Adam Przeworski formulated a minimalist definition of democracy as “a system of institutionalized uncertainty, or a regime where the rules are predictable, but not the electoral results”
This defines democracy as having predictable rules but unpredictable results.
You cannot have both in a human society. You can have predicable results with predictable process only in deterministic systems, which human societies are not. The same goes for companies or families.
It is up to us to make the trade-off. Where the clear process is more important than deterministic result. Because if you focus on the result in a non-deterministic system, the way to get there usually gets pretty ugly pretty fast.
The range goes from locking up political prisoners to justify means to bending company travel policy to make a project happen.