Use "Nevertheless" to Balance Listening and Decision Enforcement
by Annie Duke on May 2, 2024
Annie Duke believes that making implicit decision processes explicit is essential for improving decision quality. Your intuition isn't inherently flawed, but without making it explicit, you can't identify when it's wrong.
The most impactful change organizations can make is shifting how they gather input. Most meetings attempt to handle discovery, discussion, and decisions simultaneously, which leads to poor outcomes. Instead, Duke recommends that only discussion should happen in meetings, with discovery and decisions happening independently and asynchronously.
When collecting opinions, gather them independently before any group discussion. This prevents the loudest or most senior voices from anchoring everyone else's thinking. Send questions in advance, have people submit responses privately, then share the compiled results before meeting. This approach reveals the true diversity of perspectives that would otherwise be lost to conformity pressures.
During discussions, focus on understanding rather than persuading. As a leader, reflect back what you hear without immediately offering your opinion: "I just want to make sure I understood what you said..." This makes people feel genuinely heard, which increases their commitment to the final decision even when it doesn't align with their preference.
Duke challenges the notion of "alignment" as a meeting goal. People rarely truly agree, and forcing consensus creates coercion. Instead, acknowledge disagreement as normal and healthy. The goal isn't universal agreement but ensuring everyone feels their perspective was considered.
For long-term decisions, Duke rejects the concept of "long feedback loops." There's always intermediate signals correlated with ultimate success. Identify these signals and track them to create shorter feedback cycles. For example, venture capitalists don't need to wait ten years for an exit to evaluate investment decisions—they can track series A funding rates, product-market fit indicators, and other early signals.
When using pre-mortems, pair them with pre-commitments. Don't just identify what might go wrong—establish specific kill criteria and commit to actions you'll take when those signals appear. This helps overcome our natural reluctance to quit failing initiatives, as we typically wait far too long to abandon unproductive paths.
The Power of "Nevertheless"
One of Duke's most practical leadership tools is the word "nevertheless." It creates space for people to feel heard while maintaining decision authority: "I hear what you're saying and I understand, nevertheless this is what's going to happen." This balances empathy with decisiveness, allowing you to acknowledge input while still moving forward with what you believe is right.