Being wrong about something important sucks. I’m not talking about wrong in the sense of a math error in a presentation. That’s usually fixable. That’s an error. Wrong is arguing that you should put the new office in Alaska versus Texas. Wrong is taking a position that actually turns out to be a bad outcome.
When we make recommendations, we are expected to support them. The worst case scenario is to have a waffle recommendation doesn’t firmly state a position. If the answer is three different answers, it’s no answer at all. At a certain level, your job is to make decisions and drive forward. Part of that trade-off is that, sometimes, you will be wrong.
The worst part of wrong is when the decision maker is unwilling to take into account new information. This world is one of change. If you aren’t willing to accept the possibility that you could be wrong, you present a bigger risk than a simple non-optimal outcome. You become the risk yourself. People who continue to support bad positions have to start cherry-picking data and results. They become biased to a viewpoint.
Risk management is about understanding the nature of how things can go wrong. There are things that can go wrong today, tomorrow, or 5 years from now. There are controllable risks and uncontrollable risks. There are acceptable risks and unacceptable risks. The biggest risk of all is a flawed decision-making process that leads to a predetermined outcome.
If you are willing to say that you could be wrong, you are more likely to have a robust decision-making process that is appropriately reviewing data and new information. If you are open to correcting course, total risk is reduced. That’s not to say you may not be wrong, but the risk is lower.