1. M 05 Decision Making
• “Greatness is not a function of circumstance.
Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of
conscious choice, and discipline.” – Jim Collins
• “The quality of decision is like the well-timed swoop
of a falcon which enables it to strike and destroy its
victim.” – Sun Tzu
• “Whenever you see a successful business, someone
once made a courageous decision.” – Peter Drucker

2. • The next slide provides a model of some of
the issues involved in making a decision.
• These are not items that are on the surface –
they are hidden inside of us and yet they
impact our questions, thoughts, ideas, and the
way we decide.

3. Values
Attitudes
Personality
Ability
Motivation
Perception
Learning
Individual
Behavior in
Decision
Making

4. Decision Making Styles
• Decide
– You decide alone and “announce” or “sell” it
• Consult Individually
– Present it individually to all and then decide
• Consult Group
– Present collectively and then decide
• Facilitate
– Present, facilitate, define the problem and boundaries
– Seek concurrence
• Delegate
– Permit group decision within prescribed limits

5. ….. to consider
(so many variables)
• Responsibilities
• Power
• Vulnerability
• Dilemmas
• Pressures
• Loneliness
• Analyzing
• Not independent, solitary events

6. ……. to consider…
• Not just logical analysis & problem solving
• Social process
• Unending stream of decisions
• Communication
• Perceptions
• Information
• Experience

7. ……. to consider ….
• Wisdom
• Stakeholders

8. Critical pieces of decision making
• Determining how the problem is to be solved,
not necessarily the solution.
• Determining how much data is needed.
• Understanding the background that lead to
this point

9. What doesn’t work
• Persuasion
– Selling expert opinions to convince
• Edicts
– Directives that announce decisions
– Depletes “social credits”

10. Models of Decision Making
• Rational Decision-Making
• Bounded Rationality
• Garbage Can

11. Rational Decision-Making
• Assumption that all facts are knowable
• Process similar to problem solving
– Define the problem
– Develop and weight criteria
– List alternatives
– Select the best alternative
– Implement
– Evaluate
• Question: Is it possible to know all the facts?

12. Bounded Rationality
• People are restricted:
– in the information they have ,
– limit their searches,
– settle for less than optimal solutions.
• Assumptions
– Satisficing – accepting the first, minimally acceptable solution
– Comfortableness without all the alternatives
– Judgmental shortcuts – called “heuristics”
– Alternatives fall within the bounds of current moral & ethical
standards

13. Garbage Can
• Organization – metaphorically described as a
“garbage can”
• Floating in the GC are
– Problems, Participants, Solutions, Choice
opportunities
– If they connect – a decision results
• Assumptions
– Haphazard
– Chaotic
– Unpredictable
– Sheer luck

14. Common Decision Biases
• Anchoring and adjusting
• (the first information is overweighted)
• Representativeness
• (does this resemble another event?)
• Availability
• (what we remember easily)
• Overconfidence
• (Unrealistically optimistic views)
• Bounded Awareness
• (perception narrows –thus limiting information needed)
• Emotional Involvement
• (belief in a more positive outcome)
• Self-serving Reasoning
• (credit for success & avoiding blame for failure)

15. Tools
• Decision Trees
» Significance
» Level of Commitment
» Leader Expertise
» Likelihood of Commitment
» Group – Support, Expertise, Competence

16. Issues ( +/- ), to consider
• Zone of Indifference
• http://www.examiner.com/article/helping-employees-work-
within-the-zone-of-indifference
• Groupthink
• http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_82.htm
• Escalation of commitment
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escalation_of_commitment

17. Reality
(what happens…)
• Rationality
• Otherwise we believe that people make irrational decisions.
We may not understand their rationality – but to them it is
rational
• Intuitive consideration
• We pull all our experiences together without even knowing
it and use that data as well as the data around the proplem
• Combine to provide decisions
• Decision making is complex – not just for us but for everyone

18. The Literature Suggests…..
• There are four (4) guidelines to making better
decisions:
– Personally manage your decision making.
» This isn’t something that you can delegate
– Search for understanding.
» Make sure you know what is at stake
– Establish a direction with objectives.
» Objectives help you to know what you really want
– Manage the social and political forces
» Always know your clear rational