Acronym

Maybe it's the carry-out place I get my Chinese food from, but I get some of the worst fortunes in those tasteless cookies. I don't get "You're going to be rich beyond your wildest dreams," or even "A night of passion awaits."

Nope, I don't even get fortunes. I get things like:

"A fool judges people by the presents they give him."

"Dig the well before you get thirsty."

Sometimes they're not bad, such as:

"Deep doubts, deep wisdom; small doubts, small wisdom."

And then I run across one that gets tacked to my wall:

"Statistics are no substitute for judgment."

It doesn't say don't use statistics. Far from it I think. I love data. I'm one that hates what passes for data sometimes and think that poorly designed research should be criminal. Data on its own, though, is meaningless. Interpretation of data is what matters, and that's what the Chinese proverb is telling us. Look at the data, but then use your judgment to interpret it. Taking it one step further, judgment about how others interpret data is also critical. That's called scholarly debate. You don't have to be a Ph.D. at a university or thinktank to engage in it. I wish it were a more common occurrence for everyone.

Putting this in the organizational context, I think there are a couple of things of paramount importance.

1. It's critical that there be space for debate. Talk about different interpretations and judgments. These need to be safe, no bullying, as much as possible no hierarchy, sessions. All interpretations are valid and there is not a right and a wrong.

2. There also needs to come a time for decisiveness. Data, and debate about it, can be paralyzing. I don't believe there are right or wrong decisions so much as better and worse decisions, with the decider using his or her judgment.

And two important things to keep in mind about being decisive. The first ties in the debate, and it's what Jennifer Riel from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto talked about at the Great Ideas Conference and again at the Invitational Forum on Leadership & Management. She said the best leaders seek out alternative solutions (not "A" or "B," but the previously unthought of "C"). The second thing to keep in mind is when a decision is made based on an interpretation different than yours, it's not a matter of winning and losing, and it's a mistake to look at it as such.