What Is a Decision? The Structure That Explains Why Good Leaders Still Get It Wrong

The Three Elements of Every Decision

Every decision you make comes from three parts.

Three forces sit at the centre of every decision — information, outcomes, and action.

They were all present the day I spent with Nick. My manager had information — he'd watched Nick work for three months. He'd anticipated an outcome — that Nick would come good. And he'd taken action — he'd backed him publicly.

But the three weren't working together. That was why the verdict wouldn't come.

None of them works in isolation. And none of them is as straightforward as it first appears.

Information — What You Think You Know

Every decision begins with what you know.

Or more accurately, what you think you know.

My manager knew this. His information about Nick was three months old — and he was treating it as current.

Information is rarely objective. By the time it reaches you, it has already been filtered. Through your experience. Your assumptions. The people who framed it for you.

Think of the evidence presented in a courtroom.

Two lawyers, same facts, entirely different narratives. Neither is lying. Both are interpreting. That's the nature of information — it reflects the lens through which it's viewed as much as the reality it describes.

I'd spent a day with Nick. My manager hadn't. His picture of Nick was built from an earlier version of the evidence — the candidate he'd hired, not the salesperson now in front of us. The information didn't change — the viewpoint did.

For leaders, the most dangerous moment isn't when information is obviously incomplete.

It's when it feels complete.

That's when confirmation bias takes hold — the tendency to notice what confirms what you already believe, and overlook what challenges it.

The availability bias works similarly. Recent events, vivid memories, familiar patterns — these loom larger than they should when you're assessing a situation.

Neither bias announces itself.

My manager never asked what his information might be hiding. He didn't need to — he already knew the answer. Except he didn't.

Which is why the first question to ask of any information isn't "what does this tell me?" but "what might this be hiding?"

Outcomes — What You Expect to Happen

My manager anticipated that Nick would come good. That anticipation was shaped by what he'd already invested — not by what the territory was telling him.

Every verdict carries an expectation.

You decide because you believe one course of action will lead somewhere better than another. But that belief is never built on certainty.

It's built on anticipation.

And anticipation is shaped by more than logic.

History plays a role. The outcomes you've seen before — good and bad — colour how you read the present. This is where base rates matter. What has actually happened in situations like this one, not just what feels likely right now?

Incentives play a role, too.

Consider a salesperson assessing which clients to prioritise.

The most strategically important accounts and the most commission-generating accounts are rarely the same list. Incentives quietly tilt the outcomes we expect toward the outcomes we want.

Context shapes everything.

The same decision made under pressure, or fatigue, or with a room full of people watching, produces different anticipated outcomes than one made calmly and alone.

None of this makes anticipation unreliable.

It makes it human.

The goal isn't to eliminate these influences — it's to see them clearly enough that they don't decide for you.

Which brings you to the third element — and the one where intention most often falls apart.

Action — What You Actually Do

My manager's hesitation wasn't cowardice. It was the gap between deciding and doing — the moment where intention and reality pull apart.

This is where the verdict is handed down.

You've weighed the evidence. You've considered the likely outcomes. Now you act.

There are forces working against you here that have nothing to do with the quality of your thinking.

Entropy is one of them.

The world is not a controlled environment. Randomness introduces variables you couldn't have anticipated.

Circumstances shift. People behave unexpectedly.

What seemed like a clear path forward becomes complicated in ways no amount of careful analysis could have prevented.

Then there's execution itself.

We are imperfect executors of our own intentions. Organisational friction, competing priorities, and the simple reality of human nature mean that even well-considered decisions don't always translate cleanly into action.

This isn't a reason to hesitate.

It's a reason to stay alert after you've decided — to monitor, adapt, and adjust as reality unfolds rather than assuming the verdict alone was enough.

A good judge doesn't just hand down a ruling and walk away. They understand that justice depends on what happens next.

Why the Interaction Matters

My manager didn't fail on one element. He failed on all three — because each one was pulling the others in the wrong direction.

Here's what most decision-making advice misses.

It treats information, outcomes, and action as separate steps in a process. Gather the facts. Predict the result. Take the action.

But that's not how decisions actually work.

These three elements don't follow each other — they influence each other.

The information you have shapes the outcomes you anticipate. The outcomes you anticipate shape the action you're willing to take. And the action you take feeds back into the information available for your next decision.

It's not a checklist. It's a system.

And like any system, it's only as strong as its weakest part.

When information is distorted by bias, the outcomes you anticipate are built on a false picture. When incentives corrupt your view of likely outcomes, your actions serve the wrong goals. When execution fails, even the best judgment produces poor results.

Cases aren't lost on individual pieces of evidence.

They're lost when the evidence, the argument, and the delivery don't connect.

Your decisions work the same way.

Understanding how to improve your decision making starts one level back — with how you assess the quality of your decisions in the first place.

Knowing where the system is breaking down is what separates leaders who learn from experience from those who simply repeat it. Is it your information? Your anticipation? Your execution?

Choosing the right decision making framework for the situation is where that starts.

The Question Worth Asking

Before you hand down your verdict, pause.

Not to second-guess yourself. Not to search for certainty you'll never find.

Just long enough to ask one question.

What does the evidence actually say — and what might it be hiding?

That single question puts all three elements to work.

It challenges the information in front of you. It tests the outcomes you're assuming. And it creates the space between impulse and action where better decisions are made.

You won't always like the answer.

Sometimes the evidence points somewhere uncomfortable. Sometimes it reveals a bias you'd rather not acknowledge. Sometimes it simply confirms that uncertainty is real and the path forward isn't as clear as you'd hoped.

That's not a weakness in the process.

That's the process working.

The leaders who decide well aren't the ones who always get it right. They're the ones who ask better questions, see their thinking more clearly, and act with the awareness that every verdict — however well considered — is still a judgement call.

It's the very essence of effective decision-making at work.

Nick's story had an answer. My manager just couldn't see it — because he wasn't asking the right question.

Understanding the structure is the first step. And if you want to sharpen the process behind your verdicts, the Leader's Guide to Decision Making is the place to start.

Think of a decision you're currently sitting on. Whose version of the evidence are you working from — and what might it be hiding?