Episode 03 - Judgment at Work: A Framework for Better Leadership Decisions with Sir Andrew Likierman
This week on The Lift, Ben is joined by Sir Andrew Likierman, professor of Management Practice in Accounting at London Business School and the author of Judgement at Work: Making Better Choices.
Key takeaways:
Good judgment is a learnable leadership skill, not intuition or instinct
Applying judgment principles requires context and flexibility, not rigid rule-following
Awareness of personal biases and emotions strengthens decision-making
In the age of AI, judgment is a critical human advantage, helping leaders assess nuance, break patterns, and adapt when situations don’t fit the data
Strong leadership judgment depends on execution, not just analysis — a decision isn’t “good” if it can’t be carried out in the real world
In today’s episode, Ben sits down with Professor Sir Andrew Likierman to unpack a deceptively simple idea: judgment isn’t a feeling. It’s a process.
Andrew has spent decades studying what separates leaders who consistently make sound calls from those who get stuck in overconfidence, analysis paralysis, or “rule-following” that collapses the moment the context shifts. His core distinction lands fast: decision-making is an action – it’s something you do. But judgment is a capability – something you bring. We don’t usually praise someone for “good decision-making” as a personality trait; we say they have good judgment. That’s because judgment includes the human element: what you notice, the factors you weigh, who (and what) you trust, and how your beliefs and biases sneak into the room with you.
To make judgment practical (and teachable), Andrew offers a six-part framework leaders can use no matter the situation, especially in moments when you’re tired, stressed, or under pressure to move fast. He breaks judgment down into components you can actually improve:
Relevant knowledge and experience. What do you truly know that applies here – and what are you assuming?
Awareness of context. Every decision happens inside a specific moment: politics, timing, incentives, constraints, hidden agendas.
Trust. Are the people, data and inputs reliable? Are you over-trusting a “confident” source?
Feelings, beliefs and biases. You’re not a machine. Your emotions and worldview shape what you see as “obvious.”
How you make the choice. Slow down or speed up? Consider alternatives or commit? Who stress-tests the decision?
Deliverability. The best call on paper is not “good judgment” if it can’t be executed in the real world.
Throughout the conversation, Andrew makes a point to push back on rigid principles. Leaders often cling to rules (personal or organizational) as a shield, because saying “it was my judgment” can feel risky in bureaucratic or highly regulated environments. Andrew agrees that while blanket rules can be comforting, context is everything. Principles matter, but how you apply them in a given situation is judgment – mechanically applying a rule of thumb can be dangerous when the scenario doesn’t match the pattern.
That’s where ethics enters the chat. Andrew frames ethics not as a compliance checkbox, but as part of how beliefs shape judgment in real life, especially in ambiguous environments where “normal” practices differ across cultures. It’s not just what you believe; it’s how you apply your ethical framework when the pressure is on.
And consequently, there’s AI, the looming accelerant behind nearly every leadership conversation right now. Andrew’s take is bracing and oddly empowering: Yes, AI will dominate pattern recognition – the repeatable, rule-based, “if X then Y” stuff. But the differentiator for humans will be the next layer: deciding whether the current situation truly fits the pattern, noticing what’s different, and adapting accordingly. In other words, judgment is what keeps leaders valuable in an AI-shaped world.
Finally, Andrew shares a personal example of poor judgment that’s painfully relatable: Not starting a risky project, but staying in it too long and ignoring what the evidence was telling him because sunk cost (and pride) can be louder than clarity. It’s a sharp reminder that judgment isn’t about always being right. It’s about improving your odds and being willing to update your course when reality changes.
If you lead people, manage risk, build strategy, or simply want a clearer way to make hard calls, this episode gives you something rare: not what to decide, but how to think while deciding.
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Full Transcript
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Andrew: Audacity, always audacity, said Napoleon. You know — well, actually, no. Of course, I think one should have underlying principles, but how you apply those principles in context is judgment. You have different principles for different situations.
Ben: Welcome to The Lift, the show about leadership, growth, and getting what we want. I'm your host, Ben Brooks. For over a decade I've worked with CEOs, their executive teams, HR departments, and entrepreneurs to identify what drives their success and what holds them back. And now I'm excited to share those insights with you. On The Lift we pull up to see the bigger picture from accomplished leaders who know how to get things done in a rapidly changing world. We've got all of that and a lot more coming up next on The Lift. As leaders, we have so many decisions to make day in and day out, and I'm not sure about you, but I get decision fatigue — whether it's hiring, whether it's finance and accounting, whether it's team assignments. And sometimes it's hard for me, and probably many of you, to know if we're even making the right decisions. Well, today I am gonna introduce you to someone who can actually help sharpen not only your decision making skills, but more importantly your judgment. Sir Andrew Likierman. Yes, that's right — Sir Andrew Likierman is a professor of management practice and accounting, and actually the former dean at the London Business School, and the author of Judgment at Work: Making Better Choices. In his book, Andrew asks questions like: How do I know who to trust? Or, should I rely on my intuition? How do I best use my knowledge and experience? And generally speaking, is there a process to go through? Well, he's developed exactly that — a process that we can all follow to increase our judgment. So regardless of the situation you're in, how experienced you are, how tired you might be, you can follow Andrew's process. It's something that I've been using already and seeing great results. So let's welcome Andrew to the show. Well, Andrew, welcome to The Lift.
Andrew: Thank you so much for having me.
Ben: So at the beginning of the conversation, we'd like to have a few rapid fire questions — sort of either-or questions just to warm us up. So the first we'll start with is coffee or tea?
Andrew: Oh, coffee.
Ben: And clarity or curiosity?
Andrew: Ooh, both.
Ben: Fair. Are the best leaders born or made?
Andrew: Made. I'm at a business school. That's the industry.
Ben: Yes. And are you an early bird, Andrew, or a night owl?
Andrew: Early bird.
Ben: And what was the first job you ever had where you were paid for time or effort?
Andrew: I suppose it was my first proper job after I left university, where I was kind of a trainee cost clerk, really. It was very, very traditional, and they weren't used to having graduates. And so I sat next to somebody and learned from them literally on the job.
Ben: That's the best way though, let me tell you.
Andrew: It was really boring.
Ben: Okay. And Andrew, how would you describe your leadership style in a sentence?
Andrew: Inclusive.
Ben: Active, enthusiastic, full of good judgment, it seems to be. And we're excited to talk today about your research and your experiences around judgment, in the contribution to leadership and getting great results. It sounded like part of the genesis of your curiosity around judgment was your grandfather. I wonder if we could kind of start in the background about your grandfather and his story a little bit, and how it inspired you to be curious about judgment.
Andrew: Well, look, I mean, I'm very grateful for his good judgment, because he decided in the early 1930s — he was living in Romania at the time — and he said basically, look, I don't like the way things are going here in Europe more generally. And he went round the world to decide where he might go, and he decided on the United Kingdom, who at that time were welcoming to him, and he felt actually this was a country he wanted to move to, even though he didn't speak a word of English and he was age 60. I mean, why I find that particularly inspiring is a lot of people age 60 have kind of given up learning, and also perhaps are not prepared to do things which are inconvenient and difficult to them. It would've been much easier for him — he had a very good lifestyle in Romania. You know, why move? So I did find that inspiring, actually, as someone who keeps on keeping on top of things, always interested in learning. And I found that to be something which I think is a great role model.
Ben: So when you think about judgment for our listeners — you know, a lot of times, as you've said in your research and writing, we focus a lot on decision making, but decisions come from a place or a skill or a capability. Can you distinguish, you know, decision making or decisions from judgment, for our listeners to get a core understanding before we dive in further?
Andrew: Yeah. So decision making is an action. It's something you do. We talk about somebody, though, having good judgment. We don't talk about somebody having good decision making. So this relates very much back to who we are as individuals — what we bring to the decision. Judgment is very much about the links between us as people, for qualities we bring, in relation to the relevant experience and knowledge we have. So decision making, on the other hand, is a much more — not just mechanistic process, but it's one where you go through a number of steps, you have techniques and so on. Judgment is very much more about us in relation to the choice we're going to make. I'll do very briefly the question of how then I think we might exercise judgment. For me, it's a combination of a set of things that we need to do. First of all, it's the question of understanding what knowledge and experience we've got that's relevant. It's being aware of the circumstances where we're doing it. Every judgment is different to every other judgment. Take it in one set of circumstances, it's not relevant to another, and so on. It's awareness of what's going on in the meeting around you and so on. Number three is the question of the trust we've got in the people who are involved, who we rely on, the data we rely on, and so on. The fourth element is the feelings and beliefs we have. We all come with a sense of, you know, I have emotions about this, I have biases, I have beliefs — whatever they are, that's us involved. We are not machines. We are individuals approaching things in a very particular way. Number five is about the way we make the choice. Do we do it quickly? Do we do it slowly? Do we look at all the options, some of the options, and so on — the mechanics of the choice. And then finally there's the question, can we actually deliver it? Because there's no use having a great judgment if you can't actually deliver it. If you can't deliver it, it's not a great judgment.
Ben: Unless you're a consulting firm that's pitching big ideas, right, and getting charged by the slide or the hour — which, I used to be a management consultant myself. So one thing I was thinking about is, you know, you've been the dean of a business school and have multiple honorary degrees and advanced degrees. When I was in business school here in the United States, we had a guy named Bill Daniels, who was one of the pioneers of cable television, and he donated his, you know, life savings to our business school to create a curriculum around ethics. And you mentioned the fourth thing around feelings and beliefs. It was really important for me when I was younger to learn about ethics, because I had thought, oh, well, maybe ethics — that's about the law, or it's about compliance. And I was like, no, it's not that. And maybe it's about, you know, morality, or sort of what's right and wrong in faith or scripture or something — it's not that. And so it was really interesting to me, because I do think, when I think about judgment for myself, ethics is a part of it. Do you see it that way? Or where does ethics fit in, or doesn't fit in, with your understandings and research around judgment?
Andrew: Well, ethics is very much part of the way we make judgments. So I mentioned feelings and beliefs. Our beliefs, of course, are part of the ethical stance that we've got in relation to anything that we do. You know, why do we feel as we do? We have an ethical basis for what we do or not. The ethics for is an essential part of that. But also, whenever we're making an ethical decision, we are exercising our judgment. How do we apply our ethical framework to this? One of the things I teach here is actually business ethics, and I pose situations like, you know, would you take a bribe in a country where bribes are completely normal? You know, where that's the way you do business? What are the reasons for or against doing that? So we are exercising our judgment when we apply our ethics to a particular situation.
Ben: A belief that I've had that came from ethics — and I would love to kind of have you dissect this — but this idea of internships, professional with internships, and we've used interns at our company. And at least in the United States, there's often this sense of, oh, they get paid by getting academic credit and this experience. But my personal belief is that work shouldn't be free. So we have a policy of no free work at our company. Now, I'm the business owner — or the sole owner of the company — and so, P&L perspective, we would make more money in terms of earnings if we got free labor, right? That would optimize for a better profit outcome. But part of the internship is they get experience, but part of the experience is feedback and being challenged with things. And I find that — human guilt — if you don't pay somebody, you don't give them as much work. You don't have as high of standards. You expect less. You give them less feedback. And so it's sort of, while you get free labor, they get a crappy experience as an intern. And so I've just insisted as a business owner that we're going to pay all of our interns a reasonable, you know, labor rate, whether they ask for it or not. And it's a standard policy, and we pay the interns all the same. We pay them throughout, it's on time. It's not one big lump sum at the end, et cetera. So how do you look at that as a sense of judgment? 'Cause the law doesn't require me to do that. And maybe there's that poor judgment if I'm trying to be the best fiduciary for my company — or as a fiduciary beyond just earnings, and broader reputation or environment. How do you think about that?
Andrew: Well, judgment is the process of balancing just what you've described. On the one hand, you could clearly make more money in the short term by taking certain kinds of action. On the other hand, you've got long-term issues to decide, and the balance between those two is one element of the judgment which you're going to make. Secondly, there's the question of saying, alright, is it about profit maximization? In that case, is that the end of the story? You know what I mean? Or are there other issues in terms of the way I think I should be behaving, which doesn't necessarily mean profit maximization? So here's another judgment call, and the kind of framework which I've described, and on which I work, is about the business of how you approach that kind of choice. It's being more deliberate, more considered about the way in what you're doing, rather than just saying, oh, I just feel like it, you know? Now, I just feel like it is not a way of considering seriously the options, you know, because you may feel like it today and not tomorrow. You know? Have you actually thought about it? And for example, I worked with a regulator here in the UK about the question of their relationship with the people they regulate, and why my stuff has been useful — it's been because the regulator has been able to say, look, we need you to show you followed a process. If you followed a process in doing something, we would accept that you did the best you could, even if the outcome was wrong. If you are aware of the process, I would argue you have a better chance of getting what you want, rather than just plucking it out of the air, saying, it's all intuition, I don't know why, I got out of bed the wrong side this morning, whatever it is. I mean, granted, particularly about choices that are really important to you, I believe they deserve a sense of, I've approached this pretty carefully to get the best chance I can of getting the outcome I want.
Ben: I think oftentimes when we think of judgment of decisions, you know, in the easy conditions we're like, of course. But you know, if you're a parent and you don't have any money, but your baby needs medicine, what is right or what is wrong is a different context.
Andrew: Absolutely. And so I'm quite cautious about people who have got general rules about life, if you like, you know, where they say, actually, I follow the following principle. Well, look — the following principle may be really useful in lots of contexts. But in particular context, bluntly, it may not, you know. And you talk about a baby wanting something, and you say, well, actually, this isn't a good moment at which to assert the principle and say that's the only thing that matters. I mean, one has to be alive to the context in which one's operating, and simply mechanically applying some rule of thumb is a quite dangerous technique, actually.
Ben: We have various principles at our company, but it's not, you know, in absolute. Some of them can conflict with each other if you use them in various moments. And so how do you see a single principle versus maybe a battery of principles, that maybe you need to, again, use judgment about which principle applies or how they reconcile?
Andrew: Well, I think one always ought to use judgment. I mean, classically, the business about fools rush in where angels fear to tread, on the one hand. And on the other hand, you have people saying, go for it — audacity, always audacity, said Napoleon. You know, well, actually, no. You have different principles for different situations. Principles, I think, are — you know, of course I think one should have underlying principles, but how you apply those principles in context is judgment.
Ben: And I think about executives in organizations — it's different in an organization like mine, where I have full autonomy and authority. Some organizations — and we work with some, you know, insurance companies as example, and health plans — and you're pretty conservative. They're, you know, risk averse. They're regulated. They need a certain amount of certainty and predictability. Sometimes I find that there's very little judgment used, because everything is what the math says, and that if you're gonna make any decision — even one that is obvious to do, sort of a small thing or the right thing, or a temporary, irreversible thing — there still is this insane business case that has to be created, with all sorts of spreadsheets and poking holes and lots of meetings. And sometimes there'll be more money spent on making the decision than the decision costs either way. From a perspective of me, if I can say, about paying interns or not — well, that was my judgment. I chose to do that. But many executives I know would feel very naked if they were to say, it was my judgment, because they wouldn't have sort of receipts or proof that it was the right decision. How do you see this sort of behavior? 'Cause I see this very often, that there's quite a reticence, because there's a lot of disincentives and potential reputational and even economic survival risk for people in declaring that they use their judgment to make a decision, versus purely the facts or a process.
Andrew: Well, I think you've hit on the difficulty here, when people use judgment as being a kind of vague thing. You know, I can't justify it, I used my judgment. So I'm suggesting judgment actually is a process. I've set out a set of steps through which one goes to check out one's judgment on the way. And I'm suggesting, therefore, that when one says, I'm using my judgment, that should be about saying, I've gone through a process of identifying the particular factors involved in this situation and done my best to make the best choice. Now, that's the use of judgment as a process, rather than something very vague. And I gave the example of a regulator using this for the way in which they regulated — to ensure that people did follow a process when they were required to follow their judgment.
Ben: I know that you've been recognized for your work in helping to transform the finances and how the government manages financials in the United Kingdom, and in particular moving from cash based accounting to accrual. And when I thought about that — you know, at one point our company was cash based, and I thought about it, I was like, well, actually, cash requires less judgment. Because, for those that are not familiar, you know, if our company gets paid for 12 months of services and someone pays up front in one check, and we get $10,000 a month, we would record $120,000 when we got the check, versus recording $10,000 a month as we showed the services or deliver those services. What I found with doing accrual accounting is there's judgment involved. When do we record this? Or how much do we recognize? Or we did some of the work up front, or did we do this? Or what's material or not? And so in that shift, in taking, you know, the government bureaucrats and administrators, who probably like certainty and like very clear rules — what role in that transition did judgment play? I was just very curious, and I don't know if you've talked about this much before, but —
Andrew: No, absolutely. Now look, it's not an accident that the world uses accruals rather than cash. It's not something which just happened to occur. You know, several hundred years ago, when somebody discovered the nature of what accruals were all about, they cottoned onto the fact that this actually gives you important information that you need. We could all just operate on a cash basis. And of course, cashflow is very important in any organization, from the biggest in the world to the smallest. So it isn't to say that cash isn't important. It is, and it gives one very important information about what's going on. But if one wants to say, how well is the organization doing? One needs something a little more complicated than that, and the complication is to do with going onto an accrual basis — recognizing, for example, if you buy something that lasts for 20 years, that you spread the cost over 20 years and don't put the cost all into year one and then none after that. If people owe you money, that has to be recognized, that they owe you money, not just recognizing it when they've handed the money across. Now, both of those cases involve judgment. Judgment is integral to the notion of how we assess profitability in any organization. It's not an accident that I've worked with auditors to try and help professional auditors to improve their judgment, because they have to make assessments about what is reasonable. How long will the machine last? Will the person who owes us money pay us? These are matters of judgment when you are an auditor, and it's important that you exercise, therefore, professional judgment. And bluntly, if you are looking at a set of accounts, you need to know what judgments have been made in compiling them.
Ben: And I was curious — I believe you were knighted for this work. What does it mean to be knighted? Because it is a pretty big deal, and I just had to ask this, because I know our listeners are gonna say, if you didn't ask what that experience was like — you were very clear when we joined to not call you Sir Andrew, just Andrew. But tell us just briefly about being knighted.
Andrew: Okay, so this was a project which I led. It lasted for nine years. It was very complicated. It involved a lot of people in lots of different departments and different parts of the public sector here changing the way they were used to doing things. In terms of what it meant for me — this was a very, very complicated project, which took a long time and was quite hazardous, you know what I mean, to do. And at the end of it all, when it all came good, as it were, and we achieved what we sought to achieve in it — you know, I was very, very proud to have been honored in this way. I mean, particularly because in a sense it could be linked specifically to a project which I led, and that is something which, you know, is wonderful. Because in a sense, if you can make a direct link — you know, often these things can't be done in that way. I mean, all I can tell you was, I know that if this project had not been a success, I would not have been knighted.
Ben: Well, congratulations. You're the first knighted person I've had on this podcast, and I'm quite honored. I'm sure you won't be the last. If you were to be a private equity company acquiring a company, or looking at a prospectus for an initial public offering or direct listing, how would one tease out or assess beyond the numbers? 'Cause people say, I'm gonna do the due diligence, I'm gonna look at the numbers, we're gonna get these things. But there's these underlying assumptions in the judgment that will be written in letters and not in numbers. How is that captured, documented, found out, or understood?
Andrew: Going through the steps I suggested. You know, how much do you know about what's going on about this organization? You know, do you actually understand this organization? Have you done this kind of transaction before in this industry? Are you familiar with what goes on — the business of awareness? Are you aware of what the dynamics are surrounding this particular transaction? Do you trust the people? Do you trust the information you are getting? How do you feel about this? Are you mad keen to make the acquisition regardless? Are you ultra cautious, and therefore perhaps will pass up opportunities? You need to be aware of your own feelings and beliefs. How you make the choice — who gets involved in the choice, who checks it out, who's been looking at the numbers, who's gonna help you do it? Very important. And then finally — okay, so if it goes through, are you gonna be able to carry through on what you do? So you see, this is an exact application of how you would use a judgment framework of the kind which I've described.
Ben: You mentioned, you know, in the first part of the judgment framework, around, you know, sort of the pattern recognition or not, right? Every situation is different. And our brain works in these sort of if-then relationships. If saber tooth tiger, then run. How do you differentiate? Because a lot of times when executives are being evaluated, they'll talk about their experience, and they'll say experience and judgment, and they kind of collapse those things — which I think experience can inform judgment. But what do you see about, you know, pattern recognition, where it's a functional thing, and also where you're seeing something you think is a pattern? 'Cause your brain is addicted to having, you know, a why behind something, a cause and effect paradigm, and is agitated if it doesn't get that, because it doesn't know how to survive. So how do you see that?
Andrew: Okay, look, pattern recognition, we know is — I mean, AI is gonna be brilliant with pattern recognition. It is brilliant with pattern recognition. Much better than most human beings. So in terms of saying, if there is an established pattern, this is something which AI is gonna sweep the board on. What we have to bring as human beings is saying, alright, is what's happening now inside that pattern or not? And if it is, you know, that's absolutely fine. But most complex situations we've got are not exact replicas of what has happened before, even if it's happened many times before. And what we've got to do as human beings is to exercise our judgment to say, first of all, is this different? And if so, why is it different? And how are we gonna respond differently? If you think about the question of what human beings are good at — human beings are good at that. And I would argue that developing one's judgment is a way of differentiating yourself from the machine, because the machine's gonna pick up all the easy stuff, leaving human beings to exercise the judgment when it's more complicated and the machine's not going to cope. And so that's sort of why I see the future of judgment is being particularly important in an age of artificial intelligence.
Ben: And I'm curious, you know, sort of from two perspectives on AI. You know, one, how do executives, you know, not get replaced by it, or leverage it as a superpower. But I'm also curious because you're working with, you know, tomorrow's leaders and universities — I am seeing some younger people are looking, is it an easy button? To avoid having to go through the process, and to go navigate the gray areas, and to be deliberate. Just tell me what to do. And again, if it's a simple thing around the best route to get from here to here in the least amount of time, you know, Google Maps or Waze is a really great tool to do that. But on something a lot more complicated — you know, should I marry this person or not? — it may not be the best tool. So how do you think about it for both people that are further along in their careers, you know, this notion of judgment relative to using AI tools, and also for people that are earlier?
Andrew: Well, for those who are well into their careers, if they've got positions of responsibility, what they're gonna have to do with AI is to understand what the implications of AI is for their jobs, for the people they deal with, and so on. Because AI is not gonna go away. It can't be ignored. And if people are gonna survive as they, you know, are advanced in their careers, they're gonna have to say, alright, what does it mean for me? How can I harness AI to do my job better? How — what does it mean in terms of me needing to change? But in one sense, that's not different to the way things have been, you know, since the Industrial Revolution started. The fact is, getting stuck in your mindset has been a bad call for the last 250 years. You know what I mean? You have not survived well under that. For those who are early in their careers, they're gonna grow up with AI as an essential part of what everybody does. And the key thing there, seems to me, is to say, alright, is the path I'm going down one in which I, as a human being, are gonna be able to survive, excel, do the things I want — or am I going down a route which has not got long to go before AI comes and gobbles it up? You know what I mean? So in terms of career choice, it seems to me this is absolutely crucial. So judgment, again, as I say, is gonna be an important part of what we have to offer to the party as individuals. And we need to know how that's going to happen, because AI, as I say, is gonna do wonderful things, but it can't do a number of things. And that's what we are going to do as human beings, if we're adaptable enough to know how we're gonna do it.
Ben: You mentioned developing judgment. If people are listening to this podcast and they're like, wow, this seems really important — how do they develop their judgment? Is it around checking their biases, or is it around, you know, documenting their process, or is it something else? How does one document or improve their judgment?
Andrew: Okay. So look, if you are an individual and you think, alright, so what do I do? This sounds like something I should be doing — what do I do? I would argue the first thing you do is you say, alright, so in the process, what are the things I'm good at and not so good at? Let's say, hypothetically, you have strong feelings about things and they tend to get in the way of good judgment. Being aware of that is a great start. And then thinking, how do I compensate for that? You know, how do I not let that get in the way of rushing to something, feeling passionate about it in a way that's counterproductive. So being aware, number one. And number two, there's lots of ways you can do this. And if I can give a plug for my book, you know, my book —
Ben: Yes, please.
Andrew: You know, gives lists of things that you can do in terms of improving your knowledge, gaps in your knowledge, improving your ability to know who you can trust, improving your awareness, improving your awareness of your feelings and beliefs, improving the way you make choices, and improving the chances of delivering. So, you know, whatever the issues where you are relatively less good, there are ways of improving those. And, I mean, it's not a question of saying everybody has to do the same thing. You've gotta look at yourself and say, what do I need?
Ben: How would you think about measuring or assessing judgment on a per manager, executive leader, individual contributor basis?
Andrew: Well, I would use the same ideas — that's to say, if you break judgment down into its component parts, you say, alright, so how well are you doing on this, this, this, and this? And I can remember a time, when I was doing my work on the UK's national finances, when I used to get a form which I had to fill in for the people working for me, which said, assess this person on their judgment. And there was no guidance given as to how one does that. And in a sense, the work that I've been doing is to try and fill that gap — to try and say, alright, so this is what we mean by judgment. How well does this person measure up? In the same way, I'm working with people in the world of selection, so that candidates, for example, can be assessed on the business of saying, not just what does this person know — also, how good is their judgment? Because it's a question of applying what they know to the situation in which they'll find themselves. I mean, judgment's a key factor in saying, can someone apply the knowledge they applied somewhere else to us. So I think it's about bringing people in, it's about appraising them, but also giving encouragement to people to improve their judgment when they're in an organization, to enable them to make better choices.
Ben: You know, there's the left brain part that we're talking about judgment in this process and research, but I'm also curious often from a — if a judgment was a brand, we think about, sometimes it's negative. It's if someone's judgmental or judgey, or you have to see the judge, or these things. And so how do you help people, if they were to start to bring and talk about this coming back to work, and they say, no, we want an inclusive and open environment, or we want collaborative and multiple opinions, and they say, judgment — that sounds so right or wrong, or something negative. How would you have them frame this if they wanted to bring in this conversation — you know, buy your book, have you come speak, listen to this podcast? How would you have them frame that judgment is in fact a very good thing, rather than maybe the negative positioning some have around it?
Andrew: You raise an important point, which is, judgmental is the opposite of judgment as I'm describing it. Telling people, that's what you should do, this is what you ought to do, is the opposite of what I've just been describing. You know, it's about being judgmental. That's to say, my point of view will now tell you what to do, who you should be, and so on. Judgment, on the other hand, is something which says, this is a set of qualities that we have, that we're looking for in the individual. So we're not saying, this is what you should do — which eliminates the argument about judgment, in a sense. Being judgmental is about a point of view which I believe will prevail over you. That's the implication of judgmental — and what I think is what you should think. I mean, that is not what I've been describing. So I would say judgmental is a completely different thing to judgment.
Ben: So Andrew, as we are wrapping up our conversation today, I'm very curious around potentially poor judgment — maybe something you learned in retrospect, after some reflection or some things. All of us are imperfect, and I certainly have had many of those moments. What maybe was one of your moments where you, upon reflection or over time, realized that maybe you used poor judgment?
Andrew: Let me give you the example of a business which I started when I was quite young, and this was a kind of part-time — I was doing something else, but I did it in my spare time. And, I mean, I'm proud to say it was what Amazon are doing now — but this was 25 years before Amazon, and I wasn't nearly as smart as Amazon is. Okay? So I started a business which delivered printed matter to businesses quickly. This is — we're talking pre-internet here, so this was physical stuff. And I thought, you know something, it's very slow to get printed matter. I'm gonna get it to people quicker. And so I started this business, and I was very excited, and I thought, hmm, what happens if people won't pay? It's gonna be difficult. Anyway, so I started the business, and we got a few customers. I was very excited. I employed somebody to do it, because I didn't have the time to do it. And so I had a wage bill to pay, and they then employed somebody else, so it became a — you know, it was a two person business by now. And they actually did quite well. The problem was that we never made any money outta this. We could not cover our costs. And after a year, I thought to myself, is this really going to be okay? And I thought to myself, you know something, I think it's probably not. If people are not prepared to pay, they're not prepared to pay. I probably should call it a day. But no, I thought to myself, I'll go for another year to see what happens. Anyway, we went on for another year, and it made another loss. And I thought, time to stop. No — who knows? We might be able to make a breakthrough. Okay, you've got the idea. At the end of three years, I'd lost some money — not a huge amount, but I'd lost money. I'd lost a lot of time worrying about it, sorting it out, trying to sort out, and so on. So for me — good judgment to have a go. Bad judgment to carry on after a year, you know? So I couldn't bear — my feelings and beliefs — I couldn't bear to say this was a bad choice. Like going down the wrong route, when your partner tells you, I'm sure we should have turned left there, and you say, I'm sure we should have turned right, and you carry on regardless. I don't regret starting the business. I don't think that was bad judgment. I think I wanted to take a risk. I was prepared to take a risk. That was great. Bad judgment to carry on regardless.
Ben: I think that's a great distinction. 'Cause some people would say, oh, I won't take a risk if I don't know how it's gonna turn out. That's not what you're saying. But it's, once you got information along the way, ignoring it — 'cause of pride or sunk cost fallacy or persistence or whatever it might be. And Andrew, the last thing I'd like to ask you is, if you were gonna give me, you know, $10,000 — 10,000-pound — advice on judgment, and I was gonna pay you 10,000 pounds, what would you share with me or our listeners?
Andrew: My advice would be — you've got a difficult choice. You don't know what to do. Think about what you are going to do as a process, not just a kind of arbitrary stab at having a go. You wanna have a good chance of getting what you want. If you think about it as a process, my belief is you have a better chance of getting what you want.
Ben: I love that. Not what to do, but how to figure out what to do. For those of you that are interested in Andrew's book — Andrew, tell 'em what to search for and where to buy it.
Andrew: Okay. Thank you for allowing me. Okay, it's called Judgment at Work: Making Better Choices, and it's published by Profile, and I hope it's available on Amazon.
Ben: Well, Andrew, thank you for joining The Lift.
Andrew: Great pleasure.
Ben: Thanks for joining me this week on The Lift. For more info on what you heard in today's episode, visit our show notes. You can find bonus resources at pilot.coach/thelift. If listening to The Lift today was a good use of your time, please share it with a colleague, a friend — I don't know, your ex, your mother, anyone. Don't let good advice die with you. And for those of you who like to earn a little bit of extra credit, leave a comment on Spotify. We'd love to hear from you. The Lift is produced and edited by the team at editaudio. This episode was produced and edited by Ali. Our production manager is Kathleen Speckert. Our executive producer is Steph Colbourn. A special thanks to Korey Rich and Beth Gatsik.
