GO AHEAD. ORDER THE MEAT LOAF.

Sure, the burger might be the safer bet. But when you learn to weigh the benefits of new options versus familiar standbys, the big decisions (about work, about life, about diner food) become a whole lot easier.

- BY ALEX HUTCHINSON

YOU SLIP INTO a booth at your local diner. You're about to order the burger, as usual, when the server walks by with a plate of meat loaf for another table. It looks... interesting. You've never tried it, and now you're tempted. But what if it sucks? This isn't just a classic dining dilemma, as I discovered in researching my new book, The Explorer's Gene; it's a metaphor for life.

Back in 1991, a Stanford University management guru named James March published a paper called "Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning." It highlighted the fundamental tension between sticking with the familiar and trying a new path. This "explore/exploit dilemma" crops up everywhere, from restaurant ordering to dating decisions to career choices to corporate strategy. Say you make widgets for a living: Doubling down on your current product line is like sticking with the burger; investing more in R&D is trying the meat loaf. If you never explore, you'll be stuck in a rut; but if you always explore, you'll end up being a serial seeker and you'll never get to enjoy your discoveries. So getting these decisions right matters.

In the years since March's seminal paper, a new science of explore/exploit decision-making has emerged, seeking to understand how we make these choices, what we get wrong, and how we can do it better. The findings can't guarantee that you'll come to the right decision 100 percent of the time, but they can help you figure out when it makes sense to take a chance on the metaphorical meat loaf. Here's how.

EMBRACE (TEMPORARY) FAILURE