Appreciate Your Fallibility

Notice how often people distrust their memories, but not their judgment. Psychologists have developed thousands of experiments that demonstrate just how poor we are at making judgments, judgments of any kind – moral, business, even perceptual. You can get people to misjudge the length of a one-inch line by as much as six inches if other people in the room say the line is longer.

So? So several things. First, keep track of your judgments so you can determine the things you are good at judging and the things you aren’t. Second, when you make a decision include ways to get feedback to determine how well the decision worked out. Third, decide an issue early. Then give your decision a time to rest and approach the issue from another angle to see if you come to the same conclusion. Forth, know that you could be wrong and be open to information that will show your fallibility. Although it is not fun to be wrong, it is much worse to persist in being wrong.

Finally, appreciating your fallibility is an important way to cultivate your judgment. And a cultivated judgment is a rare and precious thing indeed. n