Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction

00:01:10: Defining "judgement"

00:04:24: Why good judgement matters

00:05:15: The Ps of good judgement

00:08:28: Five ideas for action…

00:08:41: … 1: notice your detractors and accelerators

00:15:29: … 2: speedy sense check

00:18:26: … 3: play it out

00:21:13: … 4: what don't you know

00:25:22: … 5: the bad judgement override

00:29:50: Summary of ideas for action

00:30:09: Final thoughts

Interview Transcription

Sarah Ellis: Hi, I'm Sarah.

Helen Tupper: And I'm Helen.

Sarah Ellis: And you're listening to the Squiggly Careers podcast, where every week we talk about a topic to do with work, and we hope to give you, and we always give ourselves, a bit more confidence and control over our increasingly Squiggly Careers.

Helen Tupper: And all of our podcasts come with lots of things to help you to take action, whether you want to join us on our weekly PodPlus session, which is back after a summer break, or you want to read our PodSheets, which help you to sort of reflect, learn and take action in your own time, it is all ready for you, it is all free and it is linked in the show notes of the episode.  And if you can't find it there, you can also go to our website amazingif.com and you'll find it on the different pages and tabs there.  And if you're still stuck, just email us; we're helenandsarah@squigglycareers.com.  

There's a way, there's a way to get this work to you! Today, we're going to be talking about the topic of judgement, because it's something that I think has just kept coming up in Sarah's and my conversation, like when we're making decisions, and we're thinking about things, or we might be talking about other people that we admire, this kind of sense of, "Oh, that person's got really good judgement", keeps coming up, and we decided to want to unpack it a bit more, because as we'll come on to, we think it is a really important skill in a Squiggly Career. So, the first way that we often unpack skills is that we look for a definition.  The definitions we found are a little bit, I don't know, they're not everyday language.  There is a very good article, which is a good read, from HBR, which we'll link to in the PodSheet, on the topic of judgement.  And the definition they give is that it's, "The ability to combine personal qualities with relevant knowledge and experience to form opinions and make decisions".  And I do believe it, but it takes a lot of unpacking, and I don't think I'm going to remember that.  So, we've tried to find a perhaps more relatable and memorable definition of what we mean when we talk about judgement.

Sarah Ellis: And we weren't successful.  So, we've not found a definition somewhere else that we thought, "Oh, they've got it spot on".  What we have noticed, certainly in the area of career development, there are these big skills where to make progress, you've got to break them down so that you can get better at them.  So, if you just think judgement, gravitas, communication, creativity, or if you get some feedback, "I need to get better at those things", by themselves, they're too big, they're too generalist to be useful.  So, this is where you have got to go, "Okay, well, what are the component parts?  What contributes to good judgement?  So I can then think about, "Okay, well, maybe I do that area well, but maybe this is an area I could get better at". So, the best I could come up with, and I certainly think Helen was 100% happy with it, for good reason, and then we started arguing about what good judgement really was, is --

Helen Tupper: Discussing.

Sarah Ellis: Discussing constructively.  I was like, "Is it just smart thinking that gets you to a sensible solution?"  So, that was it.  I was like, "Smart thinking, sensible solution, done".  That's good judgement.  What do you think, Helen?

Helen Tupper: My debate, or as you framed it, an argument about others, was that I sometimes think that what you think is good judgement or a sensible solution isn't necessarily what somebody else would.  Actually, I think shared judgement is different to kind of individual good judgement.  But to be honest, with so many of these things, you could go round and round and round all day.  And so we thought, well, let's just focus on how do you know if you've got good judgement? 

So we've got a definition, which is kind of guiding direction of this discussion, which is, "Smart thinking equals sensible solutions"; and then to dive into it a bit deeper, we were thinking, well, how do you know, if you have got good judgement, what does it actually look like in practical terms? We got to, "You're right more than you're wrong".  So you might look back on an action you've taken, decisions you've made based on judgement, and you look back and you go, "Yeah, to be honest, more times it's gone well than it hasn't".  So that's kind of one indicator.  Another is that people respect and listen to what you've got to say, so there's a sense that other people trust your judgement.  And the third thing that we thought, that you would know you've got good judgement, if you are consistently good at navigating unknowns.  So, when we were reflecting on people that we think have got good judgement, they're not doing the same thing all the time.  They're putting themselves in new situations, or they're stretching themselves, or they're doing things that other people haven't done.  And what allows them to go into those different situations is the fact that they're kind of making a good call about the things they're doing, or the way they're doing, or who they're doing it with.  So there's these sort of signals of good judgement in the different things that they're doing.

Sarah Ellis: And so, why does good judgement matter in a Squiggly Career?  Well, linking back to what Helen was just saying, we were reflecting that same again doesn't work that well in Squiggly Careers.  And that's because to make positive progress, whatever that progress looks like for you, you are inevitably going to have unknowns and incomplete information.  We all want the ideal scenario where I've been presented with every scenario, every bit of data, it's all perfectly there in front of me, and then I can make an incredible plan.  And at that point, I've got amazing judgement. 

Nobody has better judgement, but that's none of our realities.  So, I think whatever discipline you're in, whatever career stage you're at, that ability to make judgements comes up in our week, I think, way more than we give ourselves credit for. One of the things I think is useful to think about is, what are we all commonly making judgements about? 

Because, again, judgement can feel quite lofty, and maybe it's something that senior people do.  But as it turns out, there were lots of Ps that I could come up with about judgements that we are making, I think, most weeks and most of the time.  So, pace, should I speed this up; should I slow this down; should I stop this?  Priorities, what's most important now?  Problems, what are we solving for?  People, what does that person care about; what might matter to that team?  Purpose, clarity on why I'm doing this; why are we collectively doing it, the kind of the why behind the work?  Possibilities, what moves or roles should I explore in my career; what skills should I be gaining, making some judgement calls on those things?  And the last one is tenuous, which is pounds, which Helen and I were both saying, sometimes you're making judgement calls about maybe how to manage your budget or how to invest money in your kind of thinking about your team, or maybe what not to spend money on, just as importantly. 

So, there probably are some kinds of money judgements as well. But I actually think, reflecting on your week, maybe think back to last week, what were all the judgement calls that you make?  I think judgement call makes it feel a bit more today and a bit more every day, "Oh, so today I made a judgement call to do that before this because I made a priority call", or, "I made a judgement call about bringing that project forward by two weeks because I think that will really help our customers".  So just maybe start to spot and notice all the judgement calls you're making.

Helen Tupper: I was thinking actually about my week, if I was looking at the Ps, like over the last week, which of those Ps have played a role in my week in terms of judgements.  And I think possibilities, people, different people, and probably some priorities, you know, like post-summer stuff, spending my time in the right way.  It always feels like a really good time to kind of make those judgement calls on your priorities.  Which Ps have been most prevalent for you?

Sarah Ellis: I think I'm always thinking about problems, which might sound really negative, but I think I enjoy making judgements around problems.  So, what are the problems we're trying to solve for people's careers; are we making enough progress on those problems?  Probably pace.  I am often challenging myself, are we going quickly enough on the areas that are going to have the most impact; do we need to stop some stuff; are we not great at subtracting?  And I find the area of subtraction very interesting.  I read some research on how infrequently that gets done in organisations, that sort of, "Oh, we're really going to focus and we're going to really prioritise", but so rarely do things get stopped. 

So judgement calls, I think I'm often thinking, should we be stopping anything; should we be speeding something up, but then slowing something completely down, because actually that's not going to make as much difference?  Inevitably, I think I am less day-to-day than you are.  In the judgements that I am reflecting on and probably how that shows up in my actions, I think it's often very future-facing versus day-to-day.

Helen Tupper: If you would like to see those Ps and reflect on them for yourself, the PodSheet is a really good place to get them from, because you'll be able to see them and maybe tick off, "Which Ps have been prevalent for me in my week?"  Quite interesting to see, like are there some things that you never make any judgements on?  Maybe you should!  Which P gets missed?  So, now what we're going to do is get some ideas for action to really help you to take this sort of uber-skill of judgement and make it really practical for you, so that you can do something different and you can develop it for your work. So we've got five, and the first one is about noticing your judgement detractors and your accelerators. 

So, it's sort of like a part one and a part two of this one.  So, if we start with your judgement detractors, these are the things that you can start to spot will affect the quality of your judgement in a situation.  And the best way to do this is to sort of look back at some situations you've been in which have required your judgement in the past, which on reflection might not have been the best judgement calls that you made. So for example, if I think about a bad judgement call I made when I was at Capital One, so this is years and years ago now, I chose to do an MBA.  I really fought for it actually because I think I was relatively young to be doing it and it wasn't the norm in my organisation.  I think I was so driven to get it done that I didn't do a lot of research into, was it the right programme for me to be on, was I going to be learning in the right way for me?  So I didn't complete it.  Ultimately, I did not complete that MBA. 

I did another one later that was much, much better, with much better judgement.  But at the time, I look back on that and go, "That was a bad judgement call.  You chose the wrong programme, because it wasn't right for you to do". Once you've identified your bad judgement from your past, you can think about, well, where did that bad judgement stem from?  What was really driving that detractor?  And so, the statement there to think about is, "Well, in that situation, my bad judgement came from…", and I would say it was a need for speed in that situation.  I just wanted to get it done.  I was thinking, "I really want an MBA.  I've got this opportunity.  I'm just going to do it regardless of all the other things that were happening in that situation".  And so for me, I am now more aware that one of my judgement detractors is speed.  If a situation has a deadline, get-it-done kind of thing going on, that is a red flag for me that I need to do something else, which we'll come on to accelerators in a moment, that will help me to improve my judgement in this situation, otherwise, I might default to my detractors.  Sarah, have you got an example that might help people?

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, it was quite different to yours.  I thought, I mean I could think of lots of examples.  So, the more examples you can think of, the more insight you'll get.  So, don't beat yourself up if you're like, "Okay, and I made a bad call here.  And I made…".  We've all made a bad career decision or a bad career choice at some point.  But I actually thought about something really specific, which was just a project I was once working on when I was relatively new to a job, and I was supporting someone senior who I think was going to represent the brand that I worked for at an event.  And I didn't really know what was going on and I didn't really understand, and I had to send them a bit of a briefing note.  And rather than taking the time to do it properly, I just sent them loads of attachments.  I was just like, "Well, here's everything I've got, so here you go.  Good luck"!

Helen Tupper: A senior person?

Sarah Ellis: Yeah!  Which, you know when you're like, "Oh, God, I can't believe I would ever have done that"?  But I think I was panicking, and I was probably very uncertain.  And I was thinking about lots of other examples, but that was just one.  It's really stayed with me.  I think it's really bothered me ever since!  And we'll come on to maybe what I could have done differently in our final idea for action.  But my bad judgement comes from two things, being stubborn and sticking to plans even when things around me have changed.  I have both of those personality characteristics essentially.  And so sometimes it's a bit like your singularity thing, you know, I'm single-minded.  Sometimes you've got to adapt and your judgement needs to reflect that things have changed.  I might not like that they've changed, but they have. I think what I didn't like in that example was that I didn't know.  I was in a new job and I was probably feeling very vulnerable and very exposed.  And so I was sort of being -- I was sticking to the plan of, bizarrely, "I have to send this email today, I've got to do that".  So I was like, "Well, this is the best I can do", and that was actually a really bad call.  I would have been better clearly just ringing that person and going, "Okay, either I need more time", or asking someone different, "I need some help".  So, it's not the only example, but it's one that really feels very memorable. 

But yeah, the stubbornness, sticking-to-plan thing really gets in my way.

Helen Tupper: Then part one, judgement detractors.  Think about a couple of situations in the past where you recognise now that you probably made some bad judgement, and answer that question, "Based on that, my bad judgement comes from…", that will help you to kind of spot those red flags.  Then we want to get into the accelerators.  So, this is the stuff that you really want to swap to.  So, instead of defaulting to those detractors, what we're going to do is ask ourselves some accelerators.  So, we've got three questions that are really useful to ask yourself in that situation. The first one is, "What have I learned from a similar situation in the past?" because that gives us a bit of data that might be useful for us.  The second question is, "What is the number one priority right now?" because, if I'm getting distracted by speed, is that the most important thing?  No. 

Probably the number one priority was picking the right programme for me, and so just being really, really clear about the priority.  And number three, the question is, "What don't I know?"  So you're trying to get here to, what information might you be missing?  So maybe in my example, for example, I didn't know how many people were in the programme, or I didn't know what that learning might look like when I was in a classroom.  All those things actually really matter to me.  But I'd just been so driven by getting it done, this is the only opportunity I was ever going to get in my entire career, so that I just decided to do it. So these questions, they sort of help you to press pause in a moment and get a little bit more information to inform your judgement, but they really, really stop those default detractors from creeping into your decisions.

Sarah Ellis: And I think what I observe from people who have incredible judgement, and I've worked with a few people I would definitely put in that category, they just get so used to, as a habit, asking themselves these questions.  So, it's not like they are -- these are not natural sort of superhuman people who have this incredible judgement as part of their DNA that we've not got.  I think this is a very learnable skill.  And I've just, from working with some of these people, you just start to spot, "Oh, they're asking themselves these questions".  Or you hear them say them out loud, they'll say to you, or they'll say to the team, "So, what's the most important thing for us to achieve in the next week?"  And you're like, "Oh, they're figuring out the priority".  Or they'll say, "So, what's the ultimate objective here?" because then that's going to help them increase their judgement.  So I think quality questions make a real difference when it comes to judgement.

Helen Tupper: So, idea for action two is the speedy sense check.  So often, because we're navigating so much uncertainty, we do have to make decisions quickly and we've got incomplete information.  And so, though good judgement isn't about gut instincts, I think it goes beyond that, I think we're doing it a disservice if we go, "Oh, it's just about instinct", I think sometimes you if you put the weight of the world all on your own shoulders, that can feel quite hard to make progress.  But you need to do this quickly.  So you need to think about, well, whose judgement do you trust? 

Peers, previous managers, mentors, current managers; and who is also quite quick and quite responsive?  Who do you know, "Okay, they're going to give me a real speedy sense check here". I was thinking of an example of this.  I can't remember if we've talked about this on the podcast, but we did an HBR article a little while ago.  And because of the time difference, we'll be sent that article that's about to go out the next day.  And it might be quite late at night, like 10.00 at night UK time.  And this happened, and the image that was at the top of this article was, it's fair to say, not quite what we'd expected.  I looked at it and went, "No", this was just gut instinct, I was like, "That just doesn't feel right, it doesn't feel reflective of what we've talked about.  And then you ask yourself some of those questions and Helen and I were going, "Do we challenge this?"  So, you're trying to make a judgement call of both, what do you think; and also, is it worth challenging?  And we were both getting to that conclusion, we think it is, but we've got to be speedy here. I've just got a couple of friends who were absolutely my speedy sense check that night. 

I really remember it, like going to them and saying, "This has happened, this is what I think", so I was sharing my judgement, "Speedy sense check.  What's your judgement, your reaction to this?"  And they've just generally got really good judgement that I trust.  So, they don't need to be in it with me to understand, but their reaction was sort of identical to Helen and I.  And you know sometimes you just need that additional boost to the, "This is good judgement.  I've arrived at a good conclusion here, and even though it might mean that I need to do something hard, it is the right thing to do".  And I think if they'd not been that speedy sense check for me, I'm not sure I would have sent that email that night, and I'm not sure we would have got that picture changed on that article, which we did.  And actually, it was so much better as a result.

Helen Tupper: I think this is probably my favourite idea for action.  The speedy sense check makes such a difference.  I was thinking about, so Sarah and I are currently exploring another book, the ideas that we have in the book, and there have been just a couple of people that I've sort of just said, "Oh, this is what we're thinking about doing.  What do you think?" just to get a sense of people's initial reaction.  The people I've spoken to have come back really positively, and then that helps me feel like we've got some good judgement about where we're taking this idea.  So yeah, really think about who are those people that are responsive, whose judgement that you trust, and who, I guess, care enough to come back to you on it as well.

Sarah Ellis: I think our next idea for action is my favourite, so you can talk about that one.  I talked about your one, and you can talk about my one!

Helen Tupper: So the next idea for action is about playing it out.  So, when you've got a situation and you're making a judgement call about it, it is really useful to go beyond that decision that you're making and really think about, well, what will happen next; so, "If we do do this, then what will happen?"  Literally, play it out.  So, let's imagine you're thinking about starting a network.  You're like, "Oh, I think we should start a careers network in our company".  And you've asked yourself some questions, that feels like a priority, all that kind of stuff.  You've maybe even done a speedy sense check.  What's useful then is then to play that out.  So, "Okay, I'd invite people, but actually this month, we've got lots of change going on, so maybe it's not the best month to do it.  So, if I launched it next month, then that might be better timing for people.  Actually, it would also coordinate with that other thing that we've got going on in the business". When you play it out, you sort of consider all the other factors that might contribute to it being a good decision or a bad decision, because thinking forward helps you see some of the things that might affect that decision that you might not be considering in the moment.  And Sarah and I have done this, and it's really useful.  I mean, there have been times when we didn't do it, so I think about a time when we didn't do it.

Sarah Ellis: Oh, I know exactly what you're going to say, I think, and I'm definitely going to get the blame for this, aren't I?

Helen Tupper: Does it involve covers of books?

Sarah Ellis: Yeah!

Helen Tupper: Yeah!

Sarah Ellis: I feel like that's a really interesting one, though, because there was some good stuff about that idea.  But was it a good judgement call?  I don't know, I feel like it's a real 50/50.

Helen Tupper: I don't know.  So, just a long story short, everybody, the playing-out thing is, back in 2022, we did personalised covers of our books, which were very popular, which was brilliant.  However, we didn't play it through in terms of the operational fulfilment of that, which was, let's just say, me and some other people had many deep paper cuts and many deep scars from the situation of filling those.  But if you've got a personalised book, I hope you love it for life.  But yeah, playing it out is a really, really useful way of just making sure you're not ignoring some factors that could affect the quality of your judgement.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, and I guess if you think about it, if we had done the playing it out, we might have still done the idea, but we would have anticipated some of those processes and some of the operational challenges, and then we could have fixed them and we could have got the help that we needed.  So, it doesn't necessarily mean that then your idea is a bad one or you're not going to do something, but we would have done it differently.  And there's a reason that we've not done any since, even though they're really popular.  So that also tells you something, right?  It tells you, okay, there was some good and some bad, and you can decide for yourself which way the scales tipped towards the end! Idea for action four is called, what don't you know.  So, when you are making a judgement call about something, you might be sharing a decision or a recommendation, or you could even be doing this for yourself.  You might be making a judgement call about changing a career or choice about going for a promotion, whatever it might be.  I think having clarity about what are you missing, what don't you know, and being open and honest about those gaps, is incredibly useful.  I think if you're talking to other people, it actually increases your credibility rather than reduces it, because you're being transparent. 

So, I might be saying to Helen, "In hindsight", let's get back to the book example, "I might be recommending that we create these incredible personalised books".  But maybe I'm also saying, "But what I've not figured out yet is how that process would work, or practically how much that might cost us, or what that price might be". So you're sort of saying, "I've made a judgement call here that I think this is the right thing for us to do, and I'm also telling you the gaps that I've got".  So, we might want to talk about those, Helen might be able to fill those gaps, we might ask for help from other people.  And again, I think if you're making a judgement call that doesn't involve other people in quite the same way, so if I think back to career choices I've made or career decisions, I was always very clear what I didn't know.  And then I think that helped me to just navigate uncertainty and change along the way, because then you don't beat yourself up for things you couldn't have anticipated. 

You know, sometimes you end up taking responsibility for things that are outside of your control.  So, you could make the mistake of thinking, and I hear this actually quite a lot with people talking about jobs, "I made a bad judgement call about that job", or, "I made a bad judgement call about that company", I hear that a lot as well.  And I'll think, "Did you, or was it something that you didn't know and that really you couldn't have ever known; or could you have known that thing?" So, I think it's just that having that kind of transparency, because sometimes there is, but sometimes I think people have done their due diligence, you know, they've had recommendations, they've spoken to people, the job seemed to suit them really well, they asked the right questions in the interview.  You know, you did everything right, but sometimes things don't work out, which is back to the point that good judgement doesn't always equal good outcomes. 

More often than not, I think it does, but there are definitely times, I think of times in my own career where I think I've followed the right process, I think I generally have got good judgement, book example maybe slightly to one side, and then things haven't quite worked.  But I think I've always had that clarity on the, "Well, did I do my best to make a judgement call and seek out the information that I could within the kind of time constraints that I was working in, or is there more that I could have done?"  So, just be careful about beating yourself up about bad judgements that maybe were just to do with things that you didn't know.

Helen Tupper: I also think this is quite useful to mitigate blame.  If I'm making a recommendation to you based upon my judgement, I think if I don't let you know what I don't know, if some of those things materialise, then you might be like, "Well, Helen, you could have been more aware of this, or you could have done a bit more work to understand this".  Whereas if I say to you, "Look, this is my recommendation in terms of this situation, but these two things I haven't got complete clarity on, and I think it's just important to acknowledge that", then if one of those things does materialise, you can't really then go, "Oh well, Helen, you were hopeless.  You didn't even know that that was going to be a problem, because I called it that that was a bit of an unknown".  So, you don't necessarily want to be in that -- you don't really want to necessarily work in a culture --

Sarah Ellis: Covering yourself!

Helen Tupper: Yeah, exactly, it is a bit like that.  But maybe, you know what, I have.  I have worked in some of those places and I would actually want to be quite transparent that, "This is my recommendation and if we move forward, these are areas that are still kind of gaps in terms of our knowledge".  I have been in environments where that would be important.  So, if you are working maybe in a place where you do need to cover yourself a bit more and you're using your judgement to make recommendations or give people advice or inform decisions, I think it is very useful to be explicit about what you don't know.

Idea for action number five is the bad judgement override.  Talk about covering yourself!  So, this is more about when you are making a decision, a recommendation, or just a judgement call, basically, there will be times when you'll get it wrong.  Not all of the things that you think are right in that moment, the right thing to do, the right way to approach something, will ultimately materialise in terms of the outcome that you wanted.  And what is really, really important is realising that you can recover from that situation.  And actually, the quicker that you can recover, so the quicker that you can spot that it has become a bad decision or an unintended outcome or something that we would rather not have done, the quicker that you can realise that, the quicker that you can recover.  So it is important for you to have some sort of watchouts.

Let's say, just as an example to Sarah, we decide we're going to write another book.  So, we've used all of our judgement to think that this is a good thing for us to do.  We've got a brilliant, supportive, Squiggly Careers community, and we think that they would benefit from another book, and we've used all of our past experience to think that this is a good judgement call to write a third book.  And so, we start writing it.  It is useful for us to have some watchouts along the way, because writing a book takes a lot of time, about 18 months, a lot of effort.  It's useful to have some watchouts along the way to get a sense of, is this still a good judgement call?  Because we might have based it on some facts at the start that might have changed as we've progressed.  So maybe data, for example; is this still a relevant topic for us to cover?  People's responses, you know, we might give someone a chapter and say, does this seem like it's resonating? You're basically trying to find the flag, spot the signals that help you to see, does this remain a good judgement call or is something different now?  What you don't want to do is make the judgement call and then sort of abandon it, because the repercussions of that are probably still going on and along with those repercussions are your reputation.  So keep hold of it, work out what your watchouts might be and spot if the situation is changing.  And if it does, you can call it.  You can say, "Actually, I think we need to stop this [or] I think we need to change track on this a little bit [or] I think we should just relook at the original objectives".  But better you realise so that you can recover, than you just leave it and then that affects your reputation down the line.

Sarah Ellis: And sometimes, you won't even realise along the way.  So, sometimes I think it is too late.  So, you have made the judgement call, it turns out it's a bad judgement call.  I think then the how you then react in that moment is also really important, because nobody is perfect, not even the best CEO of the best organisation makes the right call day in, day out.  So actually, if you can take responsibility for that bad judgement, if you can fix it fast, if you can say sorry, if you can even talk about, "Actually, in hindsight", because we all have that phrase, "in hindsight, that was a bad judgement call. 

This is what I've learned, and this is what we would or I would do differently next time", I think that shows a real level of accountability, which everybody loves because you're prepared to be responsible for things, it shows that you've got that kind of learning mindset of, "Well, how do I get even better next time and continual improvement?" and also you're role-modelling to other people that we don't have to be right every time, no one's judgement is perfect, we are all imperfect and there will be moments where you just don't see it coming. If I think about the bad judgements, none of that was intentional, I don't want to make any bad judgements, and just sometimes things go wrong, right, and you just miss stuff or you don't ask the right questions.  And so I think, again, just thinking about, yes, you might spot it along the way, but if you don't, I still don't think it's too late to do that override and to recover.  And then, that will give you that confidence to keep going.

Helen Tupper: And better to be known for someone who takes ownership and accountability than someone who just has got bad judgement.  So, I think that's the thing, I think the skill that would stand out, was that they are able to take ownership and be accountable versus the bad judgement.  And I know that from some things that happened in my career, where I definitely had some stuff that I kind of made a bad judgement about, but I really owned it and I put all of my energy into the recovery.  And ultimately, that was what I built my reputation on.  And to be honest, the bad-judgement thing got completely forgotten about.  So, I kind of know that's true from my own experience. So, super-quick summary of our five ideas for action.  First of all, work out what your judgement detractors are and then use the judgement accelerators; second, who do you go to for a speedy sense check; number three, play it out; number four, work out what you don't know and let other people know that; and number five, have a bad judgement override.

Sarah Ellis: So, thank you so much for listening.  We hope that has helped you to improve your judgement.  Please let us know, we always love hearing from you.  If there are topics you'd like us to talk about, if there are guests you'd like to hear from, you can email us with any feedback at any time; we're helenandsarah@squigglycareers.com, and we love hearing from our listeners and we read every single message, so please do get in touch.  And if you have a moment to share, subscribe, do some stars, do a rating, any of the above, we really appreciate it because it's how we keep going and keep growing all things Squiggly Careers.  But that's everything for this week and thank you so much for listening.  Back with you again soon.  Bye for now.

Helen Tupper: Bye everyone.