# Process vs Outcome ## The Idea in Brief Good decisions can lead to bad outcomes. Bad decisions can lead to good outcomes. Judging decisions by their results conflates skill with luck. The right approach: evaluate the quality of the decision process, not the outcome it produced. Over time, good process wins. --- ## Key Concepts ### Resulting "Resulting" is the error of judging decisions by their outcomes. A poker player who goes all-in with 2-7 offsuit and wins made a terrible decision that happened to work. A surgeon who follows best practice but loses a patient didn't necessarily make a mistake. Outcomes contain noise; process is signal. ### The Quality of the Bet Every decision is a bet on an uncertain future. The quality of the bet depends on: the information available at the time, the reasoning applied, and the odds offered. Not on what happened next. You can only control inputs, not outputs. ### Variance vs Expectation Short-term results are dominated by variance (luck). Long-term results converge toward expectation (skill). A good process has positive expected value—it will win over many iterations, even if individual iterations lose. Evaluating single outcomes is statistically naive. ### Separating Controllable from Uncontrollable You control: preparation, effort, decision quality, execution. You don't control: other people's responses, market movements, random events. Energy spent on uncontrollables is wasted. Focus on the process, detach from outcomes. --- ## Implications **In performance:** Judge yourself and others on process quality. Did you prepare well? Did you consider alternatives? Did you execute with discipline? These questions matter more than "did it work?" **In learning:** When something fails, ask: was the process bad, or did variance go against us? If the process was sound, don't change it. If it was flawed, fix it—regardless of whether you got lucky this time. **In investing:** Track decision quality separately from returns. A portfolio that underperformed due to market conditions isn't evidence of bad decisions. A portfolio that outperformed due to one lucky bet isn't evidence of skill. **In competition:** Focus on executing your process, not on beating the opponent. You can't control them; you can control you. Winners are often surprised by victory because they weren't focused on winning—they were focused on execution. --- ## Sources - [[Algorithms to Live By]] — Even optimal algorithms produce bad outcomes sometimes; judge by expected value, not single results - [[Black Box Thinking]] — Learning requires separating process from outcome; aviation investigates process, not just crashes - [[High Performance Habits]] — Elite performers obsess over process, trusting that outcomes follow - [[The Most Important Thing]] — Howard Marks on the difference between good decisions and good outcomes; risk is about process - [[With Winning In Mind]] — Focus on process during competition; thinking about outcomes causes choking - [[The Coaching Habit]] — Asking "what was most useful?" extracts process learning, not outcome celebration --- ## See in Field Notes - [Decision Architecture](https://www.anishpatel.co/decision-architecture/) — Strategy as hypothesis: judge the quality of the decision process, track what you expected vs what happened