A632.9.3.RB - Role of Emotion in Decision Making

As a decision maker, I must agree with Professor Baba Shiv of Stanford University in his findings of the importance of confidence (2011).  I must also iterate another important factor one of my former employers stated to me about the importance of perception of others as well.  In my experience, I am often confident in my decisions once I come to them, but my introverted personality often eludes a less than confident perception from others.  This perception of my confidence level causes those who I am giving my decision to question my confidence level.  After listening to Dr. Shiv's presentation, I understand how important this perception is as he compared the decisions of going into battle and the ultimate success or failure of the mission. 

In my history of decision making, I will share with you one decision which I was very confident as I moved through that decision to its consequences.  That decision was my decision to purchase my current car.  When I got a new job 7 years ago which required an extensively longer commute, I needed an automobile which had better gas mileage than my then 12 year old full sized pickup truck.  I knew that most likely the most fuel efficient automobiles would be in the form of a sedan or smaller car, and my large stature worried me for fitting in a car.  After two weeks of exhaustive research, I decided the car I was going to buy was the Hyundai Sonata.  It had great head room, and gas mileage meeting my two requirements.  The brand had decent ratings as well and I confidently marched to the dealership to purchase my first new car.  This has been a decision that has played out very well over the last 7 years.  I have had no regrets in my purchase.  This led me to make a second confident decision when we purchased my wife's car three years ago.  I believe confidence in your decisions helps you feel better about making them, which affects your perception of success as well.  As Dr. Shiv points out in his video (2011) it is important though to not blindly make decisions because of your confidence in yourself.  Each decision must be approached with the same diligent research. 

In a decision which I was not so confident in would be my decision to come back to college.  My undergraduate career was somewhat less than stellar, and I honestly doubted my ability to follow through and put in the effort to accomplish my goal of obtaining an advanced degree.  When I was accepted to ERAU, I still continued to doubt my ability and my conditional acceptance did not help my feeling of confidence in myself or my choice to go to school.  However, what the conditional acceptance did do was issue a challenge.  That challenge created an internal conflict of the doubt in my own ability and the desire to prove myself wrong for doubting.  With each course, I strive to meet my goal of proving myself wrong for doubting my ability.  The problem that I have with my lack of confidence is there is still an internal naysayer continually stating you can not succeed.  This same event plays with decisions which are external as well.  If you do not enter into them with confidence, those around you will doubt your decision and ability as well. 

Overall, our ability to make decisions with confidence needs to be something we focus on with absolute effort.  In part of my research for writing this blog entry, I watched a video by researcher named Daniel Goleman where he talked about the need to focus and how training ourselves, and working on those things which we identify as weakness will lead us to future success (Goleman, 2014).  I now recognize that my ability to have confidence and portray that confidence to myself and others is a skill which I need to further develop.


References:
Goleman, D. (2013). Focus, The Hidden Driver of Excellence. New York: Harper Collins.

Goleman, D. (2014). Focus, The Hidden Driver of Excellence. Presentation to Talks at Google.  
             Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9yRmpcXKjY.

Hoch, S.J. & Kunreuther H.C. (2001). Wharton on making decisions. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley & Sons.

Shiv, B. (2011). Brain research at Stanford: Decision making. Retrieved from YouTube.com: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRKfl4owWKc

A632.8.3.RB - Reflections on the Cynefin Framework

It is extremely important that decision makers realize their decisions are made through the four different contexts mentioned in the article by Snowden and Boone (2007).  As Snowden mentions, each decision context is a place of existence which the manager resides in while making their decisions (2002).  The Cynefin Framework outlines the 4 different contexts from which most decisions are made: Simple, Complicated, Complex, and Chaotic. 

Managers typically make most of their decisions using one of these four contexts.  Snowden warns us of the danger of getting too complacent and residing in only one of these zones and suggests that managers learn to adjust their decision style to fit the unique environment that exists for each situation (2002). 

The decisions that I make on a daily basis are usually in the Simple domain.  These decisions are characterized by repeating and consistent situations.  The results of each decision is known, and typically there is one right answer that exists.  One such decision that I make frequently in my current job is in the advising of students for the courses they are to take each term.  There is a set of required courses for the students to take, and a required number of hours the students must be enrolled for their financial aid requirements.  As those factors input the decision making process, we simply have to find the courses from the course offering list and apply them to their needs.  Each advisor on our campus makes these decisions for/with their students every term.  The danger of this is when we get entrained in our thinking (Snowden, 2002) and do not realize when our context shifts.  Things that cause this shift is when a student changes their major and we are advising for a major that is not typically our comfortable major.  The counselors for our college, do not realize why it takes me so long to advise students, but each student does have their own unique situation.  While I love the simple decisions, there is often complications that should be considered. 

A complicated decision is one that requires expert diagnosis.  As the advisor for my major, I often will get new advisees who have been advised in their previous semester by one of our general counselors when my program was full.  This adds complication to the mix as the Federal Aid program wants students to complete a two year degree in two years, which is very difficult to manage if a student is in one of those special situations.  In this case, it is important not to have analysis paralysis as there is often near infinite decisions which could give wide and varying results.  In this situation, I would follow a good practice of selecting the best courses for the student to get them on a similar track with hope of still completing on time.

One way that the Cynefin Framework can help me make improved decisions is to realize that there is seldom a single right answer to situations when we step outside of the Simple Context.  I need to understand that I have the ability and obligation to adapt my frame of reference to the situation which the decision calls for.  Most of my decisions should probably and do probably come from the complicated or complex contexts rather than the simple or chaotic as I often feel they do. 

If you need to make decisions based on incomplete data you are likely in the complex zone.  With complex, there may be multiple right answers depending on how those missing pieces were supposed to fall.  It is important in this zone to make a best response from the information you currently have at your disposal and wait for the resultant information of that decision to influence future choices.

The Cynefin Framework makes our decision-making better by: 1) Making us aware of the context with which we make our decisions.  Knowing that being in the wrong context can cause us to make wrong decisions is important.  2) The framework gives us knowledge about the complexity and helps us understand how complex decisions need to be made.  3) It gives us a set of steps on how we should make our decisions when we recognize which context we are in.  4) The framework gives us insight into what our level of responsibility is within each framework and how we should approach these tasks. and finally 5) the framework gives us a set of tools for dealing with each context, and where to seek additional information.

As I move forward in my career, I look forward to tackling future decisions using the Cynefin framework.  This approach has given me a new set of tools which has shed light on my frustrations of the past, and gives calm to handling future situations using this method.

References:

Snowden, D.J (2002). Complex acts of knowing: Paradox and descriptive self-awareness. Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 6 Iss: 2 pp. 100-111. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/13673270210424639 (Links to an external site.)

Snowden, D.J., and Boone, M.E. (2007). A leader’s framework for decision making. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2007/11/a-leaders-framework-for-decision-making.

A632.7.3.RB - Collaborative Decision Making

Seldom do the decisions we make only affect the person who is making the decision.  As this is the case, it is extremely important to query other stakeholders to gather their inputs to help guide your decision making process.  Ultimately, as the person who holds the duty of making the decision, and the responsibility of having made that decision, this action also brings with it another series of decisions as to how important those other influences are to your decision making process.

In nearly every decision of importance I make, I seek the input of others.  Some decisions, you can use historically obtained information.  In the situation where I must decide which mayonnaise to buy at the grocery,  I remember that my wife prefers Dukes, and my mother prefers Blue Plate.  So if this is being bought for my house, Dukes wins.  However, when decisions are not so simple, we must employ the techniques described by Levine to assure a proper, well rounded decision gets made. 

One important decision that I employed such methods was made many years ago when I worked at a K-12 School District as their Information Technology Coordinator.  As the head of the IT department, it was often my decision to shape the direction of technology purchases to assure that taxpayer money was spent wisely and for the betterment of the children in our district.  One decision that comes to mind where I had to make such a decision was for applying a standard for the district on which type of interactive white board we were going to use. 

In that district, teachers would frequently move rooms between school years, and would request the technology in their new room be the same as it was in their old room.  This kept the teacher from having to recreate all of their materials for different technology which is a very laborious process.  However, when considering white boards, this particular item was extremely difficult to move, it cost a substantial sum, and assets were assigned to a room not to a teacher.  Therefore, during my tenure as the head of Information Technology, I attempted to standardize which technology was installed in our classrooms to minimize the need to uproot classrooms just because a teacher or administrator decided a move was needed. 

At that moment in time, there were essentially three choices for interactive whiteboard on the market.  SMART Technology's SmartBoard was the name synonymous with the interactive whiteboard market and our school district had 3 already installed in some of our older high tech classrooms.  However, there were two other options which were much more cost effective and would have meant I could have outfitted the entire school faster had we used one of those other choices.  The need to decide and mandate a standard came when I found out our Upper Elementary library had to be moved for a school year while renovations were being performed on their current library's building.  Upon walking in to determine what IT would need to do, I saw one of the other brand's white boards sitting stagnant on the wall.  She had money at the end of the previous year and decided she wanted one and somehow it got purchased and installed without my knowledge.  This now meant I had two different products in my walls and would now cause me to require consideration of multiple technologies if implementing any district or school wide initiatives.  Upon consulting with the librarian, I discovered this company had approached her directly at a time she had extra money and that was how she decided what to purchase.  As we have learned from Hoch and Kunreuther (2001) sometimes our decisions get made for us as we are poor decision makers when it comes to retail buying. 

Therefore, I decided to have what we called a "shootout".  Each vendor who supplied an interactive white board who was on the State of Mississippi's Express Products List was invited to showcase their product to a panel of stakeholders who would then give me their informed recommendation.  For this project, each school in our district was to send a teacher, a parent, and an administrator to participate in this committee.  We also invited district wide representatives for our office of Special Needs, and the Federal Programs director.  The teachers from each school were asked to consider each of the products presented from their perspective as an instructor.  The parents were allowed to bring their child(ren) if they so chose, but were asked to consider these products on their ease of use from a child's perspective.  The administrators were asked to consider their employee body as a whole to assure this product would be able to be widely implemented and maintained in their school environments.  The request for each person to consider a frame (Hoch and Kunreuther, 2001) assured that each set of representatives were truly representing their school and all of its inhabitants.

As each vendor had their opportunity to present their products, the committee was asked to listen to the story being told by each of the representatives who were making their pitch.  The committee members were given a rubric of consideration which did not include price and the vendors were instructed not to discuss price in their presentation as I did not want that to skew anyone's preformed opinions on any one product.  Each participant in this exercise was encouraged to take notes on the products as we had one vendor scheduled per day and this exercise would be carried out over the course of a week. 

Once each vendor had their moment of glory, it was time for deliberation.  Our committee assembled once more and this was my opportunity to listen.  By listening to each different group's individual inputs, I had the opportunity to not only see these presentations from the frame which I regularly found myself in, but I also had 12 other's.  This unique opportunity would give me the most input I had ever experienced and could provide valuable insight (Levine, 2009).  Normally, in retail situations, we allow the decision to be made for us and will often not choose the cheapest or the most expensive option.  However, in this situation with price not having been discussed, I found those two boards were the front-runners as the mid-line board had many undesirable features.  Other districts around the State had chosen that mid-range board and were shocked (but in agreement) that their board was the first eliminated.  By listening to each group, I was able to bring their expertise into my decision-making process where otherwise, I would have likely made the decision other districts made and have had to deal with the consequences of a bad decision. 

Overall, we decided on the more expensive of the choices at the time.  As State purchasing law contends we must purchase the best and lowest cost item, we had made the justification for the best option for our district.  Overall, our teachers were happy with the implementation and the boards were used for nearly 8 years before being retired.  Having a standard purchase allowed for master trainers to be established and peer based learning to assure our teachers were utilizing this technology in their daily instruction.  By listening to each group, all had come to the same decision but each for their own reasons. 

In the future, I believe I will continue to use these methods for agreement and resolution.  This has its benefit not only in work teams, but in other areas as well.  For decisions at home, it is important to get input from each member of the family as these decisions have an effect on the overall happiness of our family unit.  A third way I intend on using this in my future is for coming to agreement with myself.  I enjoyed Levine's writing (2001) on using this method for setting personal goals and commitments to yourself as I often tend to neglect my own thoughts.  The concept of visualizing and getting specific about my goals and crafting an agreement with myself is a new concept that I look forward to implementing in my life to make me a more fulfilled being.