Reviewing a decision with your manager: is the outcome enough?

In the relationship with a manager, outcomes can easily become the verdict on an employee’s choices. The more useful question is narrower: how can both parties review a decision without letting its outcome rewrite the assessment criteria?

What the literature establishes

Jonathan Baron and John C. Hershey (1988, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology) demonstrate experimentally that knowing a decision’s outcome can change assessments of its quality, even when the information available at the time of the choice remains identical. This outcome bias leads people to judge a decision more favourably when it produces a favourable result. In a discussion with a manager, the important distinction is therefore between the quality of the original reasoning and the observed outcome.

Accountability does not guarantee better judgement

Jennifer S. Lerner and Philip E. Tetlock (1999, Psychological Bulletin) show in a literature review that the effects of having to justify decisions depend on the conditions under which accountability operates. Having to explain oneself can encourage more careful consideration, but it can also promote conformity to an evaluator’s known preferences or the defence of an existing position. Agreeing in advance on what will be assessed is therefore a more specific approach than simply asking an employee to be accountable.

The premature conclusion

One might conclude that outcomes should be ignored and only the method assessed. That would go too far: outcomes remain necessary for learning, identifying weak assumptions and revising practice. The qualification is that a single outcome should not be treated as sufficient proof of competence or incompetence. (our executive and employee training programmes)

What the evidence cannot promise

The outcome-bias experiments do not directly test a method for discussions between managers and employees in a Zurich company. The accountability review likewise brings together varied situations rather than offering a universal recipe for hierarchical relationships. A record written before a decision therefore does not eliminate bias; its main value is to make it possible to check whether the criteria subsequently changed.

A practical check in Zurich

In financial services, insurance, tech or the European headquarters of international groups in Zurich, agree with your manager on a category of recurring decisions involving genuine uncertainty. For each selected decision, record the available information, options, assumptions and assessment criteria before the outcome is known, without replacing regulatory or internal approvals. After a one-month trial, calculate the proportion of reviewed decisions whose assessment explicitly distinguishes the original reasoning from the outcome, also reporting the total number of decisions examined. Within SHR’s « Construire une relation efficace avec son manager » programme, this exercise can support an evidence-based discussion without presenting the indicator as proof of improved performance. To go further: explore the Building an Effective Relationship with Your Manager training in Zurich in the canton of Zurich, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.

In pictures: Building an Effective Relationship with Your Manager in Zurich

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