Keeping a decision reversible: what satisfaction does not tell us
In Zurich, choosing a technology provider or an operational arrangement often involves several functions within the same organisation. The management question is specific: should a decision remain open to revision to make those responsible for it more satisfied?
What the literature establishes
Daniel Gilbert and Jane Ebert (2002, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology) studied choices that participants could, or could not, change after making them. In their experiments, retaining the option to change did not necessarily deliver the expected satisfaction: choices that had become final could be liked more. Participants did not accurately anticipate this effect of reversibility.
The mechanism: we misjudge our capacity to adapt
Daniel Gilbert, Elizabeth Pinel, Timothy Wilson, Stephen Blumberg and Thalia Wheatley (1998, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology) showed that people could overestimate how long their negative emotional reactions would last. Their work points to an underestimation of the psychological mechanisms that alleviate these reactions. This mechanism helps explain why keeping a choice open does not guarantee a better subjective experience: making a choice final can encourage acceptance.
The premature conclusion
One might conclude that managers should quickly remove any possibility of revision. That would confuse satisfaction with decision quality: accepting a choice more readily demonstrates neither its profitability, nor its compliance, nor its technical suitability. Reversibility retains value when it allows an organisation to respond to new information or limit its exposure to risk. (our executive and employee training programmes)
What these data cannot settle
These experiments do not examine IT contracts, insurance commitments or decisions involving European headquarters. They therefore cannot establish the optimal length of a revision period in those settings. Common practice also leaves an ambiguity unresolved: reopening a decision because a fact has changed is not the same as reopening it because the person responsible remains dissatisfied.
A practical check in Zurich
As part of SHR's decision-making programme, a Zurich team in financial services, insurance, tech or a European headquarters can test a register of reversible decisions. For each tracked decision, the team records in advance a review date, the facts that would justify reopening it and a performance criterion separate from the decision owner's satisfaction. At the review date, it calculates the proportion of reopened decisions supported by a documented new fact meeting the predefined criteria, while recording satisfaction and performance separately. This check does not prove that closure improves decisions; it establishes whether reversibility supports learning rather than prolonged hesitation. To go further: explore the Decision-making training in Zurich, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
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