In 2001, Sir Alex Ferguson sold Jaap Stam to Lazio for £16.5 million.
Stam was Manchester United's best defender. One of the most feared centre-backs in the league.
He was twenty-nine years old, recovering from an Achilles injury, and Ferguson thought he had lost a yard of pace.
One bad game against Fulham. Then Lazio's offer arrived. Within days, the deal closed in the forecourt of a Manchester petrol station.
The next season, United finished third after three years as champions. Stam played at the top of the game for another five years.
Ferguson later called it the worst decision of his career.
Here's the thing most people miss when they tell that story.
The reasoning at the time was defensible. Stam had played through an injury, and his recovery numbers had dropped.
Ferguson had a track record of selling players one season too early rather than one season too late. That approach had built three title-winning squads. The Lazio offer was extraordinary money for a defender returning from injury.
The bet was rational. The bet lost.
Notice what Ferguson did next. Over the years since, he has told the story two different ways.
At the time, the reason was football. He talked about the injury, the dropped pace, the Lazio money.
Years later, after Stam's autobiography revealed details Ferguson took issue with, a second layer emerged. The sale was partly a discipline call.
Both versions are probably true. But see what happened. As the outcome got further away, the reasoning around it kept moving.
This is what Annie Duke calls resulting: the habit of judging the quality of a decision by the quality of its outcome. It's the most common failure mode in how leaders evaluate their own past calls.
It is also the reason most leaders can't tell you how they made their last big decision.
Try it. Pick a major call you made in the last six months. A hire, a strategic shift, a project you killed, a deal you walked away from. Now answer this:
What did I know at the time, what did I expect to happen, and why did I choose this option over the others I considered?
Most leaders cannot answer that question. Not because they didn't think about it. Because the moment the outcome arrived, their memory of the reasoning quietly rewrote itself to match.
The decision worked, so they remember being confident. The decision failed, so they remember the doubts they ignored. Either way, the actual reasoning is gone.
This is the gap a decision journal closes.
You write the call before you know how it turns out. The information you had, what you expected, why this option and not the others. A single page, written before the result is in.
Then you set a date to come back and read it.
When that date arrives, you find out two things at once. Whether the decision was right, and whether your reasoning held up. Most of the time, only one of them did.
One Good Decision is built around this practice. Seven days, one question per day, one decision moved from the back of your mind to a written record you can review.
In a week, you don't just have a decision made. You have a record of how you made it.
The deal closes. Not in a petrol station, but on a single page you can come back to.
Tomorrow: what changes by the seventh day.
