We Don't Have to Be This Bad at Improving Society
I recently became very curious about the concept of decision risk.
I’m currently reading Entreprenørstaten — The Entrepreneurial State in English — by Sigge Winther Nielsen. It explores the remarkably poor track record of major political reforms in Danish politics. Time and again, large initiatives end up going terribly wrong.
I’ve seen countless examples of the same thing in the private sector. Product teams build at full speed, only to create something that nobody wants to buy or use. It ends up being a total waste of time and money.
This is closely related to the concept of decision risk.
In situations of high uncertainty, many people excuse poor decisions to launch major initiatives that ends up failing by arguing that there wasn’t enough information available, so there was nothing they could have done to reduce the risk. I strongly disagree.
I believe it is absolutely possible to reduce decision risk, even in highly uncertain situations.