Unlucky 13

Unlucky 13

This is my 13th LiftWorkshop Reflection.

When I realized that, I couldn't help but think about the number thirteen's reputation.

Buildings skip the 13th floor.

Friday the 13th has an entire mythology built around it.

Somehow, thirteen became unlucky (a rabbit hole I’m now going to have to go down to understand).

Anyway, this got me thinking about luck.

More specifically...

How often do we confuse being good with being lucky?

The promotion that worked

Years ago, we ran a promotional stunt.

And by every measure, it worked.

"Worked" doesn't begin to describe it.

Walk-off-grand-slam, bat-flip worked.

It wildly exceeded our expectations and instantaneously became legendary.

Because our overall performance that quarter was also the best on record.

The conclusion seemed obvious.

The promotion worked.

And because it worked so well, we naturally gave it a fair amount of credit for the broader improvement in the business.

There was just one problem.

That… 

wasn't… 

what… 

actually…

happened.

A sequence of macro forces was driving much of the underlying business performance.

Those same forces also amplified the results of our promotion.

We thought the promotion was helping drive the business.

In reality, the promotion was largely a beneficiary of what was driving the business.

That's a very different conclusion.

So naturally, we did more of it

About a year later, we expanded the promotion.

After all, we had evidence that it worked.

Except this time...

It didn't.

In fact, the promotion appeared to be hurting the business.

So… was the promotion brilliant the first year and terrible the second?

Not really-ish.

Once again, macro forces outside the promotion were affecting the business, which was in turn, affecting the promotion’s effectiveness.

(Wow, that was a mouthful).

Different environment.

Different result.

Same temptation.

The first time, we were prepared to give the promotion too much credit.

The second time, we were prepared to give it too much blame.

In both cases, we were initially leaning on the wrong lesson.

Results don't tell us why

We observe an outcome and naturally want to explain it.

Revenue increased.

The campaign worked.

Retention improved.

The new program worked.

Performance declined.

That new initiative failed.

Sometimes those conclusions are right.

Sometimes we're simply attaching a plausible story to an outcome.

Results tell us what happened.

They don't necessarily tell us what caused them.

That's not a subtle distinction.

A good outcome doesn't automatically validate the decision that preceded it.

And a bad result doesn't necessarily invalidate it.

A well-reasoned decision can encounter unfavorable circumstances.

A poorly reasoned decision can benefit from favorable ones.

Sometimes we're good.

Sometimes we're lucky.

And sometimes we don't fully understand the difference.

Success deserves scrutiny too

Failure usually gets a lot of attention.

We investigate it.

What happened?

What did we miss?

What do we need to change?

Success gets a different treatment.

It normally gets the scrutiny hall-pass.

We celebrate it.

Then we try to repeat it.

That's where successful outcomes can become surprisingly dangerous.

Because if we misunderstand why something worked, we may confidently repeat something that wasn't actually responsible for the result.

The most dangerous lesson may not be the one we failed to learn.

It may be the wrong lesson we're confident we learned.

(let that sink in for a moment…)

And that’s precisely why successful decisions deserve scrutiny too.

Not to diminish the success.

To understand it.

Two different questions

When reviewing an important decision, I think we should ask two separate questions:

Did we make a good decision?

And...

Do we really understand why we got the outcome we got?

The first asks us to examine what we knew, believed, assumed, and expected when the decision was made.

The second asks us to examine what actually happened afterward - including forces outside our control.

These are different questions.

Separating them helps us avoid rewriting the quality of a decision simply because we now know how the story ended.

It also helps us avoid confusing coincidence with causality.

An outcome is evidence that something happened.

It isn't necessarily evidence of why.

Reflection

Think about an important decision that turned out exceptionally well.

Now forget for a moment how it ended.

Was it a good decision?

Then ask the harder question:

Do you really understand why it worked?

Sometimes we were good.

Sometimes we were lucky.

Knowing the difference is how we get better.