In poker, there’s a concept called “resulting” that describes a fallacy common to new players. Resulting is where you equate the value of a choice with the outcome. If you make a choice and things work out, resulting is where you say, “That was a good choice.”
At first blush this may seem rational, but we often make good choices that aren’t successful and bad choices that are.
As a concrete example, if you happened to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and then saw an influx of new customers, resulting would be where you think, “Ah ha! PB & J is my new lead engine!”
It seems absurd, but we often link choices to outcomes when the environment is murky like in business.
Yesterday, I wrote about focusing on the game of business rather than the effects. An aspect of this is to be able to evaluate and learn from decisions regardless of the outcome.
Resulting imparts lessons that you can’t rely on and will lead to random effects in the future. These lessons often get bandied about as proven tactics when they were randomly successful due to hidden causes.
Being able to accurately assess whether a decision was well made is what creates the path to learning and advancing.
Featured image is Lady Fortune in a Boccaccio manuscript. Used under public domain.