Although provocative, this somehow sounded better than "life is roulette." Now that I have your attention, here is the concept.

Outside of the foundations of morals, ethics and integrity, almost everything else in business is a shade of gray. Every decision can be right or wrong in different contexts, as we all have experienced. There is no single model or path to success. I read an article in the McKinsey Quarterly the other day which piqued my interest. Here is an excerpt:

“Once you’ve internalized the concept that you can’t prove anything in absolute terms, life becomes all the more about odds, chances, and trade-offs. In a world without provable truths, the only way to refine the probabilities that remain is through greater knowledge and understanding.” Wise managers know that business is about finding ways to improve the odds of success—but never imagine that it is a certainty.

So, this puts Rick Tamlyn's comments in my earlier post in a new light: if you want to improve the odds, gain greater understanding or...

... you can change the rules of the game or change the game you are playing.

I leave you with one more excerpt from the McKinsey article:

Finally, clear-thinking executives know that in an uncertain world, actions and outcomes are imperfectly linked. It’s easy to infer that good outcomes result from good decisions and that bad outcomes must mean someone blundered. Yet the fact that a given choice didn’t turn out well doesn’t always mean it was a mistake. Good decisions don’t always lead to favorable outcomes, and unfavorable outcomes are not always the result of mistakes. Wise managers resist the natural tendency to make attributions based solely on outcomes. They avoid the halo bestowed by performance and insist on independent evidence.