Judgment over Code
Why Leaders Stop Outsourcing Decisions to Flawed Models
On the afternoon of 28 April, Iberia went dark. Two generators tripped in southern Spain, frequency plunged, and thirty seconds later 58 million screens froze. Meanwhile, the gridstability models insisted all was well.
This tells us two things.
First: every model of the future is wrong; second- and third-order effects hide until they dominate.
Second: today’s leaders are outsourcing judgment to flawed models, incomplete systems, and overconfident experts.
In the British comedy series Little Britain, a customer asks a travel agent for options to reach a destination. The agent taps her keyboard, glances up, and says, “Computer says no….”
Replacing common sense with outsourced thinking is everywhere. Complex ERP systems strip routine choices from employees, but their inflexibility makes nonroutine decisions consistent, predictable and often wrong.
Business strategy shows the same drift. Strategic choices are increasingly handed to consultants instead of being owned by senior leaders.
As executives, we are paid for the quality of our judgment. It’s time we stop letting others think for us and put our own brains in the driver’s seat again.
This week, name one decision you’ve ceded to a model and reclaim it.