I was once asked in a business meeting, “What is the business decision that you most regret?”

This was interesting to me for a couple of reasons. First, I have made a lot of mistakes, and I always find it useful to examine them. But the second thing I realized is that I don’t regret them. Each mistake led my longtime partner, Wil Heupel, and me to ultimately improve the way we thought about and ran the business.

Almost all of my bad decisions were people decisions. We took on bad clients, hired the wrong people, kept people longer than was good for them or us. Originally, I was going to say that most of my bad decisions came from not listening to my instincts. But upon reflection, it was really about incorrectly weighing or completely ignoring evidence.

For example, we hired somebody from outside our firm to play a significant role in it. He had successfully started and sold one company, and he ran another one. When we were first talking, he mentioned that one of his favorite perks as president of a previous company was his indoor parking spot close to the building entrance.

We live in Minnesota, people! Indoor parking is a big deal. But I said to him that if we had that perk we would offer it to the employee of the month, not to ourselves.

We ended up hiring him, but realized after less than two years that it hadn’t worked out for a variety of reasons, some of which were his problems and some of which were ours. We certainly took a financial hit for this mistake, but more important is that our staff likely questioned our judgment, since he was such a big cultural miss.

I later thought I should have listened to my instincts in that early meeting. But it wasn’t even instinct: I had direct evidence of a problem. I ignored it, as well as some other signs, either because I badly wanted the relationship to work or because our hire had filled a role that I felt we desperately needed. Or maybe I thought I would change him. 

In any case, I listened more to the evidence suggesting he’d be good than to that indicating he wouldn’t be. Every people problem comes from incorrectly weighing evidence. If the job market was tight and I needed to hire someone, I might have chosen to overlook something.

I have brought in clients who did not fit our firm’s culture because there was something attractive about them and I chose that over evidence they weren’t good fits at all. I was once asked to act as chairman of the board for a political organization even though I don’t participate in politics and was uncomfortable with the concept. But I was flattered and took the job. I resigned a year later after allowing myself to re-examine the situation.

I am embarrassed to say that I still make mistakes. But I have found some helpful things to protect me from myself.

The first is to ask if there is a more objective way to look at a situation. The single best decision we have made in staffing (besides not involving me in the hiring at all!) is sending all of our prospective employees to an industrial psychologist for screening. At first, we didn’t always accept the results.

Why? Because we chose not to appropriately weigh the evidence. We needed to hire people in a tight labor market, and thought we could fix the problems the psychologist reported. But every time we ignored his recommendation, the employee did not work out, and while not every employee who passed the screening is successful in our firm, our success rate for hires dramatically increased once we started using this approach.

The process starts with our hiring managers, Jeremy and Megan. When they feel comfortable with a possible future member of staff, they invite other people in the organization to meet this person and offer feedback. Once others feel comfortable, we move the candidate to the psychologist. This costs us money up front, but I guarantee it saves us far more in the future.

The psychologist tests all applicants for skills and cultural fit. For wealth management positions, he also conducts face-to-face interviews. The process is far more expensive than the Kolbe personality test (which we used to use), but we have found it to be more effective.

Once we hire people, they go out to meet with the entire company. It is only then that I meet them. Not only does the psychologist help screen out those who are unlikely to succeed, but his report also helps us understand where the people we hire are most likely to face challenges. All our hires are invited to sit down with the psychologist to go through their test results.

We’ve also been influenced in our thinking by Adam Grant’s book Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know. He writes: “When you form an opinion, ask yourself what would have to happen to prove it false. Then keep track of your views so you can see when you were right, when you were wrong, and how your thinking has evolved.”

I think one reason Wil and I have been successful with our firm, in spite of numerous mistakes and missteps, is that we fixed things before they destroyed us. In other words, we generally were not so proud as to deny that we were doing something stupid or for the wrong reasons. While it probably would have been helpful to act more quickly in certain cases, we generally still acted. But we had to accept new facts that contradicted those we had originally acted on.

It’s useful for us in other areas. In portfolio decisions, you might have less conviction in strategic calls if you ask, “Can we prove we’re wrong?” If you have less conviction, you will also have the humility necessary to deal with uncertainty in a complex system.

Our company now has 11 shareholders. All of us represent the firm both inside our walls and out. And all of us are flawed in some way. So the staff sees evidence of how great we are and how great we aren’t. Each employee weighs evidence independently, using the same incomplete information we have as well as various criteria they prioritize in their own way. That may lead them to a number of different conclusions.

The point is not to try to change these, but to understand so that we can improve our behavior and make sure our actions and values are aligned. It isn’t enough to say you care about your colleagues if you are always showing them something different. If you have a bad interaction with a colleague, what new evidence can you offer them that they can weigh differently? Remember that it’s up to them to determine whether they are willing to weigh the new information. After a bad incident, you need several good ones to tip the scales back.

There are almost no binary decisions in business, so it’s essential to understand what a variety of evidence shows—not just the evidence you want to see. And there is no need to regret incorrectly weighing that evidence as long as you learn from it.      

Ross Levin is the chief executive officer and founder of Accredited Investors Wealth Management in Edina, Minn.