Running Decision Processes

# Running Decision Processes - All Guest Insights

*65 guests, 82 mentions*

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## Ada Chen Rekhi
*Ada Chen Rekhi*

> "A curiosity loop is essentially going to a whole bunch of people. In this case, I sent out an email very quickly to about 10 or 11 people and asking them, 'Hey, here are nine topics for Lenny's Podcast. What are two or three of the topics that resonate with you and why?'"

**Insight:** Use a structured 'Curiosity Loop' to gather contextual advice from a curated group to fight the bias of generic, non-contextual advice.

**Tactical advice:**
- Ask specific questions that solicit rationale rather than biased 'yes/no' answers.
- Curate a mix of subject matter experts and people who know you personally.
- Make the ask lightweight (e.g., 'pick top 2 of 9') to ensure a high response rate from busy people.
- Close the loop by processing the info and thanking participants for their impact on your decision.

*Timestamp: 00:04:08*

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> "I looked at those values and I said, 'Well, if I draw a straight line from where I am right now and just extend it forward and play the rest of the movie as it plays out, given the current plot line, how well does that optimize for those values?'"

**Insight:** Use a personal values stack-rank as an 'internal scorecard' to evaluate if major life and career decisions align with your core identity.

**Tactical advice:**
- Filter a broad list of value words down to a top 3-5 list.
- Apply these values to specific opportunities to see if they pass or fail your internal criteria.
- Prioritize the 'inner scorecard' (personal fulfillment) over the 'outer scorecard' (status, wealth, titles).

*Timestamp: 00:37:12*


## Alisa Cohn
*Alisa Cohn*

> "How do we decide when we disagree? And that is a very good thing to explore because there's actually a lot of different ways to decide when you disagree... let's assume that the person who cares the most can win that argument. It might be, the person who's got the best perspective and the most expertise can win that argument."

**Insight:** Establishing a 'tie-breaking' protocol in advance prevents stalemates and resentment during disagreements.

**Tactical advice:**
- Decide if the 'most passionate' person wins or the 'most expert' person wins
- Consider a 'back and forth' system where partners take turns making the final call

*Timestamp: 01:05:57*


## Ami Vora
*Ami Vora*

> "As you get senior, the only problems you'll see are ones that are fundamentally unsolvable because otherwise, someone would've solved it before they got to you. And so all you're doing is choosing which branch of suboptimal you're going to put your name on and describing the principles you're using."

**Insight:** Senior leadership decisions are often about choosing the best possible 'suboptimal' path among difficult trade-offs.

**Tactical advice:**
- Acknowledge when a decision is suboptimal but necessary.
- Clearly communicate the principles and context used to arrive at a difficult choice.

*Timestamp: 01:01:59*


## Annie Duke
*Annie Duke*

> "It's so incredibly necessary in improving decision quality to take what's implicit and make it explicit. It's not that intuition is crap, your intuition is sometimes right. If you don't make it explicit, then you don't get to find out when it's wrong."

**Insight:** High-quality decision-making requires moving from 'gut feel' to explicit models that can be tested and refined.

**Tactical advice:**
- Document the implicit assumptions behind a 'gut' feeling.
- Review these explicit assumptions later to see where your intuition was right or wrong.

*Timestamp: 00:00:00*

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> "There is no such thing as a long feedback loop. And the way you choose to shorten the feedback loop is to say, what are the things that are correlated with the outcome that I eventually desire?"

**Insight:** You can shorten any feedback loop by identifying and tracking leading indicators that are necessary for the final desired outcome.

**Tactical advice:*