What Is It?
In a highly uncertain work environment, making a random decision (flipping a coin, pulling ideas from a hat) can lead to better results than by using “best practices.”
Who Does It?
In a recent neuroscience study from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Dougal Tervo and colleagues found that it was better for rats to make random decisions in certain situations because the rat’s past experience could be misleading. The researchers related this to way people make decisions: “When we’re faced with the unfamiliar, experience can mislead humans, too, partly because we filter it through various irrational biases.”
What Problem Does It Solve?
When making important decisions at work, we often use decision making models based on what’s been successful for our organization in the past. Doing something—anything, even randomly—gives you feedback you can learn from, while adopting “wait and see” attitude or sticking to “best practices” will prevent you from adequately assessing the new environment.