On Good Advice

There was once a King of England called Ethelred, who is today known as Ethelred the Unready. Our assumption is that the king was always ill-prepared for crises. In fact the king was not unready at all, but frequently rushed into ill-considered actions which made his problems worse rather than better. The actual Anglo-Saxon word used to describe him was “unrǣd” or “unrede” which meant ill-advised, or lacking good counsel.

I think it stands to reason that the further a decision-maker is removed from the problems he is seeking to solve, the less well-informed his decisions will be. It is no good him seeking advice only from his friends, or his placemen who are closer to the action. His friends will tell him he is not at fault, because they naturally do not want to hurt his feelings; his placemen will tell him that they think he wants to hear because they want to keep their places. The longer this goes on, the more detached from reality the decision-maker will become, until in the worst case scenario the mistakes become disastrous.

The first requirement of good decision-making is good data. Ethelred should have got rid of his bad advisers and chosen others who were willing and able to tell him the truth. They would, however, have needed to speak the truth dispassionately. You can’t shout abuse at the king and expect him to listen.

Ethelred should also have delegated tactical decisions to those who were close enough to know the details of what was going on, reserving only strategic choices for himself.

Had he done so, England might never have had a Danish king.