When a product decision feels urgent, the temptation is to move fast — to treat speed itself as rigor. But the 11th-century Jain philosopher Hemachandra described a cognitive discipline called *anekāntavāda* — the doctrine that any complex phenomenon has multiple valid perspectives that cannot all be captured from a single vantage point — and he paired it with *syādvāda*, a practice of qualifying claims with 'from this standpoint.' What's striking for anyone who leads teams is how much bad strategy comes not from ignorance but from premature certainty: the roadmap built from one stakeholder's truth, the org change announced as if the diagnosis were complete. Hemachandra's move wasn't relativism — he believed some views were more complete than others — but he insisted that the incompleteness of your current view was a fact to be named, not hidden. Before your next big call, try making the standpoint explicit: 'From the data we have, and weighted toward retention, this is the right move.' That single qualifier changes how your team argues back — and whether they bother to.

What is the standpoint you're currently leaving unstated in a decision you're treating as settled?

Drawing from Jain Philosophy / Epistemology — Hemachandra (Yoga Śāstra, c. 1175 CE) and Jain logical tradition (anekāntavāda)