Value of Competence


Many people spent a lot of time, across centuries, trying to build good explanations, and trying to distinguish good from bad ones. While there is no consensus on what “explanation” is (always and everywhere), it is worth knowing what good explanations may have in common. It helps develop a taste in explanations, which is certainly helpful given how frequently you may need to explain something, and how often others offered explanations to you.
Figures 1 and 2 show cost versus time; Figure 1 shows long iterations, Figure 2 short iterations. We choose to do something at time zero, at the origin of the graph in the Figure, and when we do so, we do it under some assumptions that we made at that time. Dashed red lines convey…
To override a decision, you need to know a decision was made (observability), have rights to override it (authority), and believe that doing so will lead to a better outcome, including preventing undesirable outcomes (superiority).
Being entitled to make decisions carries with it the responsibility for outcomes of actions that the decisions led to. Accountability can be implemented through decision governance by defining responsibilities for outcomes of decisions. The idea that decision responsibilities are the counterpart to decision rights is easy to understand. However, defining useful decision responsibilities involves finding…
Motivated reasoning consists of processing information in a way that aligns with one’s desires, beliefs, or goals, rather than neutrally evaluating evidence. How to mitigate it through decision governance?