. If you judge on results alone, you teach your team to count on luck.

A team picks a carrier for its advertised delivery times and its price. A strike stops its trucks for a week. The review can confirm the choice, and show that a fallback was needed. It can also show that a piece of information was overlooked. The conclusion depends on the facts.

To judge a decision, look at what was known when it was made: the options, the information, the known risks. Then look at the result. Those are two different examinations.

That takes a record. Three lines written before deciding are enough: the goal, the options, what you do not know. Without them, memory rewrites everything afterwards.

## Try this

Before an important decision, write those three lines.

At the review, ask:

> "What did we know, and what could we reasonably have checked?"
> "What did we learn, and what does that change for the next decision?"

Choose one improvement, or explain why the reasoning still holds.

## To discuss

In a recent decision, what does the result teach us without rewriting what we knew at the start?