July 30, 2025 • 53 mins
In this episode of The Evolving Leader, Jean Gomes is joined by Sir Andrew Likierman, former Dean of London Business School and one of the world’s leading experts on judgment. Drawing from decades of research across business, government, medicine, and the military, Andrew breaks down what judgment really is: the combination of personal qualities, relevant knowledge, and lived experience applied to a particular decision.
Together, they explore:
· Why judgment is not the same as intelligence or expertise
· The six components that shape every decision
· How to spot (and avoid) bad judgment
· The rising importance of human judgment in the age of AI
· Practical ways leaders can develop and embed better judgment in their teams
Whether you're leading through uncertainty or navigating complex decisions, this episode offers essential insights into what makes judgment a critical (and trainable) human advantage.
Referenced during this episode:
‘Judgement at Work: Making Better Choices’ (A Likierman, 2025)
Other reading from Jean Gomes and Scott Allender:
Leading In A Non-Linear World (J Gomes, 2023)
The Enneagram of Emotional Intelligence (S Allender, 2023)
Social:
Instagram @evolvingleader
LinkedIn The Evolving Leader Podcast
Twitter @Evolving_Leader
Bluesky @evolvingleader.bsky.social
YouTube @evolvingleader
The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jean Gomes (00:00):
Good judgement is something everyone would like to
have and to be seen to have.
It's also one of the mostimportant human qualities that
will differentiate us from AIagents. But it turns out it's
remarkably difficult to defineprecisely, and many people are
not sure whether they personallypossess it. Sir Andrew lickerman
of the London Business Schoolhas spent his life talking to
(00:22):
leaders in a wide range offields, from business and the
army to law and medicine, in aneffort to create a framework for
understanding judgement. First,he had to define the word he now
suggests that judgement is thecombination of personal
qualities with relevantknowledge and experience to form
opinions and take decisions. Heargues, the thus defined
(00:45):
judgement involves a processtaking in information, deciding
whom and what to trust,summarising one's personal
knowledge, checking any priorbeliefs or feelings, summarising
the available choices and thenmaking a decision. At each
stage, decision makers must askthemselves questions such as
(01:06):
whether they have the relevantexperience and expertise to make
the choice, and whether theoption they favour is practical.
Expertise can be useful inmaking judgments, but it's not
the same thing. Academics haveexpertise, he observes they
don't necessarily havejudgement. People with judgement
know when they're out of theirdepth in making a decision, and
(01:27):
typically then seek the adviceof someone who has the right
background and knowledge. Inthis fascinating conversation,
Andrew ligament gives us a tourof his Lifetime's work into the
art of judgement. Tune in to animportant conversation in the
evolvingso welcome to the show, Andrew.
(01:49):
Would you just give us a senseof who you are, your background
and the things that you havedone?
Andrew Likierman (01:58):
Right? Well, I've done a lot of very
different things, and that isactually relevant to the subject
at hand here, because I've hadthe opportunity to see good and
bad judgement in many differentcontexts. So I started out in
commercial life. I was involvedwith in manufacturing. I
actually ran a textile plant inGermany. I then moved into
(02:20):
academic life, I then moved backinto commercial life, I then
moved back into academic life. Ithen moved into government. I
moved back into academic life, Imoved into government again, and
now I'm back in academic lifeand in academic life, I've been
involved both as a teacher andresearcher, but also as an
(02:44):
administrator. So I was dean ofthe London Business School for a
period of time, and while, as Isaid that I believe that's
relevant is because I've seenjust what good judgement can do
and what judgement really whyit's so important and why it's
potentially so disastrous fororganisations. Thank
Jean Gomes (03:05):
you. So it seems so obvious to us this word
judgement. We all have a anunderstanding of it, but let's
set the scene and describe whatis judgement. What's the big
picture here? And why do youthink this conversation is so
important right now?
Andrew Likierman (03:22):
Well, looking at the question of what
judgement is, so I've definedit, and there is no standard
definition. It's defined evendifferently in dictionaries
around the world. What I'vedefined it ad as being the
combination of the personalqualities that we have as
individuals, and therefore whatwe bring to the judgement in
(03:45):
relation to the relevantknowledge and experience we have
in relation to this particularchoice. And you've noticed that
I'm talking about thisparticular choice, one of the
reasons why, understandably,very little research is done in
this area, is if each judgementis different to every other
(04:09):
judgement. This is a nightmare,as far as research is concerned,
in a conventional sense, becauseit's very, very difficult to pin
down the reasons why things aredifferent, and therefore to kind
of make sense of a hypothesiswhich can be proved or disproved
in a conventional, academic way.
So for me, this is about verymuch the context of a particular
(04:33):
choice and the way we approachthat choice. This is really the
key to the work that I've beendoing.
Jean Gomes (04:44):
So we'll come a little bit more to the kind of
ecosystem, or the kind ofdifferent aspects of what
judgement is. But again, whatdoes, what does bad judgement
look like?
Andrew Likierman (04:57):
Well, I think we all know what bad judgement
look. To that, because I'm surewe've all been the victim of bad
judgement. When other peoplemake bad judgments, they affect
a lot of other people. A badleader, bad here, defined as
someone who has not got goodjudgement, can be disastrous for
(05:19):
an organisation. I mean takingall the wrong decisions, making
all the wrong choices, evenmaking one single disastrous
choice, can be enough to wreckan organisation. So it can be
very bad indeed to be at thereceiving end of bad judgement,
(05:40):
which is why, you know, it'sanother reason why it's not just
a question of saying, You knowwhat, it's important to
recognise and exercise goodjudgement, but also it's very
important to not to exercise badjudgement and to recognise it in
other people. Because if youhire somebody who's got bad
judgement, and they'reresponsible to you. Well, it's a
(06:01):
bit of a nightmare, because, youknow, you can't rely on them.
You can't trust them. I mean,they can do the most strange
things. And you know, if you'rethe if you're their boss, then
you carry the can for that. SoI'm suggesting that bad
judgement is very, very obvious.
We see it. I mean, just takesome examples in the press. Very
(06:23):
often when people resign fromsenior positions, they say, you
know, it was an error ofjudgement, and they are right
very often, doing the wrongthings, you know, cheating,
whatever it is, you know,flouting the rules, doing some
(06:44):
it's completely unacceptable, isbad judgement and the sadly, as
I say, almost any scandal hasgot the words bad judgement or
poor judgement, or It was anerror of judgement, or it was a
huge error of judgement, evenattached to the resignations
(07:05):
involved. So as I say, that's,you know, this is high stakes
stuff
Jean Gomes (07:13):
in your recent book, which I loved judgement at work.
And this is what kind of drew meto inviting you onto the show
you make it that distinction oflots of different gradations of
bad judgement, ranging fromfairly mild everyday kind of
things that we do tocatastrophic types of error. And
(07:34):
I suppose one of the problemsthat we've got is that this is
conflated with intelligence andcharacter and morality, even,
and so on. Self awareness.
There's a whole range of thingsthere that when people talk
about judgement, when you saysomeone's got bad judgement, you
could be describing them as socan we look at this systematic
approach, the components ofjudgement that you have started
(07:54):
to identify?
Andrew Likierman (07:58):
So I'm approaching this with the
assumption that all of usbenefit potentially from
understanding more about theprocesses that we make judgement
about, that you know, in doingour jobs and indeed in our
private lives as well, we knowthe stakes are high, and
(08:22):
therefore it is worthapproaching this more
systematically than simplyhoping for the best or assuming
the experience we've got isenough and whatever it is. So
that's the basis of which I say,Look, you really need to look
this more systematically. AndI'll be briefly go through the
different elements involvedhere, and I'm happy to expand in
(08:45):
more detail, if you like. Thefirst thing is, and I've already
alluded to it, it's theknowledge and experience that we
bring to a particular action.
Now, if we've done something 50times, the 51st time is really
pretty easy, because unlesssomething's changed, let's
assume it hasn't, then we bringa lot of knowledge and
(09:07):
experience to bear. If we'venever done something, then,
frankly, the risks involved aremuch, much higher, and we need
to recognise that even in ourprivate lives, we go on holiday,
you know, we go on holiday to anew place. Well, we've got to
make quite a lot of assumptionson the way. We can help
ourselves greatly by doing anumber of things. I'm going to
(09:30):
suggest. But you can see herethe risks of not having done
something before are there. Andif we're doing something like a
merger and acquisition, if we'redoing something like a big IT
project where lots is involvedfor the organisation, then this
is not a trifling issue. Sothat's number one. Number two is
(09:54):
the question of the awareness wehave of. What's happening when
we make our choice as part of ajudgement. And that awareness
can be about the situation thepeople involved, what their
motivations are, understandingthe dynamics in the room when a
choice is made, things likethat. This is very much the
(10:17):
question of what's happeningwhen the choice itself is being
made. The third one is the trustwe have in the people and the
data and the information that weget. All of us rely on other
people. We don't do things onour own. We rely on other people
to help us with our gaps theknowledge and experience we
(10:41):
don't have. We ask people, weask experts so on, to come in
and help us. Question is, can wetrust them? And that's the third
element here, allied to which wehave the question of whether we
have trust in the data that weget. Now, you know full Fake
news is in the news, as it were,we know about that, but we know
(11:02):
we have to be careful. The factis, not everything on the
internet is quality controlled,not everything that we
necessarily get. I mean, evenfrom chat GPT. I, you know, I
asked chat GPT to direct mesomewhere in a foreign capital,
and I'm afraid it took me to thewrong place. But actually, you
know, I'm that's partly becauseI gave the wrong instructions.
(11:25):
But what I'm saying is, youcan't just say, Oh, it's all
right. Chat. GBT will answer allmy questions in life, not quite
enough. So number three, then,is trust. Number Four are the
feelings and beliefs we have.
Now, we all have feelings andbeliefs. We come to any choice
we make thinking, Well, youknow, do I feel good about this?
(11:48):
Do I feel optimistic, you know,and so on. So that whole area,
which includes our biases andour prejudices and our values
and all the kinds of thing, isreally the kind of filters that
we have through which all thisinformation flows before we make
a choice, and when probably notconscious most of it, but I'm
(12:09):
going to argue we should beconscious of it, because it does
affect the quality of ourjudgments that comes as number
five brings us to number five,which is when we actually Make a
choice. And we've all sat inrooms where we can see that the
choice is being made on a verygood basis, very rational basis.
People argument. Arguments aretaken account of. People argue
(12:32):
and counter with each other tobe there's a sense of getting
what's best out of the room. AndI'm sure we've all been in
situations where, bluntly, thishas not been so where you have
a, let's say, a dominantchairman who basically squashes
all dissent and just tellspeople really what they ought to
be thinking. I mean, that's justone example of the way in which
the process itself can go wrong.
On the other hand, if it can bedone, well, that's fantastic.
(12:57):
Bringing all the data together,bringing all the contributions
into the room together, and soon. Finally, there's the
question for decisions we makeof whether we can deliver it,
because bluntly, it's no usesaying, you know, I think this
is a great idea if bluntly it'snot deliverable. So I would say
that ability to deliver is partof the mechanism. Now I've gone
(13:21):
through those six, not alwayseasy to remember, but that's
what I mean by the components ofthe judgement process.
Jean Gomes (13:30):
And it's not, it's not an entirely linear process,
is it? It
Andrew Likierman (13:34):
isn't No, and I've gone through 123456, but
actually, in many cases, wemight say, All right, let's say
we get to a meeting to decidesomething. The meeting says,
Look, we can either do this orwe cannot do it. And somebody
says, probably quite rightly,let's say, because the risks may
(13:57):
be very high here, of saying,Look, why don't we try it out?
Why don't we pilot it in onearea first to see if it works,
and then we'll perhaps do itthing. Now that's a third option
which has been built for thechoice now that may not have
been thought about. So back yougo to, if everybody agrees,
actually that's a way ofmitigating risk. Then back you
go to have another chance atlooking at what's involved in
(14:21):
that. You might say, look, it'snot feasible to do it for just a
little bit of the organisation,to pilot it, whatever it is. And
you may then eventually dismissthat. But let's say you do
decide, at least to take itseriously, you'd need to go back
to an earlier stage. So there isa process of reformulating ideas
as one goes through thejudgement process.
Jean Gomes (14:47):
In your research, when you look at this way of
thinking about judgement, do yousee kind of cultural differences
where one aspect of this isstronger or. In different kind
of cultures or parts of theworld, or is it fairly, you
know, kind of random?
Andrew Likierman (15:08):
No, I and this is something I was very
conscious of in doing this work.
I mean, I'm privileged to workat a business school which is
incredibly International, andtherefore I have access to
people from, you know, many,many different countries around
the world. I mean, we have, wehave 106 countries currently
represented on on campus. Now,I've also been around talking to
(15:29):
groups in, for example, cultureswhich are seen as different,
particularly different includingJapan and China. And I have
asked people there directly,look, do you think this applies
to you? And for example, inJapan, I was told, Look, the
process by which we make ourchoices is not the same as that
(15:50):
as you do in the UK or WesternEurope. We the process itself is
different, but we recognise whatyou're saying here in terms of
these different elements of thejudgement process. And we don't
think you would, you shouldchange them for Japan. We would
apply them, though, in adifferent way. So my sense is,
(16:12):
and I see I've talked to people,you know, Argentina, I've talked
to people in very, verydifferent cultures in different
parts of the world and and I'veactually challenged and asked
them to say, Do you think thiswould apply to you, or should I
be thinking about somethingdifferent for you? They have not
come up with something which isdifferent. So of course,
(16:34):
everybody is different. Everyorganisation is different, every
country is different. But Ithink the basis of looking at
these big categories, I wouldsay, is not universal, but can
be applied almost anywhere.
Jean Gomes (16:52):
As you said at the beginning, you've been studying
this for a long time, and youmust have seen a change in how
leaders make decisions, becauseobviously they're making a lot
of decisions today in veryshorter cycles of time, and kind
of strategic planning cycleshave sped up, and the complexity
(17:12):
of organisations and so on, andthe level of uncertainty. How
are you seeing judgementchanging in its relative
importance or the nature ofjudgement during that time.
Andrew Likierman (17:27):
Well, you're right to say that things have
speeded up. I mean, I thinkpeople are impatient to get on
with things. You know, they thesort of lengthy research process
which might have been fine twoor three decades ago, people say
the world is moving too fast. Wecan't afford to do that. I don't
think that's any issue here atall in terms of the way one
(17:51):
looks at judgement. Because whatyou're doing, in essence, you're
saying, all right, we won't doan absolutely comprehensive
study on whether we should enterthis new market, whether we
should have this product,whether we should hire this
person, you know we willactually the thing needs to go
faster. So I would say that'sfine. You have also to recognise
(18:14):
that if you're speeding thingsup, if you're not doing the kind
of due diligence which you mightotherwise chosen to do, then you
have to recognise you are takingmore risk. And you may say,
that's fine. We've got to takecertain risks. We're prepared to
take the risks. So I don't thinkthere's anything wrong or
anything different about sayingwe're working in a world which
(18:38):
is anxious to get on withthings. You know, perhaps not as
careful as as might have beenseen to be right a while ago.
But risk is really where, whereyou're at. You know, if you're
prepared to take a risk, and youknow all this is about taking
risk, question is, how much riskyou're prepared to take, then,
(19:02):
you know, that's fine. I mean, Ithink, but you just have to
understand what you're doingwhen you do it,
Jean Gomes (19:08):
yeah, and when you when you look at organisations
which you're constantly talkingto across these six different
areas, how many do you do yousee? What proportion Do you see
that have a more systemic,systematic approach to
judgement? Well,
Andrew Likierman (19:28):
one of the fascinating things for me is
that actually there are very feworganisations which look really
carefully at this process. A lotof organisations, well run
organisations will be doingquite a lot of this anyway, you
know, they will try and makesure, I just give you one
example, that when they hiresomebody, there is a systematic
(19:52):
process in place for hiringpeople, you know, and they will
try and make sure that the finalchoice. Is not dominated by a
single individual and so on. Sothis is the kind of thing which
it seems to me, one needs tolook out for if one isn't
already doing it really well.
And I'm not suggesting, youknow, people who are involved in
good practice suddenly have torethink the good practice. Good
(20:15):
practice is great. It's whenyou're not you know, when you're
not sure about whether you'vegot good practice or not,
whether you think to yourself,actually, you know, am I
confident about this choice thatwe are about to make that
particularly, you need to beaware of the process. So I would
say, well, run organisations ingeneral do this well, because
(20:40):
one of the definitions of doingsomething well is exercising
judgement well. Andorganisations that get
themselves into trouble bydefinition, are not doing very
well on the judgement front. So,you know, I think it's a kind of
thing which it which isdemonstrated by outcomes. My
(21:01):
work is trying to help peoplenot be part of those who are
demonstrated to be doing thingsbadly in terms of the outcomes.
I mean, if you want to stat, asI keep on putting it, stack the
cards in your favour of making agood choice, I think you ought
to approach judgementsystematically.
Jean Gomes (21:22):
So what are you advising leaders who want to
build a culture of goodjudgement? And I'm thinking
particularly this, the kind ofself awareness piece around
here, which is so critical to beable to stand back and go, you
know, are we falling intointelligence traps or biases and
so on. What do you do toencourage people to do that?
Andrew Likierman (21:44):
Well, the first thing, it seems to me, is
that one needs to incorporatethe idea that judgement is
important in the way one hirespeople and assesses them and
promotes them. So if you say,actually, we're looking for
people with good judgement whenyou hire people. I mean, that's
one of the criteria you shouldbe using similarly in the
(22:07):
appraisal process. Once you'vegot an idea of what judgement
is, you can put that in as oneof the things you're looking
for, not just is somebody hasgot particular qualities in
terms of their personality, butactually, have they got good
judgement? It's something worthtalking about at an appraisal
interview annually, whatever itis. And also, if you're thinking
(22:30):
about the question, can we movesomebody up from this job to a
more senior level job, one ofthe things that person is almost
certainly going to be requiredto do is to exercise more
judgement, because that's whatseniority means. I mean, you
know, why do we pay seniorleaders large amounts of money
(22:53):
for what they do? I mean, one ofthe things is because one relies
on their judgement, and that isa not a quality one can take for
granted. So building it in,first of all, Neil's building it
in for who you hire and the wayyou promote people and the way
you appraise them. And thenthere's the question of saying,
Okay, let's identify what thingswe can improve. And you
(23:16):
mentioned awareness. There'splenty of a way which you can
get people to be more aware ofwhat's going on around them. You
don't have to say, I'm eitherborn with it or I'm not,
because, bluntly, this issomething you can train people
to do. And, you know, I in thebook, what I do is, I, I've got
a long list. I mean, it was evenlonger, but I, you know, I
(23:39):
thought of myself. This isgetting too long of things you
can actually do. How can you,you know, get better at each of
these elements of judgement?
Well, there's lots of ways youcan do it. I mean, no, the most
obvious ones, of course, are todo with training. Are to do with
learning from colleagues and soon. But there are a lot of ways
in which you can improveindividual parts of the
(24:00):
judgement that you exercise. Andit's not incredibly difficult
and it's not incrediblyexpensive, you know, it's
something which all of us cando. And you know, of course, I'm
a biassed witness here, so Iadmit to that, but I reckon the
payoff is pretty high in termsof, terms of what an
(24:23):
organisation gets out of this.
Jean Gomes (24:25):
So as you know, I'm listening to this show, and I've
got one of the world's mostrenowned experts in judgement,
and I'm thinking to myself,Well, tell me what I could be
doing right now to startimproving my judgement. What are
the kind of simple, practicalthings that anybody could start
doing as a leader?
Andrew Likierman (24:45):
Well, I would say, you know that you need, you
need, first of all, to identifywhat are the things that
actually you think you're notterribly good at? What are your
weaknesses? And I'm just taking.
One completely, you knowarbitrarily here, let's say you,
your knowledge of artificialintelligence is not as good as
(25:07):
it might be, and so you're notas aware of the potential for AI
to be applied in yourorganisation. Now, you'll
immediately have seen what theanswer to that is, if you don't
know enough about AI, we'll findout about AI, you know, get
going. You know, make sure youunderstand the relevant bits so
(25:28):
that you can make an informedchoice about the applications of
AI in your organisation. No, andeach of us will have different
ways of doing that, so there maybe not much needed in one
organisation and a lot inanother. And you've got to think
about the question then is, do Ihave the time? Can I do this?
(25:50):
Let's say hypothetically, youcan't. Then the question is, how
can you get somebody with theknowledge, or people with the
knowledge, to advise you on whatyou should be doing. And again,
it comes back to its people youtrust. Now I've just taken one
example of one element ofjudgement, but in essence, what
I'm suggesting here is one hasto take stock of who one is and
(26:13):
what one knows and what onedoes, and identify those things.
And I think simply being awareof it, and one may not be aware
of it, having not thought aboutthis before in this kind of way,
will lead you towards theactions which you need to take.
(26:33):
You know, I'm not sayingtraining core. Of course, I'm
involved in training. So ofcourse, you'd expect me to think
training is great idea. But youknow, the question is, what are
you being trained at? And it'soften something which is, can be
quite precise and may not takevery much time. So self
identification, followed byaction related to that is what I
(26:58):
think one needs to do to helpone on the way.
Jean Gomes (27:08):
You know, our show is very interested in how we
navigate uncertainty, so I'minterested to get your take on
how judgement helps us withprediction and forecasting and
and embracing uncertainty. Well,
Andrew Likierman (27:23):
look, and we're all we're all subject to
this. I mean, all of us, youknow, and we, at the moment,
we're living in a particularlyuncertain world with a lot of
variables involved that webluntly haven't had before. You
know, this is not like anythingelse the current uncertainty.
But then that's been true overthe last few years. If you add
(27:43):
up the combination, know, ofcovid, which produced one kind
of uncertainty, the Ukraine warproduced another kind of
uncertainty, and so on that, youknow, we all having to grapple
with this. All right, so interms of the judgement process,
forecasting is a very good areawhere you say, all right, how
(28:05):
good is my judgement inassessing forecasts, I have
people who work for me, and theyproduce forecasts. I read stuff
in the technical press, I readstuff in the newspapers and so
on. And we have experts talkingabout various aspects of the
future. Now, I would argue thatno, we know that it's
(28:30):
forecasting is a reallyhazardous basis for No, for
saying you know what is going tohappen, because analogies are
difficult. This current hasuncertainty. I'm talking 2025 is
not the same as 2024 or of 2020,or 2008 going back to the
(28:52):
financial crisis, you know,every time we've got a different
kind of uncertainty in relationto forecasting. So what do I
suggest? I suggest that the twoimportant, the two most
important things you've got tothink about in any forecast is
who or what is making theforecast number one. In other
(29:16):
words, do you trust this source?
Do you believe this source isable to answer the questions you
want. That's one. And the otherperson that's involved here is
you. You're taking in thisforecast. You're reacting to it.
If somebody is telling yousomething you don't like the
look of you, we will know thatyour tendency is to reject it
(29:39):
and say, Oh, I think that's overoptimistic, or I think that's
over pessimistic, whatever itis. What judgement is all about
is saying, What's my reaction tothis forecast, and who is making
the forecast. So it is not justa question of saying, have they
actually done the. Sums right?
(30:01):
Because the sums are thestarting point. The end point is
your belief or lack of belief inthe forecast that you get.
Jean Gomes (30:10):
So you know, another way of putting that is, do you
trust your own reaction to tothe data? How do you help people
to think about their feelingsand beliefs and the influence,
because that kind of emotionalconviction can be very, very,
you know, compelling in terms offeeling like it's truth.
Andrew Likierman (30:33):
It does and, and I'm sure all of us have a
tendency to, you know, we mo wewelcome the views that accord
will our own views much moreenthusiastically than something
that's inconvenient or contraryto what we believe. So we tend
to filter anyway. So the kindsof things I think one needs to
do is to say, first of all, am Iaware of my own biases, my own
(30:58):
tendencies when I getinformation of various kinds,
and becoming aware of them, andmaking sure that one understands
why one is reacting in a certainway is the starting point really
about improving one's one'sabilities in this respect.
Second way is the question ofhaving people around one who
(31:24):
provide counter views whererequired and you know, where
something needs to be arguedout. I mean, the difficulty many
people have when they achieve alot of power and they're
surrounded by people tellingthem how wonderful they are is
that they kind of loseperspective. You know, they only
(31:44):
really want to hear the peoplewho say the things that they
already believe. And so ithappens quite often, that
somebody gets to a position ofpower and their judgement
actually then starts todeteriorate because they become
overconfident based on theposition that they hold and the
(32:07):
way in which others basicallydon't tell them the truth and
don't provide counter views forfear of offending them in some
way or jeopardising their ownpositions. So having people
around you who don't necessarilyjust agree with everything you
say and provide a good balanceof views is, again, that seems
(32:29):
to me, another way in which onehas that greater sense of
perspective. So it'sunderstanding yourself, but also
understanding your relation toother people and allowing them
to help you make betterjudgments.
Jean Gomes (32:44):
What might be missing in the education system
that would begin the journey forpeople to have better judgement?
Because judgement doesn't justapply in in a business context.
It applies in every other aspectof the choices that we make in
our lives,
Andrew Likierman (33:02):
it does and and, you know what? What happens
is we kind of pick these thingsup as we go along, you know? We
make mistakes, and if we'rewise, we learn from the
mistakes, and we don't do itagain, you know? And if you've
once never made a mistake.
That's probably because you'retaking too little risk. So
(33:22):
mistakes can be very valuable interms of, you know, of getting,
give, getting better judgement.
So I think it's, it's a questionof saying, as far as you know,
looking at oneself, to say, howcan I use my experience to
(33:46):
improve what I do, as well asall the other things potentially
that are going to help me on theway?
Jean Gomes (33:53):
You've taught several generations of leaders
about judgement. Have younoticed any difference in the in
the evolution of thosegenerations regarding judgement,
or is it pretty stable?
Andrew Likierman (34:09):
I'm quite I'm quite cautious about me, of that
kind. I mean, I've had the, havehad the privilege of teaching
people over a number of decades.
I've actually taught more thanone generation of the same
family. That's how long I'vebeen at this and I think that
people vary so hugely in whothey are. I mean, obviously the
(34:32):
cultural backgrounds are very,very important in terms of the
way people approach things ofthis kind. So I'm going to avoid
answering your question bysaying, No, I don't think I can.
I don't think I can. Decide Idon't think I can. I because for
me, it's very much abouttreating people as individuals,
(34:55):
and in this particular case, I.
You know, one may have grown upin a culture where certain
things are the norm, butactually you're not the norm, so
you don't conform to that. Sono, I can't, I can't give you
help on that one. I
Jean Gomes (35:11):
think, no, I'm with you on that one. I think this is
something that we actually havea fairly contrary view in our in
our world, in that we were verymuch on your side, that we don't
really see these differences. Ofcourse, there's a different
context. If you were growing up,if I was growing up in this
environment as a 20 year old,I'd probably react, but they're
(35:34):
not sure that's actually thegenerational thing. I think
that's just a context thing. Soyeah, I'm with you. What else
should we be talking about interms of judgement? Where are
the areas of greatestopportunity for leaders to
expand their their judgement? Doyou feel?
Andrew Likierman (35:55):
Well, look, I think I've talked a lot about
weaknesses and remedying them.
But I think one should also bethinking about one's strengths.
And you know what the individualor the organisation is really
good at, because that givespotentially comparative
advantage if you're better atthis kind of thing than your
(36:16):
competitors, I mean, that is abig plus. And so I don't think
it's a question simply ofsaying, you know, find out the
things you're bad at and try andget rid of them, or least be
aware of them. I think it's alsoa question of building your
strengths, you know, buildingyour capabilities. And again, if
one thinks about an organisationwhich has a great capacity for
(36:39):
making good choices. I mean,isn't that what just what you
think about being a well runorganisation means, you know, it
can actually get to grips withthe things that matter about its
operations and its future andthe way it operates in the
world. And, I mean, I've seenorganisations of this kind, you
(37:03):
know, and they are wonderful towork for, because there's a
sense of purpose, and there's asense of, you know, the ability
to turn purpose into action thatis exhilarating. And similarly,
I've worked in organisationswhere you just feel it's all a
great big quagmire where nothinghappens. Everything's bogged
(37:28):
down in bureaucracy, you know,nothing ever gets done, and so
on. And having having mentionedthe word bureaucracy, I should
also say that I'm not assuminghere that all not for profit and
public organisations, somehowdon't exercise good judgement,
because, again, I work fororganisations which have been
(37:50):
brilliant in this way, so thefact that you haven't got a
profit motive doesn't mean tosay suddenly you don't have good
judgement. The quality of thepeople is really what matters.
And you know, and that appliesin both public and private
sectors. So you know, I'mtalking about a quagmire where,
you know rules are moreimportant than anything else,
(38:12):
and you know you can't getanything done, and and so on and
so on, and judgement then, isvirtually impossible to operate
in an environment like that. Soyou know, a new leader coming in
and saying, What is thedifference I can make? It seems
to me, through the business ofsaying, how do we make our
(38:34):
choices and how can we make ourchoices better? My belief is
this is one way in which youturn a failing or mediocre
organisation into a really goodone.
Jean Gomes (38:48):
And we've touched on AI in the sense that you know
we're part of the systematicapproach to this is trusting
your the sources of data, orassessing your trust in the
sources of data and your ownreactions to what that's
happening. Can we talk about howAI is changing the game in
(39:10):
judgement?
Andrew Likierman (39:11):
Well, what I think is is really, really
interesting for me, is therelationship between between AI
and judgement more generally,because I've been grappling, as
part of the work I've done withthe question, Can a machine
exercise judgement? And in doingthat, I've talked to a lot of
(39:34):
people, some of the leaders inartificial intelligence. I've
talked to philosophers. I'vetalked to people who are at the
cutting edge of what's going onnow. As a result of that, my
belief is that the machinethrough through AI is going to
(39:55):
become more and more and moresophisticated. We know that is
so. And a number of things themachine will be able to do,
which are bluntly, better thanthe human being. And I if I take
the field of medicine, which Iquote in my book, so what we
know from a doctor who did astudy on this is a lot of things
(40:19):
that are wrong with one,bluntly, the machine is much
better than a human being infinding out what's going on,
because you can programme it tofind out with a much higher
degree of probability than humanbeings are able to offer. Now,
that is fantastic. You know,that's really great, but it
(40:40):
doesn't then mean, by extension,that the doctor will become
irrelevant. In an age of AI,what the doctor is going to do,
be able to do, is to do thethings that AI can't do, which
is, look at a patient withcomplex psychological issues
allied to their physical issues,and say, I can see the pattern
(41:02):
here, and the kind of approachI'd have based on many years of
experience is we should approachit in this and this way. Now you
can't programme machines to takeaccount of these kinds of
factors. The doctors will bemuch better and more gainfully
employed for everybody doingdetailed work, face to face with
(41:27):
patients, which the machinecannot do, what the machine will
be able to do. You can see I'moptimistic here. I declare my
bias what the machine will beable to do is a lot of the
routine work that the doctorcurrently has to do, freeing the
doctor to do what the doctordoes best. So my belief is that
(41:51):
in an age of AI, one of thethings that a human being will
be bluntly left with to do anddo well, potentially with the
right training, the rightbackground and so on, is to
exercise judgement. So in termsof looking at who is going to be
doing what in an age of AI, mybelief is that judgement is
(42:14):
going to become more importantas what human beings do,
juxtaposed with the increasingsophistication of the machine,
Jean Gomes (42:23):
and that suggests something in that example that
you've given there, which isthat the elements of what the
human being are doing are interms of psychological
assessment, the ability to kindof reflect on that and
understand how your beliefs andfeelings are kind of interacting
(42:46):
with with that data suggeststhat, if anything, the stakes
for judgement go higher. Itbecomes more complicated. It
becomes a more sophisticatedskill that we have to develop,
rather than relying on knowledgeand experience, we're actually
having to so what does that meanin terms of how we develop that?
(43:07):
Because that's a very high orderform of critical thinking and
self awareness.
Andrew Likierman (43:14):
It is and, you know? And that's what human
beings are amazingly good at attheir best. You know, we are
really, really impressive atdoing this kind of thing. But
no, it has to be recognised thatthis is something which human
beings need to have, need todevelop, need to provide, you
(43:37):
know, without saying, Oh, mygoodness, what? What is, what
are human beings going to do?
They're going to do a bit ofthis and a bit of that. Well,
no, I mean, they're going tohave to do some very, very
precise things that humanbeings, where human beings have
got comparative advantage andthe people have got good
judgement, it seems to me, aregoing to be in much higher
demand than those who haven't,because they can offer more than
(44:00):
the machine. If they can, ifsomebody's simply doing
something, you know, more orless the same as or not as well
as a machine, then I don't thinkthey have a very rosy future. So
that's another reason why Ibelieve we ought to focus on
judgement in order to equipourselves in an age of AI to
work with the machines.
Jean Gomes (44:26):
And that makes total sense. I guess. The question it
begs then, from a commercialpoint of view, is, how do we
measure judgement if we look attwo doctors or two accountants
who've got the equal kind ofexperience, track record,
status, etc, etc, and thenyou're saying, well, the
differential now in the futurewill be their judgement. How do
you measure that?
Andrew Likierman (44:45):
Well, I, you know, I've worked with a
regulator dealing with exactlythis issue. So the regulator
regulates professional firms,and the Professional Firms are
required. Honoured to exerciseprofessional judgement. Now the
question is, so, what isprofessional judgement here? And
(45:06):
if something has gone wrong, youknow is, does that mean,
therefore, that professionaljudgement wasn't exercised? The
key element and distinction oneneeds to make here is to say, if
there is a judgement process,and somebody can demonstrate
that they have gone through thejudgement process and done
everything they can to achievewhat was necessary, then that is
(45:33):
a demonstration of goodjudgement. Why I'm focusing on
process rather than outcome isthat outcomes are determined by
things which are nothing to dowith our ability to exercise
judgement. I mean, for a startoff, we have luck. You know,
luck is a key factor in successin a lot of things in life. Of
(45:57):
course, you know, we like tosay, oh, you know that was bad
luck when things don't go forus. But quite often we say,
well, actually, that's, youknow, modestly, that was due to
my excellent qualities, whenthings go in our favour, even
though we may have had a greatdeal of luck, you can't link
(46:19):
necessarily judgement atoutcomes because of things like
luck. I mean, the other elementsare the to do with timing, that
there may be the question of,know whether the data is good
enough, and so on. There's lotsof reasons why this is not a
simple thing to do. So simplysaying, you know, if something
(46:41):
is successful, by definition, itmust be due to good judgement.
May not be right. It may simplybe due to luck or the fact that
other people you know, had adisaster on their hands, and
that was actually benefited us,whatever it is. So for me, it's
about the question of process.
Can you demonstrate that you dideverything you reasonably could
(47:03):
to make a choice as good aspossible? Now that is the
exercise of judgement. So Iwould say judgement can be
measured in terms of saying hasa process been followed to give
the best possible chance ofsuccess.
Jean Gomes (47:23):
Who do you think is doing that well outside of kind
of regulated sectors? I mean,you meet lots of leaders who's
kind of not falling into thetrap of confusing outcomes
driven by luck versus judgement.
Andrew Likierman (47:39):
Well, I would say all those people who may not
have thought about Judgementitself, but these kind of
techniques where peoplesystematically look at the
reasons for success and thereasons for failure and try and
always try and improve whatthey're trying to do on the
basis of learning from what wentwell and what went badly. Now
(48:04):
the quality of analysis has tobe there too, because you can't
simply make a correlation andhope for the best because
circumstances change. So thelooking at outcomes has to be
linked to a rigorous look at thereasons why things were as they
were. I mean, if I just takeanalogies, you know, people say,
(48:26):
well, it's just like last weekor last month or the financial
crisis or whatever it is. Well,actually it isn't. You know,
life develops very, verydifferently. We it's difficult
always to say that you haveexactly the same thing going on.
You mean, and you need todifferentiate in each case. Is
(48:48):
it exactly the same as lasttime? Are we aware that word
again, awareness? Are we awareof what might be different? So I
think here that you know, it'sthe learning part, which is
fundamental to good managementin any field, is an important
part of judgement as well.
Sara Deschamps (49:10):
If the conversations we've been having
on the evolving leader havehelped you in any way, please
head over to Apple podcasts andleave us a rating and review.
Thank you for listening. Nowlet's get back to the
conversation
Jean Gomes (49:24):
when we talked before you describe the pain of
writing this book, because, youknow, creating any kind of
holistic, systematic approach toa topic where you're integrating
lots of different disciplines isis very hard. It's a tough,
tough thing to leave things out.
So two kind of final questions,really. One is, what did you
(49:46):
leave out that you'd like tobring back and put into into
this conversation? And what'snext for you in terms of your
research?
Andrew Likierman (49:56):
Okay, leaving out? Well, I left loads up my
right. I wrote the book, and myeditor said, oh, you can't put
all this in. It's unmanageable.
You've got to leave lots ofstuff out. So sadly, many things
hit the cutting room floor.
What's the what's the mostinteresting
Jean Gomes (50:13):
thing you left on the table?
Andrew Likierman (50:15):
Oh, goodness me, no, you've got me there.
Think about that, okay, but interms of what I'm excited by
what happens now, because whatI'm trying to do now, and my
focus throughout this has beennot, here is an interesting
subject. Let me look at it. Buthow can I actually help people
(50:36):
to make better choices? So whatI'm doing at the moment is I'm
applying it in many differentareas. I mentioned professions,
I mentioned regulation. I'vealready worked on independent
judgement on the board, and whatthat is to help directors
understand their legalobligations in in that area, I'm
(50:57):
working with the family firmInstitute on how to apply this
within a family firm context.
I'm working with varioustraining bodies to see how I can
help on the training process toget people better doing what
they're doing. I'm working withfinancial institutions to help
on the decision making processthere and how they can improve
(51:19):
that. So for me, this is a veryexciting time to say, All right,
let's see where we can applythis. Because since choice is
pretty universal, you know,there's no limit to what's
possible. So you can see why I'mkind of excited by the next
stage,
Jean Gomes (51:37):
if you could get privileged access, I'm sure
you've got very good access intolots of incredible places, but
you're looking at the worldright now and saying, there
really needs to be some betterjudgement exercised here. Where
would you Where would you likeaccess to? There is
Andrew Likierman (51:52):
a very, very obvious place, very obvious
person. But you know, I'm afraideven my wildest fantasies would
not they're not listening, thatI'm going to get anywhere near
whoever that person is, who youanybody here might be thinking
about? No, I mean, look, I'd be,you know, if people in positions
(52:19):
of authority and positions ofresponsibility find this useful,
then that is, that's, that's bigfor me.
Jean Gomes (52:27):
Yeah, well, I'm sure they will, because this is, as
you say, the the differentialthat humans have in an
automating world, and to be ableto better understand your own
capacity for judgement, identifythe blind spots of the
weaknesses, Shore those up, getextra support in, and then
(52:48):
amplify the areas where you'restrong, will give you that you
know that forward kind ofmomentum in your career, and
help you to build theorganisation that you need to
build. So I think that's areally great place to leave it,
Andrew, and I'm very gratefulfor your time and how busy you
are. So we're deeplyappreciative of spending this
(53:11):
hour with you. And everybodyshould get a copy of judgement
at work. I read it over thesummer, and it opened my eyes,
to lots of things that wereincredibly valuable for me as a
as a practitioner, but also formy own business and development.
So I thoroughly recommend that,and we'll leave details of
(53:32):
Andrew's work in the show notesand link to the book as well. So
remember, folks, the world isevolving. Are you?
Good judgement is something everyone would like to
have and to be seen to have.
It's also one of the mostimportant human qualities that
will differentiate us from AIagents. But it turns out it's
remarkably difficult to defineprecisely, and many people are
not sure whether they personallypossess it. Sir Andrew lickerman
of the London Business Schoolhas spent his life talking to
(00:22):
leaders in a wide range offields, from business and the
army to law and medicine, in aneffort to create a framework for
understanding judgement. First,he had to define the word he now
suggests that judgement is thecombination of personal
qualities with relevantknowledge and experience to form
opinions and take decisions. Heargues, the thus defined
(00:45):
judgement involves a processtaking in information, deciding
whom and what to trust,summarising one's personal
knowledge, checking any priorbeliefs or feelings, summarising
the available choices and thenmaking a decision. At each
stage, decision makers must askthemselves questions such as
(01:06):
whether they have the relevantexperience and expertise to make
the choice, and whether theoption they favour is practical.
Expertise can be useful inmaking judgments, but it's not
the same thing. Academics haveexpertise, he observes they
don't necessarily havejudgement. People with judgement
know when they're out of theirdepth in making a decision, and
(01:27):
typically then seek the adviceof someone who has the right
background and knowledge. Inthis fascinating conversation,
Andrew ligament gives us a tourof his Lifetime's work into the
art of judgement. Tune in to animportant conversation in the
evolvingso welcome to the show, Andrew.
(01:49):
Would you just give us a senseof who you are, your background
and the things that you havedone?
Andrew Likierman (01:58):
Right? Well, I've done a lot of very
different things, and that isactually relevant to the subject
at hand here, because I've hadthe opportunity to see good and
bad judgement in many differentcontexts. So I started out in
commercial life. I was involvedwith in manufacturing. I
actually ran a textile plant inGermany. I then moved into
(02:20):
academic life, I then moved backinto commercial life, I then
moved back into academic life. Ithen moved into government. I
moved back into academic life, Imoved into government again, and
now I'm back in academic lifeand in academic life, I've been
involved both as a teacher andresearcher, but also as an
(02:44):
administrator. So I was dean ofthe London Business School for a
period of time, and while, as Isaid that I believe that's
relevant is because I've seenjust what good judgement can do
and what judgement really whyit's so important and why it's
potentially so disastrous fororganisations. Thank
Jean Gomes (03:05):
you. So it seems so obvious to us this word
judgement. We all have a anunderstanding of it, but let's
set the scene and describe whatis judgement. What's the big
picture here? And why do youthink this conversation is so
important right now?
Andrew Likierman (03:22):
Well, looking at the question of what
judgement is, so I've definedit, and there is no standard
definition. It's defined evendifferently in dictionaries
around the world. What I'vedefined it ad as being the
combination of the personalqualities that we have as
individuals, and therefore whatwe bring to the judgement in
(03:45):
relation to the relevantknowledge and experience we have
in relation to this particularchoice. And you've noticed that
I'm talking about thisparticular choice, one of the
reasons why, understandably,very little research is done in
this area, is if each judgementis different to every other
(04:09):
judgement. This is a nightmare,as far as research is concerned,
in a conventional sense, becauseit's very, very difficult to pin
down the reasons why things aredifferent, and therefore to kind
of make sense of a hypothesiswhich can be proved or disproved
in a conventional, academic way.
So for me, this is about verymuch the context of a particular
(04:33):
choice and the way we approachthat choice. This is really the
key to the work that I've beendoing.
Jean Gomes (04:44):
So we'll come a little bit more to the kind of
ecosystem, or the kind ofdifferent aspects of what
judgement is. But again, whatdoes, what does bad judgement
look like?
Andrew Likierman (04:57):
Well, I think we all know what bad judgement
look. To that, because I'm surewe've all been the victim of bad
judgement. When other peoplemake bad judgments, they affect
a lot of other people. A badleader, bad here, defined as
someone who has not got goodjudgement, can be disastrous for
(05:19):
an organisation. I mean takingall the wrong decisions, making
all the wrong choices, evenmaking one single disastrous
choice, can be enough to wreckan organisation. So it can be
very bad indeed to be at thereceiving end of bad judgement,
(05:40):
which is why, you know, it'sanother reason why it's not just
a question of saying, You knowwhat, it's important to
recognise and exercise goodjudgement, but also it's very
important to not to exercise badjudgement and to recognise it in
other people. Because if youhire somebody who's got bad
judgement, and they'reresponsible to you. Well, it's a
(06:01):
bit of a nightmare, because, youknow, you can't rely on them.
You can't trust them. I mean,they can do the most strange
things. And you know, if you'rethe if you're their boss, then
you carry the can for that. SoI'm suggesting that bad
judgement is very, very obvious.
We see it. I mean, just takesome examples in the press. Very
(06:23):
often when people resign fromsenior positions, they say, you
know, it was an error ofjudgement, and they are right
very often, doing the wrongthings, you know, cheating,
whatever it is, you know,flouting the rules, doing some
(06:44):
it's completely unacceptable, isbad judgement and the sadly, as
I say, almost any scandal hasgot the words bad judgement or
poor judgement, or It was anerror of judgement, or it was a
huge error of judgement, evenattached to the resignations
(07:05):
involved. So as I say, that's,you know, this is high stakes
stuff
Jean Gomes (07:13):
in your recent book, which I loved judgement at work.
And this is what kind of drew meto inviting you onto the show
you make it that distinction oflots of different gradations of
bad judgement, ranging fromfairly mild everyday kind of
things that we do tocatastrophic types of error. And
(07:34):
I suppose one of the problemsthat we've got is that this is
conflated with intelligence andcharacter and morality, even,
and so on. Self awareness.
There's a whole range of thingsthere that when people talk
about judgement, when you saysomeone's got bad judgement, you
could be describing them as socan we look at this systematic
approach, the components ofjudgement that you have started
(07:54):
to identify?
Andrew Likierman (07:58):
So I'm approaching this with the
assumption that all of usbenefit potentially from
understanding more about theprocesses that we make judgement
about, that you know, in doingour jobs and indeed in our
private lives as well, we knowthe stakes are high, and
(08:22):
therefore it is worthapproaching this more
systematically than simplyhoping for the best or assuming
the experience we've got isenough and whatever it is. So
that's the basis of which I say,Look, you really need to look
this more systematically. AndI'll be briefly go through the
different elements involvedhere, and I'm happy to expand in
(08:45):
more detail, if you like. Thefirst thing is, and I've already
alluded to it, it's theknowledge and experience that we
bring to a particular action.
Now, if we've done something 50times, the 51st time is really
pretty easy, because unlesssomething's changed, let's
assume it hasn't, then we bringa lot of knowledge and
(09:07):
experience to bear. If we'venever done something, then,
frankly, the risks involved aremuch, much higher, and we need
to recognise that even in ourprivate lives, we go on holiday,
you know, we go on holiday to anew place. Well, we've got to
make quite a lot of assumptionson the way. We can help
ourselves greatly by doing anumber of things. I'm going to
(09:30):
suggest. But you can see herethe risks of not having done
something before are there. Andif we're doing something like a
merger and acquisition, if we'redoing something like a big IT
project where lots is involvedfor the organisation, then this
is not a trifling issue. Sothat's number one. Number two is
(09:54):
the question of the awareness wehave of. What's happening when
we make our choice as part of ajudgement. And that awareness
can be about the situation thepeople involved, what their
motivations are, understandingthe dynamics in the room when a
choice is made, things likethat. This is very much the
(10:17):
question of what's happeningwhen the choice itself is being
made. The third one is the trustwe have in the people and the
data and the information that weget. All of us rely on other
people. We don't do things onour own. We rely on other people
to help us with our gaps theknowledge and experience we
(10:41):
don't have. We ask people, weask experts so on, to come in
and help us. Question is, can wetrust them? And that's the third
element here, allied to which wehave the question of whether we
have trust in the data that weget. Now, you know full Fake
news is in the news, as it were,we know about that, but we know
(11:02):
we have to be careful. The factis, not everything on the
internet is quality controlled,not everything that we
necessarily get. I mean, evenfrom chat GPT. I, you know, I
asked chat GPT to direct mesomewhere in a foreign capital,
and I'm afraid it took me to thewrong place. But actually, you
know, I'm that's partly becauseI gave the wrong instructions.
(11:25):
But what I'm saying is, youcan't just say, Oh, it's all
right. Chat. GBT will answer allmy questions in life, not quite
enough. So number three, then,is trust. Number Four are the
feelings and beliefs we have.
Now, we all have feelings andbeliefs. We come to any choice
we make thinking, Well, youknow, do I feel good about this?
(11:48):
Do I feel optimistic, you know,and so on. So that whole area,
which includes our biases andour prejudices and our values
and all the kinds of thing, isreally the kind of filters that
we have through which all thisinformation flows before we make
a choice, and when probably notconscious most of it, but I'm
(12:09):
going to argue we should beconscious of it, because it does
affect the quality of ourjudgments that comes as number
five brings us to number five,which is when we actually Make a
choice. And we've all sat inrooms where we can see that the
choice is being made on a verygood basis, very rational basis.
People argument. Arguments aretaken account of. People argue
(12:32):
and counter with each other tobe there's a sense of getting
what's best out of the room. AndI'm sure we've all been in
situations where, bluntly, thishas not been so where you have
a, let's say, a dominantchairman who basically squashes
all dissent and just tellspeople really what they ought to
be thinking. I mean, that's justone example of the way in which
the process itself can go wrong.
On the other hand, if it can bedone, well, that's fantastic.
(12:57):
Bringing all the data together,bringing all the contributions
into the room together, and soon. Finally, there's the
question for decisions we makeof whether we can deliver it,
because bluntly, it's no usesaying, you know, I think this
is a great idea if bluntly it'snot deliverable. So I would say
that ability to deliver is partof the mechanism. Now I've gone
(13:21):
through those six, not alwayseasy to remember, but that's
what I mean by the components ofthe judgement process.
Jean Gomes (13:30):
And it's not, it's not an entirely linear process,
is it? It
Andrew Likierman (13:34):
isn't No, and I've gone through 123456, but
actually, in many cases, wemight say, All right, let's say
we get to a meeting to decidesomething. The meeting says,
Look, we can either do this orwe cannot do it. And somebody
says, probably quite rightly,let's say, because the risks may
(13:57):
be very high here, of saying,Look, why don't we try it out?
Why don't we pilot it in onearea first to see if it works,
and then we'll perhaps do itthing. Now that's a third option
which has been built for thechoice now that may not have
been thought about. So back yougo to, if everybody agrees,
actually that's a way ofmitigating risk. Then back you
go to have another chance atlooking at what's involved in
(14:21):
that. You might say, look, it'snot feasible to do it for just a
little bit of the organisation,to pilot it, whatever it is. And
you may then eventually dismissthat. But let's say you do
decide, at least to take itseriously, you'd need to go back
to an earlier stage. So there isa process of reformulating ideas
as one goes through thejudgement process.
Jean Gomes (14:47):
In your research, when you look at this way of
thinking about judgement, do yousee kind of cultural differences
where one aspect of this isstronger or. In different kind
of cultures or parts of theworld, or is it fairly, you
know, kind of random?
Andrew Likierman (15:08):
No, I and this is something I was very
conscious of in doing this work.
I mean, I'm privileged to workat a business school which is
incredibly International, andtherefore I have access to
people from, you know, many,many different countries around
the world. I mean, we have, wehave 106 countries currently
represented on on campus. Now,I've also been around talking to
(15:29):
groups in, for example, cultureswhich are seen as different,
particularly different includingJapan and China. And I have
asked people there directly,look, do you think this applies
to you? And for example, inJapan, I was told, Look, the
process by which we make ourchoices is not the same as that
(15:50):
as you do in the UK or WesternEurope. We the process itself is
different, but we recognise whatyou're saying here in terms of
these different elements of thejudgement process. And we don't
think you would, you shouldchange them for Japan. We would
apply them, though, in adifferent way. So my sense is,
(16:12):
and I see I've talked to people,you know, Argentina, I've talked
to people in very, verydifferent cultures in different
parts of the world and and I'veactually challenged and asked
them to say, Do you think thiswould apply to you, or should I
be thinking about somethingdifferent for you? They have not
come up with something which isdifferent. So of course,
(16:34):
everybody is different. Everyorganisation is different, every
country is different. But Ithink the basis of looking at
these big categories, I wouldsay, is not universal, but can
be applied almost anywhere.
Jean Gomes (16:52):
As you said at the beginning, you've been studying
this for a long time, and youmust have seen a change in how
leaders make decisions, becauseobviously they're making a lot
of decisions today in veryshorter cycles of time, and kind
of strategic planning cycleshave sped up, and the complexity
(17:12):
of organisations and so on, andthe level of uncertainty. How
are you seeing judgementchanging in its relative
importance or the nature ofjudgement during that time.
Andrew Likierman (17:27):
Well, you're right to say that things have
speeded up. I mean, I thinkpeople are impatient to get on
with things. You know, they thesort of lengthy research process
which might have been fine twoor three decades ago, people say
the world is moving too fast. Wecan't afford to do that. I don't
think that's any issue here atall in terms of the way one
(17:51):
looks at judgement. Because whatyou're doing, in essence, you're
saying, all right, we won't doan absolutely comprehensive
study on whether we should enterthis new market, whether we
should have this product,whether we should hire this
person, you know we willactually the thing needs to go
faster. So I would say that'sfine. You have also to recognise
(18:14):
that if you're speeding thingsup, if you're not doing the kind
of due diligence which you mightotherwise chosen to do, then you
have to recognise you are takingmore risk. And you may say,
that's fine. We've got to takecertain risks. We're prepared to
take the risks. So I don't thinkthere's anything wrong or
anything different about sayingwe're working in a world which
(18:38):
is anxious to get on withthings. You know, perhaps not as
careful as as might have beenseen to be right a while ago.
But risk is really where, whereyou're at. You know, if you're
prepared to take a risk, and youknow all this is about taking
risk, question is, how much riskyou're prepared to take, then,
(19:02):
you know, that's fine. I mean, Ithink, but you just have to
understand what you're doingwhen you do it,
Jean Gomes (19:08):
yeah, and when you when you look at organisations
which you're constantly talkingto across these six different
areas, how many do you do yousee? What proportion Do you see
that have a more systemic,systematic approach to
judgement? Well,
Andrew Likierman (19:28):
one of the fascinating things for me is
that actually there are very feworganisations which look really
carefully at this process. A lotof organisations, well run
organisations will be doingquite a lot of this anyway, you
know, they will try and makesure, I just give you one
example, that when they hiresomebody, there is a systematic
(19:52):
process in place for hiringpeople, you know, and they will
try and make sure that the finalchoice. Is not dominated by a
single individual and so on. Sothis is the kind of thing which
it seems to me, one needs tolook out for if one isn't
already doing it really well.
And I'm not suggesting, youknow, people who are involved in
good practice suddenly have torethink the good practice. Good
(20:15):
practice is great. It's whenyou're not you know, when you're
not sure about whether you'vegot good practice or not,
whether you think to yourself,actually, you know, am I
confident about this choice thatwe are about to make that
particularly, you need to beaware of the process. So I would
say, well, run organisations ingeneral do this well, because
(20:40):
one of the definitions of doingsomething well is exercising
judgement well. Andorganisations that get
themselves into trouble bydefinition, are not doing very
well on the judgement front. So,you know, I think it's a kind of
thing which it which isdemonstrated by outcomes. My
(21:01):
work is trying to help peoplenot be part of those who are
demonstrated to be doing thingsbadly in terms of the outcomes.
I mean, if you want to stat, asI keep on putting it, stack the
cards in your favour of making agood choice, I think you ought
to approach judgementsystematically.
Jean Gomes (21:22):
So what are you advising leaders who want to
build a culture of goodjudgement? And I'm thinking
particularly this, the kind ofself awareness piece around
here, which is so critical to beable to stand back and go, you
know, are we falling intointelligence traps or biases and
so on. What do you do toencourage people to do that?
Andrew Likierman (21:44):
Well, the first thing, it seems to me, is
that one needs to incorporatethe idea that judgement is
important in the way one hirespeople and assesses them and
promotes them. So if you say,actually, we're looking for
people with good judgement whenyou hire people. I mean, that's
one of the criteria you shouldbe using similarly in the
(22:07):
appraisal process. Once you'vegot an idea of what judgement
is, you can put that in as oneof the things you're looking
for, not just is somebody hasgot particular qualities in
terms of their personality, butactually, have they got good
judgement? It's something worthtalking about at an appraisal
interview annually, whatever itis. And also, if you're thinking
(22:30):
about the question, can we movesomebody up from this job to a
more senior level job, one ofthe things that person is almost
certainly going to be requiredto do is to exercise more
judgement, because that's whatseniority means. I mean, you
know, why do we pay seniorleaders large amounts of money
(22:53):
for what they do? I mean, one ofthe things is because one relies
on their judgement, and that isa not a quality one can take for
granted. So building it in,first of all, Neil's building it
in for who you hire and the wayyou promote people and the way
you appraise them. And thenthere's the question of saying,
Okay, let's identify what thingswe can improve. And you
(23:16):
mentioned awareness. There'splenty of a way which you can
get people to be more aware ofwhat's going on around them. You
don't have to say, I'm eitherborn with it or I'm not,
because, bluntly, this issomething you can train people
to do. And, you know, I in thebook, what I do is, I, I've got
a long list. I mean, it was evenlonger, but I, you know, I
(23:39):
thought of myself. This isgetting too long of things you
can actually do. How can you,you know, get better at each of
these elements of judgement?
Well, there's lots of ways youcan do it. I mean, no, the most
obvious ones, of course, are todo with training. Are to do with
learning from colleagues and soon. But there are a lot of ways
in which you can improveindividual parts of the
(24:00):
judgement that you exercise. Andit's not incredibly difficult
and it's not incrediblyexpensive, you know, it's
something which all of us cando. And you know, of course, I'm
a biassed witness here, so Iadmit to that, but I reckon the
payoff is pretty high in termsof, terms of what an
(24:23):
organisation gets out of this.
Jean Gomes (24:25):
So as you know, I'm listening to this show, and I've
got one of the world's mostrenowned experts in judgement,
and I'm thinking to myself,Well, tell me what I could be
doing right now to startimproving my judgement. What are
the kind of simple, practicalthings that anybody could start
doing as a leader?
Andrew Likierman (24:45):
Well, I would say, you know that you need, you
need, first of all, to identifywhat are the things that
actually you think you're notterribly good at? What are your
weaknesses? And I'm just taking.
One completely, you knowarbitrarily here, let's say you,
your knowledge of artificialintelligence is not as good as
(25:07):
it might be, and so you're notas aware of the potential for AI
to be applied in yourorganisation. Now, you'll
immediately have seen what theanswer to that is, if you don't
know enough about AI, we'll findout about AI, you know, get
going. You know, make sure youunderstand the relevant bits so
(25:28):
that you can make an informedchoice about the applications of
AI in your organisation. No, andeach of us will have different
ways of doing that, so there maybe not much needed in one
organisation and a lot inanother. And you've got to think
about the question then is, do Ihave the time? Can I do this?
(25:50):
Let's say hypothetically, youcan't. Then the question is, how
can you get somebody with theknowledge, or people with the
knowledge, to advise you on whatyou should be doing. And again,
it comes back to its people youtrust. Now I've just taken one
example of one element ofjudgement, but in essence, what
I'm suggesting here is one hasto take stock of who one is and
(26:13):
what one knows and what onedoes, and identify those things.
And I think simply being awareof it, and one may not be aware
of it, having not thought aboutthis before in this kind of way,
will lead you towards theactions which you need to take.
(26:33):
You know, I'm not sayingtraining core. Of course, I'm
involved in training. So ofcourse, you'd expect me to think
training is great idea. But youknow, the question is, what are
you being trained at? And it'soften something which is, can be
quite precise and may not takevery much time. So self
identification, followed byaction related to that is what I
(26:58):
think one needs to do to helpone on the way.
Jean Gomes (27:08):
You know, our show is very interested in how we
navigate uncertainty, so I'minterested to get your take on
how judgement helps us withprediction and forecasting and
and embracing uncertainty. Well,
Andrew Likierman (27:23):
look, and we're all we're all subject to
this. I mean, all of us, youknow, and we, at the moment,
we're living in a particularlyuncertain world with a lot of
variables involved that webluntly haven't had before. You
know, this is not like anythingelse the current uncertainty.
But then that's been true overthe last few years. If you add
(27:43):
up the combination, know, ofcovid, which produced one kind
of uncertainty, the Ukraine warproduced another kind of
uncertainty, and so on that, youknow, we all having to grapple
with this. All right, so interms of the judgement process,
forecasting is a very good areawhere you say, all right, how
(28:05):
good is my judgement inassessing forecasts, I have
people who work for me, and theyproduce forecasts. I read stuff
in the technical press, I readstuff in the newspapers and so
on. And we have experts talkingabout various aspects of the
future. Now, I would argue thatno, we know that it's
(28:30):
forecasting is a reallyhazardous basis for No, for
saying you know what is going tohappen, because analogies are
difficult. This current hasuncertainty. I'm talking 2025 is
not the same as 2024 or of 2020,or 2008 going back to the
(28:52):
financial crisis, you know,every time we've got a different
kind of uncertainty in relationto forecasting. So what do I
suggest? I suggest that the twoimportant, the two most
important things you've got tothink about in any forecast is
who or what is making theforecast number one. In other
(29:16):
words, do you trust this source?
Do you believe this source isable to answer the questions you
want. That's one. And the otherperson that's involved here is
you. You're taking in thisforecast. You're reacting to it.
If somebody is telling yousomething you don't like the
look of you, we will know thatyour tendency is to reject it
(29:39):
and say, Oh, I think that's overoptimistic, or I think that's
over pessimistic, whatever itis. What judgement is all about
is saying, What's my reaction tothis forecast, and who is making
the forecast. So it is not justa question of saying, have they
actually done the. Sums right?
(30:01):
Because the sums are thestarting point. The end point is
your belief or lack of belief inthe forecast that you get.
Jean Gomes (30:10):
So you know, another way of putting that is, do you
trust your own reaction to tothe data? How do you help people
to think about their feelingsand beliefs and the influence,
because that kind of emotionalconviction can be very, very,
you know, compelling in terms offeeling like it's truth.
Andrew Likierman (30:33):
It does and, and I'm sure all of us have a
tendency to, you know, we mo wewelcome the views that accord
will our own views much moreenthusiastically than something
that's inconvenient or contraryto what we believe. So we tend
to filter anyway. So the kindsof things I think one needs to
do is to say, first of all, am Iaware of my own biases, my own
(30:58):
tendencies when I getinformation of various kinds,
and becoming aware of them, andmaking sure that one understands
why one is reacting in a certainway is the starting point really
about improving one's one'sabilities in this respect.
Second way is the question ofhaving people around one who
(31:24):
provide counter views whererequired and you know, where
something needs to be arguedout. I mean, the difficulty many
people have when they achieve alot of power and they're
surrounded by people tellingthem how wonderful they are is
that they kind of loseperspective. You know, they only
(31:44):
really want to hear the peoplewho say the things that they
already believe. And so ithappens quite often, that
somebody gets to a position ofpower and their judgement
actually then starts todeteriorate because they become
overconfident based on theposition that they hold and the
(32:07):
way in which others basicallydon't tell them the truth and
don't provide counter views forfear of offending them in some
way or jeopardising their ownpositions. So having people
around you who don't necessarilyjust agree with everything you
say and provide a good balanceof views is, again, that seems
(32:29):
to me, another way in which onehas that greater sense of
perspective. So it'sunderstanding yourself, but also
understanding your relation toother people and allowing them
to help you make betterjudgments.
Jean Gomes (32:44):
What might be missing in the education system
that would begin the journey forpeople to have better judgement?
Because judgement doesn't justapply in in a business context.
It applies in every other aspectof the choices that we make in
our lives,
Andrew Likierman (33:02):
it does and and, you know what? What happens
is we kind of pick these thingsup as we go along, you know? We
make mistakes, and if we'rewise, we learn from the
mistakes, and we don't do itagain, you know? And if you've
once never made a mistake.
That's probably because you'retaking too little risk. So
(33:22):
mistakes can be very valuable interms of, you know, of getting,
give, getting better judgement.
So I think it's, it's a questionof saying, as far as you know,
looking at oneself, to say, howcan I use my experience to
(33:46):
improve what I do, as well asall the other things potentially
that are going to help me on theway?
Jean Gomes (33:53):
You've taught several generations of leaders
about judgement. Have younoticed any difference in the in
the evolution of thosegenerations regarding judgement,
or is it pretty stable?
Andrew Likierman (34:09):
I'm quite I'm quite cautious about me, of that
kind. I mean, I've had the, havehad the privilege of teaching
people over a number of decades.
I've actually taught more thanone generation of the same
family. That's how long I'vebeen at this and I think that
people vary so hugely in whothey are. I mean, obviously the
(34:32):
cultural backgrounds are very,very important in terms of the
way people approach things ofthis kind. So I'm going to avoid
answering your question bysaying, No, I don't think I can.
I don't think I can. Decide Idon't think I can. I because for
me, it's very much abouttreating people as individuals,
(34:55):
and in this particular case, I.
You know, one may have grown upin a culture where certain
things are the norm, butactually you're not the norm, so
you don't conform to that. Sono, I can't, I can't give you
help on that one. I
Jean Gomes (35:11):
think, no, I'm with you on that one. I think this is
something that we actually havea fairly contrary view in our in
our world, in that we were verymuch on your side, that we don't
really see these differences. Ofcourse, there's a different
context. If you were growing up,if I was growing up in this
environment as a 20 year old,I'd probably react, but they're
(35:34):
not sure that's actually thegenerational thing. I think
that's just a context thing. Soyeah, I'm with you. What else
should we be talking about interms of judgement? Where are
the areas of greatestopportunity for leaders to
expand their their judgement? Doyou feel?
Andrew Likierman (35:55):
Well, look, I think I've talked a lot about
weaknesses and remedying them.
But I think one should also bethinking about one's strengths.
And you know what the individualor the organisation is really
good at, because that givespotentially comparative
advantage if you're better atthis kind of thing than your
(36:16):
competitors, I mean, that is abig plus. And so I don't think
it's a question simply ofsaying, you know, find out the
things you're bad at and try andget rid of them, or least be
aware of them. I think it's alsoa question of building your
strengths, you know, buildingyour capabilities. And again, if
one thinks about an organisationwhich has a great capacity for
(36:39):
making good choices. I mean,isn't that what just what you
think about being a well runorganisation means, you know, it
can actually get to grips withthe things that matter about its
operations and its future andthe way it operates in the
world. And, I mean, I've seenorganisations of this kind, you
(37:03):
know, and they are wonderful towork for, because there's a
sense of purpose, and there's asense of, you know, the ability
to turn purpose into action thatis exhilarating. And similarly,
I've worked in organisationswhere you just feel it's all a
great big quagmire where nothinghappens. Everything's bogged
(37:28):
down in bureaucracy, you know,nothing ever gets done, and so
on. And having having mentionedthe word bureaucracy, I should
also say that I'm not assuminghere that all not for profit and
public organisations, somehowdon't exercise good judgement,
because, again, I work fororganisations which have been
(37:50):
brilliant in this way, so thefact that you haven't got a
profit motive doesn't mean tosay suddenly you don't have good
judgement. The quality of thepeople is really what matters.
And you know, and that appliesin both public and private
sectors. So you know, I'mtalking about a quagmire where,
you know rules are moreimportant than anything else,
(38:12):
and you know you can't getanything done, and and so on and
so on, and judgement then, isvirtually impossible to operate
in an environment like that. Soyou know, a new leader coming in
and saying, What is thedifference I can make? It seems
to me, through the business ofsaying, how do we make our
(38:34):
choices and how can we make ourchoices better? My belief is
this is one way in which youturn a failing or mediocre
organisation into a really goodone.
Jean Gomes (38:48):
And we've touched on AI in the sense that you know
we're part of the systematicapproach to this is trusting
your the sources of data, orassessing your trust in the
sources of data and your ownreactions to what that's
happening. Can we talk about howAI is changing the game in
(39:10):
judgement?
Andrew Likierman (39:11):
Well, what I think is is really, really
interesting for me, is therelationship between between AI
and judgement more generally,because I've been grappling, as
part of the work I've done withthe question, Can a machine
exercise judgement? And in doingthat, I've talked to a lot of
(39:34):
people, some of the leaders inartificial intelligence. I've
talked to philosophers. I'vetalked to people who are at the
cutting edge of what's going onnow. As a result of that, my
belief is that the machinethrough through AI is going to
(39:55):
become more and more and moresophisticated. We know that is
so. And a number of things themachine will be able to do,
which are bluntly, better thanthe human being. And I if I take
the field of medicine, which Iquote in my book, so what we
know from a doctor who did astudy on this is a lot of things
(40:19):
that are wrong with one,bluntly, the machine is much
better than a human being infinding out what's going on,
because you can programme it tofind out with a much higher
degree of probability than humanbeings are able to offer. Now,
that is fantastic. You know,that's really great, but it
(40:40):
doesn't then mean, by extension,that the doctor will become
irrelevant. In an age of AI,what the doctor is going to do,
be able to do, is to do thethings that AI can't do, which
is, look at a patient withcomplex psychological issues
allied to their physical issues,and say, I can see the pattern
(41:02):
here, and the kind of approachI'd have based on many years of
experience is we should approachit in this and this way. Now you
can't programme machines to takeaccount of these kinds of
factors. The doctors will bemuch better and more gainfully
employed for everybody doingdetailed work, face to face with
(41:27):
patients, which the machinecannot do, what the machine will
be able to do. You can see I'moptimistic here. I declare my
bias what the machine will beable to do is a lot of the
routine work that the doctorcurrently has to do, freeing the
doctor to do what the doctordoes best. So my belief is that
(41:51):
in an age of AI, one of thethings that a human being will
be bluntly left with to do anddo well, potentially with the
right training, the rightbackground and so on, is to
exercise judgement. So in termsof looking at who is going to be
doing what in an age of AI, mybelief is that judgement is
(42:14):
going to become more importantas what human beings do,
juxtaposed with the increasingsophistication of the machine,
Jean Gomes (42:23):
and that suggests something in that example that
you've given there, which isthat the elements of what the
human being are doing are interms of psychological
assessment, the ability to kindof reflect on that and
understand how your beliefs andfeelings are kind of interacting
(42:46):
with with that data suggeststhat, if anything, the stakes
for judgement go higher. Itbecomes more complicated. It
becomes a more sophisticatedskill that we have to develop,
rather than relying on knowledgeand experience, we're actually
having to so what does that meanin terms of how we develop that?
(43:07):
Because that's a very high orderform of critical thinking and
self awareness.
Andrew Likierman (43:14):
It is and, you know? And that's what human
beings are amazingly good at attheir best. You know, we are
really, really impressive atdoing this kind of thing. But
no, it has to be recognised thatthis is something which human
beings need to have, need todevelop, need to provide, you
(43:37):
know, without saying, Oh, mygoodness, what? What is, what
are human beings going to do?
They're going to do a bit ofthis and a bit of that. Well,
no, I mean, they're going tohave to do some very, very
precise things that humanbeings, where human beings have
got comparative advantage andthe people have got good
judgement, it seems to me, aregoing to be in much higher
demand than those who haven't,because they can offer more than
(44:00):
the machine. If they can, ifsomebody's simply doing
something, you know, more orless the same as or not as well
as a machine, then I don't thinkthey have a very rosy future. So
that's another reason why Ibelieve we ought to focus on
judgement in order to equipourselves in an age of AI to
work with the machines.
Jean Gomes (44:26):
And that makes total sense. I guess. The question it
begs then, from a commercialpoint of view, is, how do we
measure judgement if we look attwo doctors or two accountants
who've got the equal kind ofexperience, track record,
status, etc, etc, and thenyou're saying, well, the
differential now in the futurewill be their judgement. How do
you measure that?
Andrew Likierman (44:45):
Well, I, you know, I've worked with a
regulator dealing with exactlythis issue. So the regulator
regulates professional firms,and the Professional Firms are
required. Honoured to exerciseprofessional judgement. Now the
question is, so, what isprofessional judgement here? And
(45:06):
if something has gone wrong, youknow is, does that mean,
therefore, that professionaljudgement wasn't exercised? The
key element and distinction oneneeds to make here is to say, if
there is a judgement process,and somebody can demonstrate
that they have gone through thejudgement process and done
everything they can to achievewhat was necessary, then that is
(45:33):
a demonstration of goodjudgement. Why I'm focusing on
process rather than outcome isthat outcomes are determined by
things which are nothing to dowith our ability to exercise
judgement. I mean, for a startoff, we have luck. You know,
luck is a key factor in successin a lot of things in life. Of
(45:57):
course, you know, we like tosay, oh, you know that was bad
luck when things don't go forus. But quite often we say,
well, actually, that's, youknow, modestly, that was due to
my excellent qualities, whenthings go in our favour, even
though we may have had a greatdeal of luck, you can't link
(46:19):
necessarily judgement atoutcomes because of things like
luck. I mean, the other elementsare the to do with timing, that
there may be the question of,know whether the data is good
enough, and so on. There's lotsof reasons why this is not a
simple thing to do. So simplysaying, you know, if something
(46:41):
is successful, by definition, itmust be due to good judgement.
May not be right. It may simplybe due to luck or the fact that
other people you know, had adisaster on their hands, and
that was actually benefited us,whatever it is. So for me, it's
about the question of process.
Can you demonstrate that you dideverything you reasonably could
(47:03):
to make a choice as good aspossible? Now that is the
exercise of judgement. So Iwould say judgement can be
measured in terms of saying hasa process been followed to give
the best possible chance ofsuccess.
Jean Gomes (47:23):
Who do you think is doing that well outside of kind
of regulated sectors? I mean,you meet lots of leaders who's
kind of not falling into thetrap of confusing outcomes
driven by luck versus judgement.
Andrew Likierman (47:39):
Well, I would say all those people who may not
have thought about Judgementitself, but these kind of
techniques where peoplesystematically look at the
reasons for success and thereasons for failure and try and
always try and improve whatthey're trying to do on the
basis of learning from what wentwell and what went badly. Now
(48:04):
the quality of analysis has tobe there too, because you can't
simply make a correlation andhope for the best because
circumstances change. So thelooking at outcomes has to be
linked to a rigorous look at thereasons why things were as they
were. I mean, if I just takeanalogies, you know, people say,
(48:26):
well, it's just like last weekor last month or the financial
crisis or whatever it is. Well,actually it isn't. You know,
life develops very, verydifferently. We it's difficult
always to say that you haveexactly the same thing going on.
You mean, and you need todifferentiate in each case. Is
(48:48):
it exactly the same as lasttime? Are we aware that word
again, awareness? Are we awareof what might be different? So I
think here that you know, it'sthe learning part, which is
fundamental to good managementin any field, is an important
part of judgement as well.
Sara Deschamps (49:10):
If the conversations we've been having
on the evolving leader havehelped you in any way, please
head over to Apple podcasts andleave us a rating and review.
Thank you for listening. Nowlet's get back to the
conversation
Jean Gomes (49:24):
when we talked before you describe the pain of
writing this book, because, youknow, creating any kind of
holistic, systematic approach toa topic where you're integrating
lots of different disciplines isis very hard. It's a tough,
tough thing to leave things out.
So two kind of final questions,really. One is, what did you
(49:46):
leave out that you'd like tobring back and put into into
this conversation? And what'snext for you in terms of your
research?
Andrew Likierman (49:56):
Okay, leaving out? Well, I left loads up my
right. I wrote the book, and myeditor said, oh, you can't put
all this in. It's unmanageable.
You've got to leave lots ofstuff out. So sadly, many things
hit the cutting room floor.
What's the what's the mostinteresting
Jean Gomes (50:13):
thing you left on the table?
Andrew Likierman (50:15):
Oh, goodness me, no, you've got me there.
Think about that, okay, but interms of what I'm excited by
what happens now, because whatI'm trying to do now, and my
focus throughout this has beennot, here is an interesting
subject. Let me look at it. Buthow can I actually help people
(50:36):
to make better choices? So whatI'm doing at the moment is I'm
applying it in many differentareas. I mentioned professions,
I mentioned regulation. I'vealready worked on independent
judgement on the board, and whatthat is to help directors
understand their legalobligations in in that area, I'm
(50:57):
working with the family firmInstitute on how to apply this
within a family firm context.
I'm working with varioustraining bodies to see how I can
help on the training process toget people better doing what
they're doing. I'm working withfinancial institutions to help
on the decision making processthere and how they can improve
(51:19):
that. So for me, this is a veryexciting time to say, All right,
let's see where we can applythis. Because since choice is
pretty universal, you know,there's no limit to what's
possible. So you can see why I'mkind of excited by the next
stage,
Jean Gomes (51:37):
if you could get privileged access, I'm sure
you've got very good access intolots of incredible places, but
you're looking at the worldright now and saying, there
really needs to be some betterjudgement exercised here. Where
would you Where would you likeaccess to? There is
Andrew Likierman (51:52):
a very, very obvious place, very obvious
person. But you know, I'm afraideven my wildest fantasies would
not they're not listening, thatI'm going to get anywhere near
whoever that person is, who youanybody here might be thinking
about? No, I mean, look, I'd be,you know, if people in positions
(52:19):
of authority and positions ofresponsibility find this useful,
then that is, that's, that's bigfor me.
Jean Gomes (52:27):
Yeah, well, I'm sure they will, because this is, as
you say, the the differentialthat humans have in an
automating world, and to be ableto better understand your own
capacity for judgement, identifythe blind spots of the
weaknesses, Shore those up, getextra support in, and then
(52:48):
amplify the areas where you'restrong, will give you that you
know that forward kind ofmomentum in your career, and
help you to build theorganisation that you need to
build. So I think that's areally great place to leave it,
Andrew, and I'm very gratefulfor your time and how busy you
are. So we're deeplyappreciative of spending this
(53:11):
hour with you. And everybodyshould get a copy of judgement
at work. I read it over thesummer, and it opened my eyes,
to lots of things that wereincredibly valuable for me as a
as a practitioner, but also formy own business and development.
So I thoroughly recommend that,and we'll leave details of
(53:32):
Andrew's work in the show notesand link to the book as well. So
remember, folks, the world isevolving. Are you?
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