Doing Nothing Is Still a Decision

Annie Duke, a former professional poker player who once studied cognitive science, was explaining how good risk takers handle uncertainty. Venture capitalists spread their money across many startups, she said, but they still vet each bet for whether the payoff is big enough. Duke said the same care should apply to standing still. As she put it, “don't take that to the point of thinking that somehow making a decision is substantively different from not making a decision because they're both decisions.”

What she means is that coasting with the status quo is a choice you keep making, and it deserves the same analysis as any new choice. People tend to map possible futures only when they think they are changing course, and rarely stop to examine the strategies they have simply always used.

Her simplest example is a grocery store. Faced with six open lanes, shoppers do what she jokes is quantum physics analysis, weighing coupons, cashier speed, and cart size. That is clearly a bet, she argues, not against other people but against other versions of yourself. Yet once the chosen line proves slow, shoppers stay put, worried they will feel foolish if they switch and the old line suddenly moves.

That reluctance helps explain what Duke calls resulting, judging a decision by its outcome rather than by the process that produced it. She points to Seattle coach Pete Carroll’s famous Super Bowl pass. If Carroll had stuck with the expected handoff to Marshawn Lynch, Seattle’s short yardage running back, and failed to score, she argues the headlines would have praised New England and nobody would have questioned the call.

Because sticking with the expected play would not have looked like a decision, the failure would have been put in the luck bucket, meaning anything outside his control. Carroll was demolished for switching grocery lines, though sticking with a slow line is also a decision, and that willingness to switch is how progress gets made.