In constrained industries — regulated, rules-bound — youcan't move fast and break things.
Experience matters. Judgement is prized because it seemslike a mysterious black box. I don't know the answer — how do they?
"You are right, Watson, it really is the most preposterous way of settling a dispute."
Holmes has just answered a thought Dr Watson hadn't spokenaloud.
Mysterious.
As Holmes begins to explain, Dr Watson is again amazed. "Doyou mean to tell me you read my train of thought from my features?"
I won't spoil your enjoyment of the passage — short story"The Adventure of the Cardboard Box," from the His Last Bowcollection — but it concludes, after Holmes has explained step by step, with afinal remark from Watson: "…now that you have explained it, I confess Iam as amazed as before."
Except that this final remark is Watson at his mostcredulous. The reality is that the reader, having seen the steps, is no longeramazed. Impressed — but not amazed.
Like Penn and Teller explaining a trick — still impressed,very impressed. But not magic-amazed.
In the same way, judgement is no more than the appropriatemanipulation of knowledge and experience. And good judgement is merely animproved manipulation of more knowledge or better-captured experience.
I call it the Hidden Decision Tree. Understanding, in theface of a situation, the questions to put to it — how to rank the significanceof the answers, and how to translate the result into action. Or inaction.
A trained eye that knows which things to notice. Anunderstanding of how commercial pressures tend to play out, how similar riskshave resolved before, what the regulatory landscape implies here, what thisparticular signal has meant in the past. Each observation a question the expertknows to ask. Each deduction often an answer experience has already supplied.
"It was very superficial, my dear Watson, I assureyou."
Wouldn't it seem so simple if you could write and share someof those decision trees with your colleagues?
But couldn't it magnify the impact you have on your business? Wouldn't it be more valuable — and more impressive — if that was your legacy, rather than judgement calls bounded by the time you personally have to make them?
The one skill more mysterious and valuable than goodjudgement is the rare ability to surface it — from its hidden decision tree —in a way that allows others to learn it, share it, and deliver on it.
