The Office: What This Scene Reveals About Smart Decision-Making

A stupid idea is a stupid idea, even if it turns out well in the end

Willy Wonka in his Felt Hat by David Dixon, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Sometimes, a bad idea can have an amazing result.

But that doesn’t mean it was a good idea. It just means you got lucky that one time. So don’t judge the wisdom of your decisions based on the outcomes. Judge them on whether they were wise choices at the time you made them.

To illustrate this, let’s look at a classic scene from a classic sitcom.

Michael Scott’s stupid golden ticket idea

Do you remember the episode of The Office when Michael Scott pretended to be Willy Wonka?

Here’s a summary of what happened:

1. Michael puts five “golden tickets” into random boxes of paper in the warehouse. Each of these tickets gives the receiver 10% off their total order. He does this without discussing it with anyone else, and he thinks it’s a genius idea.
2. All five boxes end up…