Expectations change how the same experience feels.
More quotesEvery post-mortem has a detective who knew the killer all along. After a launch succeeds, the strategy becomes visionary. After it fails, the same strategy becomes obviously muddled. The cleverest people in the room remember expressing exactly the right amount of concern, usually in a meeting where nobody took notes. Outcomes settle bets and quietly forge our betting slips.
That is commercially poisonous. A dreadful decision can win by luck and receive a bigger budget. A sensible experiment can meet an unlikely failure and get its owner quietly removed from anything adventurous. Soon the organisation rewards fluent stories about the past rather than better judgement, while teaching everyone to avoid bets whose uncertainty might later embarrass them.
I want forecasts written down before reality edits the manuscript. Not “high confidence”, which means whatever is convenient on Friday. Give me probabilities, assumptions, alternatives and the evidence that would change the call. If a campaign has a 60% chance of working and fails, that is not proof the forecast was stupid. If a 10% punt lands, please do not promote the roulette wheel to chief strategy officer.
Then begin the retrospective with the dated record, not the loudest recollection. Ask whether the process was good given what was knowable then.
Memory will arrive in a wig and make an eloquent case for whoever won. Fine. Put the original forecast in the witness box and make the clever bastard answer questions.