One way to improve the quality of our decisions is to pose a simple question any time we find ourselves receiving a recommendation – “What are the trade-offs?”
It doesn’t matter what the recommendation is – but if it involves a significant investment for some great predicted benefit – it is worth explicitly understanding what the trade-offs are.
Because they always exist – nothing is perfect.
And the sooner we understand them, the quicker we’ll be able to gauge if something is great for us.
We’ll also quickly understand the compatibility of a recommender as well. Good recommenders tend to be disciplined about consistently calling out trade-offs.
