decision calibration
WHAT THIS IS
Decision Calibration is pre-commitment due diligence for decisions that do not reverse cleanly.
A confidential, bounded 90–120 minute session to clarify frame, risk
location, irreversibility, and what is truly being committed to across
financial, relational, reputational, emotional, and time domains.
when it’s useful
Decision Calibration is for decisions that are:
imminent (a move is already forming)
consequential (the cost of misalignment is real)
relationally entangled (others are affected)
difficult to reverse (a decision will lock something in)
It is not for routine choices.
It is for decisions that shape governance, obligations, identity, timing, or long-range optionality.
what it does
Decision Calibration restores decision integrity by clarifying:
what is actually being committed to
what assumptions are governing the option set
where risk and consequence concentrate
what becomes difficult to renegotiate once you move
what remains open, flexible, or undecided
The aim is not certainty.
The aim is coherent commitment.
“It is a capital mistake to theorize
before one has data.”
WHAT HAPPENS IN THE SESSION
We take one decision and examine it through three lenses:
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What is being treated as fact?
What is inherited, borrowed, outdated, or unquestioned?
What frame would you choose if you were not under pressure?
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Where does risk actually sit — financially, relationally, reputationally, psychologically, strategically?
What risk is being owned consciously?
What risk is being displaced onto others, the future, or the system?
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What locks in once you act?
What becomes expensive to renegotiate?
What do you lose — or preserve — through action, inaction, or delay?
No action plan is produced. No recommendation is given. The decision remains yours.
THE OUTCOME
The session concludes with a Decision Orientation Map — a one-page executive brief that captures the decision’s true structure:
it clarifies what is being committed to — including: second-order consequences across financial, relational, reputational, emotional, and time domains, and
makes visible the assumptions shaping the option set, where risk concentrates, and where optionality begins to close.
Delivered as a concise document you can return to, forward, or file, designed to stabilize judgment when urgency compresses nuance.
Written so it can be shared with a partner, counsel, or leadership team without translation.
Built to be read in under two minutes — and revisited at the moment of action.
clarity before commitment
|
map before motion
|
signal before noise
clarity before commitment | map before motion | signal before noise
THE METHOD
Decision Calibration is not coaching, therapy, or advisory. It is a short, bounded calibration
designed to restore decision integrity by clarifying frame, risk location, and irreversibility.
The instrument is rooted in decision science — drawing from decision quality discipline,
premortem logic, and judgment hygiene — adapted for high-consequence private decisions.
Most services optimize for action. This instrument optimizes for precision before commitment, and produces a clear decision artifact you can return to under pressure.
Who this is for
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The decision is already “in motion”
a sequence has been triggerred, stopping it would require renegotiation
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THE STAKES ARE REAL
financial, relational, reputational, existential
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THE DECISION IS ENTANGLED
multiple roles, people, obligations, time lines, cultures
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reversal would be costly
because consequence has already begun to accumulate