A long way indeed! But unfortunately not all the way. There is more! A lot more! We humans want so much to tidy up Reality in just a few words ... or syllables! But, we can't. Reality is enormously multidimensional! Hidden variables and common misperceptions underlie every field of study. So, if you want to get it right the first time, get someone who knows how! The solution is Self-discipline, but only if you know WHAT to discipline yourself into. If you're a professional decision-maker, your primary job is Putting your mind to work so that no one becomes hurt unnecessarily. Embrace the possibilities! Preparation is now your ultimate guide rather than expectation or probability.

   But then, as prepared as you may become, keep your mind going! Commit yourself to caring. Commit yourself to improving. Constantly care and improve.

Always Care To Prepare.

Always Care To Improve.

   To reiterate what you have just read on the previous page, rather than relying on your memories and experiences to initiate your caring emotion, imagine reasons to care. Give it a kick start. Get it going when nothing else will. Imagine what underlying causes — real or planted — might have set up the situation. Something unseen? Something never hitherto heard of or witnessed? Moreover, imagine how you might feel if that were you in those circumstances, behind that other face. Treat others as you would treat yourself if you were actually caught up in the same situation, a victim to circumstances far, far beyond your individual control. Furthermore, imagine what you could do to improve the situation.

   Recognize that human progress has always been stepwise. We create, then observe what we created, then improve. And then we observe again and improve again. And again. And again. And .... This continues until improving any further finally becomes impossible, when all other approaches have been thoroughly analyzed and recognized as somehow inferior. But then too, sometimes we realize that one approach isn't always the single best. Sometimes one approach works best under certain circumstances while another approach works best under other conditions.

   The point is to keep improving until further improvement is proven impossible:

GOOD    —>    BETTER    —>    BEST

Don't just stop at one good solution. Couldn't there perhaps be a better way? Or even better? "There’s just gotta’ be a better way!” Continually seek out better ways, and eventually you end up finding a best way.

   Where there’s a will, there’s a way. "Somehow ... somewhere ... there HAS to be a way!”

   B. Information:  See also Competence in Decision Making: A Decision Making Rule.

   Now, does all of the above always work? Ho-Hum. Again unfortunately it does not(!), but at least we're headed in the right direction. If we may consistently reduce the likelihood for subsequent error, we may consistently improve our odds of avoiding it entirely, which obviously is what our primary goal is.

   The problem this time rests in the very limitations of the human imagination itself. It doesn’t always provide us with everything we need. It is imperfect. Not only do we fail to imagine all possibilities, but the very images themselves that we imagine in our attempts to avoid simplification to begin with are again oversimplified! They are usually incomplete. They are idealized.

   Try to imagine, say, a globe, and we typically imagine a sphere, when some other not-so-perfect shape would be more accurate. Try to imagine a new car, and we typically imagine flawless paint, dust-free surfaces and a glittering shine. Who said it was painted? And why don’t we imagine a new car with grime and mud all over? If I pound away at it with a chisel, isn't it still new but damaged? If I puncture all four tires, isn't it still new, but tireless? And who said that it has to have four tires? Why not three? Assumptions, idealizations and expectations enter into our imaginations even when we rely on our imaginations in an effort to avoid the idealizations and false expectations to begin with. No, we aren't complete idiots: We do subsequently try to imagine further complexity, but more thought is required to do it. And more thought means more work ... mental work, something we would rather avoid if at all possible.

   So rather than imagine ALL POSSIBILITIES, we try to get by with just those few which we perceive as the most likely to enter into the scenario. Have you ever witnessed others (or yourself!) thinking the following?

"Let’s see what happens if we ....”

Consequently, we typically overlook some rare possibilities or some others which we may never have hitherto come in contact with, or we just forget about some or stubbornly persist in trivializing yet others with perhaps a simple, "That’s silly! That’s just too rare to worry over! Give me a break! I don’t need to worry about that!” Free time is the prize for thinking in this way, but it's not a prize worth keeping if we overlook something that we may later regret.

In preparing ... it pays to search for subtleties — the second-order effects — because the devil is in the details, and the cost of overlooking them can be high.
— Norman R. Augustine, "Managing the Crisis You Tried To Prevent,” in Harvard Business Review, November-December 1995.

   Our problem stems from our own inherent ignorance, from our lack of information. The human mind's imaginative capability can quickly become stressed when we force it to work on or plan around something that it knows absolutely nothing about. So, decision-making is best left to someone who has achieved overview over the situation. "Confidently" believing that we may consistently imagine our way around all those predicaments we may know nearly nothing about is, of course, foolhardy. Nuances are typically overlooked when the decision-maker is attempting to manage a scenario that he or she knows absolutely nothing about. Guess-estimates always carry with them the potential for being wrong estimates, and wherever possible should we avoid them entirely if we don't want anyone to perhaps become hurt by a wrong estimate. Professional decision-making (that is, decision-making that includes potential considerations of safety — life, quality of life) is best left to the professionally trained mind who, again, has attained overview over the situation.^*

   For example, as a mathematician, I may easily submit to you a mathematical problem which you would not be able to solve. Though you do know mathematics, you likely never specialized in the discipline, and you could ponder over for hours or days (or longer!) what any mathematician could solve in minutes. Furthermore, if my services as a mathematician were required by a corporation that decided to employ me, my decision-making would be limited to solving the mathematical difficulties at hand. My own particular training would disqualify me from assuming the position of, say, my superiors who would certainly be trained and cognizant of all the miniscule details needed to safely and effectively manage me and my peers on our boss(es)' property.

Knowledge is Power, but Competence provides the Keys to turn the ignition.

   Additionally, greater competence means fewer attempts we may need to try before the switch is at last turned, or the code is finally broken, or the door is finally opened and we subsequently recognize a viable solution to the problem at hand. Greater competence implies that there will be less fumbling around, fewer mistakes or oversights, less time consumed and less effort necessarily expended before finally recognizing an effective solution, in addition to a significantly smaller likelihood for potential subsequent error. We would be wise to remember this when we seek out competent help, for here is one additional problem to all those seemingly simple solutions mentioned above:

We may inadvertently allow error to ensue if we assume persons whom we admire as being more competent than they actually are, or if we fail to exercise the concern needed to check to make sure.

   This isolated problem is not an easy one to solve. Nothing can be more disconcerting than having an authority figure you trust tell you, "Problem taken care of,” only to discover later that matters weren't handled quite as you had anticipated. This represents a sad possibility we all face when we must rely on others to solve our troubles, because we haven’t the capacity to know all about everything. Our human lives are limited to learning less than e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. Solving this problem effectively hinges on the resources we have available to put in place the safeguards and/or exercise the double-checking necessary for avoiding it entirely. Pursuing a second opinion is usually the easiest way to work around it, but that solution is not necessarily foolproof either, and actually doing so customarily entails considerable costs.

It seems thrifty to believe ... that asking just one expert is enough ... because it is usually quite expensive to obtain ... expert advice, [but] it is useful to remind ourselves that specialists who are top experts often disagree on what is best ... each having his or her own good reasons.... Remember that experts are only human and can make bad mistakes, like anyone else.
— Daniel D Wheeler and Irving L Janis, A Practical Guide for Making Decisions, 1980.

   By "concerned," of course, is meant that you should be motivated to at least periodically ascertain that things are "going as planned," rather than blindly assuming that no mistakes could possibly be made from the moment you first communicated your plans all the way through to the final completion of the intended project. Whenever possible, always check to make sure. Confirm and Verify. Checking up on and monitoring others is not a trivial routine to be taken lightly. It is sometimes perhaps the only means for catching those mistakes that could lead to serious problems later on.

   A similar line of reasoning holds for the process of REVIEWING FOR POSSIBLE ERROR, before actually communicating that intended plan or making some final, weighty decision of considerable importance and consequence. "Have I addressed all the possibilities? Am I failing to recognize or discuss some rare exception to the rule that could potentially wreck serious havoc on all my planning?”

_________________________________
   ^*The untrained non-professional is likely to make assumptions that the trained professional would not. He may decide emotionally and pursue a gain or avoid a loss in some strategic way based upon an erroneous assumption. He may allow his perceptions to provide shortcuts for deducing erroneous conclusions. He may believe certain possibilities over others merely because they provide him with a means of feeling more comfortable about himself or others. If his own personality, mood or outlook at the moment of deciding is more rambunctious than timid, or more carefree than careful, he may neglect certain possibilities and opt for a poor decision that perhaps adequate training could have helped him to avoid. And so on. In short, the untrained non-professional must always seek out a more competent (trained, experienced, knowledgeable) professional if he doesn't want to overlook a dire possibility which others may suffer needlessly because of his own ignorance.

All opinions expressed in this web site, unless otherwise noted, are my own, Michael Gaspard. If you notice any errors or have any suggestions for improvement, please let me know by e-mailing webmaster@mdpme.com. Thank you!

This web page was last updated on Monday, May 24, 2004.
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