Colin Powell on information for decision making

Everyone knows the old adage: bad news, unlike wine, doesn’t get better with time.

I am going to quote at length from Colin Powell's article The Daily Beast:

You can’t make good decisions unless you have good information and can separate facts from opinion and speculation. Facts are verified information, which is then presented as objective reality. The rub here is the verified. How do you verify verified? Facts are slippery, and so is verification. Today’s verification may not be tomorrow’s. It turns out that facts may not really be facts; they can change as the verification changes; they may only tell part of the story, not the whole story; or they may be so qualified by verifiers that they’re empty of information. 

My warning radar always goes on alert when qualifiers are attached to facts. Qualifiers like: My best judgment ... I think ... As best I can tell ... Usually reliable sources say ... For the most part ... We’ve been told ... and the like. I don’t dismiss facts so qualified, but I’m cautious about taking them to the bank. 

Over time I developed for my intelligence staffs a set of four rules to ensure that we saw the process from the same perspective and to take off their shoulders some of the burden of accountability:

• Tell me what you know.

• Tell me what you don’t know.

• Then tell me what you think.

• Always distinguish which is which.

What you know means you are reasonably sure that your facts are corroborated. At best, you know where they came from, and you can confirm them with multiple sources. At times you will not have this level of assurance, but you’re still pretty sure that your analysis is correct. It’s OK to go with that if it’s all you have, but in every case, tell me why you are sure and your level of assurance.

Tell me what you think. Though verified facts are the golden nuggets of decision making, unverified information, hunches, and even wild beliefs may sometimes prove to be just as important.

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Most of us don't have the Department of Defense with its huge staff and complex bureaucracy providing us with information (much less the entire foreign policy establishment of the U.S. government) but the approach seems to be worthwhile.

If you are making an important decision, it might be worthwhile making some lists:

• What you think you know, how you know it and how confident of each assertion;
• What you think you want to know that you don't know, how much you want to know it, and how hard it is likely to be to find out;
• What you think, why you think it, how likely each thought might be, and whether to change something from this category to one of the categories above.
• Being sure to distinguish which is which.

Of course, putting the information on which a decision is to be based is only the first step. It is then necessary to make the decision, and to implement the decision.

(Tim Sloan / AFP-Getty Images)

Colin Powell, who was Secretary of State when we invaded Iraq, points out that the Bush administration did not take to heart his comment, "if you break it, you own it." He points out that the plans were not implemented that would have kept the Iraq military sufficiently in place to maintain domestic order, and would also have kept most of the lower level Baath Party members in place in their jobs in schools, hospitals and government agencies. Had those plans been implemented, we might have avoided years of involvement in insurrection in Iraq.