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A few weeks ago, Netflix CEO, Reed Hastings made a very unpopular decision to split Netflix’s online streaming business with its DVD-by-mail business.  Customers, analysts, shareholders were all outraged.  On Monday, he recanted that decision.

Like many other pundits and opinion-dealers, I applaud Hastings for his decision on Monday.  Unlike everyone else, however, I applaud him for making the original decision that so outraged everyone.  Not because it was necessarily a great decision, but because it was a decision.  In that is the secret to success we so conveniently overlook.

The Hindsight Pile On

The backlash against Hastings is another example of the Hindsight Pile-On.  Us humans absolutely love to point out the poor judgment of others…in hindsight.  We are all intuitively aware of this, which is why so many of us are afraid to make a decision.  We know that sins of commission will always be punished much more severely than sins of omission.  We can’t shake the fear that if we make the wrong decision, then what will everyone say!?!  The horror!  And as Reed Hastings is proving, our fear is justified. People will jump at the chance to call us morons.  Even after Hastings changed his mind this week, many are still not willing to let him off.  People like Mashable.com editor in chief, Lance Ulanoff wrote “It’s a fairly good mop-up job by Netflix founder Reed Hastings. But that only proves Hastings is qualified to be the company janitor, not its CEO.”

Yet, us humans also love to applaud “risk-takers”…in hindsight.  After we are certain that a risk has paid off, we love to say “see, that’s the bold revolutionary spirit that we need around here!  We need more men/women of action!”  The posthumous love-fest honoring Steve Jobs in the past week is a prime example of this.  Now, that we are 100% certain Steve Jobs cannot make another mistake, everyone talks about what a visionary he was and praises his supernatural intuition.   I agree that Jobs was both of these and is deserving of adoration.

But we always tend to forget that true visionaries like Steve Jobs made all sorts of bad decisions.  In 1997, Jobs told an audience that during his rebuilding of Apple “mistakes will be made.  That’s good.  Because it means that decisions are being made.”  (the quote comes at 4:26 in the clip at the bottom)  In response to that statement, the crowd unleashes a rapturous applause.  However, I’m sure that many of those applauding in that audience that day did not hesitate to say “idiots!” the first time Apple made one of said mistakes.  Jobs himself almost certainly chided his team when they made mistakes.

 

WWJD: What Would Jobs Do?

So, what to do?  One thing we could do is keep in mind that decisions always have to be made without full knowledge of their consequences.  Sometimes, experience will prove just how bone-headed the choice was.  Maybe we should be a bit more tolerant of other people’s bad decisions, especially when they recognize and correct them like Hastings did.  The alternative is akin to encouraging toxic indecision in the people around you.

But in regard to our own decisions, we simply have to accept the fact we will always be chastised for poor decisions, and often even for good decisions.  If that criticism is too much for you to bear, you do have an alternative.  You can always hide under a blanket of indecision and nobody will scrutinize you.  But also be aware that the blanket of indecision often doubles as a cage of mediocrity and personal dissatisfaction.

What makes people like Steve Jobs and Reed Hastings special is that they act on (and not just pay lip service to) the lesson from Turkish sage, Nasreddin, who said “Good decisions come from experience.  Experience comes from bad decisions.”

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