MSLD 632 Moduel 3 - Framing Complex Decisions

Framing Complex Decisions

            The environment of business has become a maze of information and Internet-driven change, resulting in a significant increase in the complexity of business decision-making. (Hoch, 2001). Time is a constant factor in the current decision-making process, being crucial in different way. Decisions, often, need to be made faster or the competition “win the race”, contracts last less than in the past, and most important, information changes so often, changing with the same frequency and time, the decision itself.

            There are several tools to deal with the complexity of the current reality in organization. Below are described the three tools I believe to be of extreme importance in the organization I work for nowadays.

1.      Strengthening organizational capabilities

The organization is extreme diverse in employees background (culture and professional experience). This is possibly our main strength but apparently not well diffused. High leaders state diversity is great, but when an opinion is challenged from the bottom line to a high leader, their statement does not match reality.  Another capability is our structural/ physical resource (training area, simulator, IT hardware and software, capital and so forth). Allowing diversity to flourish through training and workshops for suggestions and opinions, would bring a great value to our organization.

2.      Adaptability/ Flexibility

As all organizations, the one I work for is highly impacted by the frequent changes of the business environment, trends, markets, and partnership and competition. Being adaptive and flexible in a reality like that is key to succeed in the maze of complexity. Very often, the changes required in the company take long to be implemented due to the amount of trials and the entire burocratic process. Being ready for quick decision with high impact could have saved a great amount of money in the company. The main issue is that the process is not as simple as it can be the solution. there are a lot of variables to be taken in consideration as stakeholders and department difference on interested, so adaptability should be rooted in the company’s philosophy/ mind set.

3.      Value human cognitive ability

As Hoch said, models are great to permit a more accurate decision making, but sometimes, data mining and warehousing present a blindness along with it. The author mentions that the combination of machines and man are crucial of the decision making process, and important is to capture, due to the accountability and ownership of a given issue.   

Given the relentless development of technology, complexity can only be expected to increase. This promises to lead to more intense and complex challenges for decision makers, but as the discussion above indicates, will also put more powerful tools into their hands for addressing these decisions. Continued changes will also mean that flexible approaches will become even more crucial for managers as the environment of decision making becomes so complex that working out all the details of decision contingencies before the fact is neither feasible nor desirable. (Hoch, 2001)

Managers will increasingly need to prepare the groundwork and capabilities for choice and use these capabilities to confront and deal with the moving targets as they appear in real time.

Reference

Hoch, S., Gunther, R., Kunreuther, H. (2001). Wharton on Making Decisions. New York, NY: Wiley.