The same decision can be right and wrong at the same time

I had a mentoring session today, and among other things we went through a potentially contentious management decision my mentee had made.

In poker this is called a hero call or a hero fold. The first is when you call a raise holding cards that are not very good. The second is when you fold a very strong hand because you have worked out that the other man almost certainly holds something stronger.

From the outside both – the call especially – look exactly like a weak player at work. All the more so when the decision turns out to have been wrong.

The difference is the reasoning under the bonnet. Which means the very same action can be right and wrong at once, depending on what you meant by it.

Right and wrong live in the meaning, not in the outcome. A bad result in one hand can simply be variance; sound logic underneath comes out ahead over dozens and hundreds of repetitions.

There is one difference from business, and it decides everything. In poker it is enough that you understand what you are doing. Nobody else needs to know – and it is better if they do not.

In management that is not enough. You also need the confidence and the energy to carry that meaning across to everyone else.

At the table, being misread is how you win. Running a company, it is how you lose.