The Decision Papers

  • The Decision Papers — Lever or Weather: When Prediction Feels Like Power. Banner with a long lever balanced on a fulcrum beside an immovable mountain outline, on aged paper.

    I.29 — Lever or Weather: When Prediction Feels Like Power

    “It is far better to foresee even without certainty than not to foresee at all.” — Henri Poincaré Two companies get the same warning from the same kind of model: a sharp drop in demand is coming, six months out, and the forecast is solid. In the first boardroom, the question is how do we…

    The Decision Papers
  • The Decision Papers — The Asymmetry of Truth: Why You Cannot Prove a Universal, Only Break It. Banner with a grid of white swans and a single black one breaking the pattern.

    I.26 — The Asymmetry of Truth: Why You Cannot Prove a Universal, Only Break It

    “No man ever steps in the same river twice.” — Heraclitus For most of European history, all swans are white was not a theory. It was a fact, confirmed by every swan anyone had ever seen, for centuries. Then, in 1697, a Dutch expedition reached the rivers of Western Australia and watched a black swan…

    The Decision Papers
  • The Decision Papers — From Thought to Proof: How Leaders Move Before the Evidence Is Ready. Banner with sketched figures and structures ascending in stages.

    I.25 — From Thought to Proof: How Leaders Move Before the Evidence Is Ready

    “Hypotheses are nets: only he who casts will catch.” — Novalis In 1854, a London doctor asked a parish council to do something that sounded like superstition: take the handle off the Broad Street water pump. Cholera was killing the neighbourhood, and everyone knew it came from bad air. Germ theory was unproven. The bacterium…

    The Decision Papers