Submitted by: Submitted by rayelvis
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Date Submitted: 12/08/2015 08:56 AM
What You
Don't Know
About
Making
Decisions
ii
Decision making is arguably the most important Job ofthe senior executive
and one ofthe easiest to get wrong. It doesn't have to be that wayif you look at the process in a whole new light.
by David A.Garvin and Michael A. Roberto
L
EADERS SHOW THEIR METTLE IN MANY WAYS-
setting strategy and motivating people, just to
• mention two-but above all else leaders are made
or broken by the quality of their decisions. That's a given,
right? If you answered yes, then you would probably be
surprised by how many executives approach decision
making in a way that neither puts enough options on the
table nor permits sufficient evaluation to ensure that they
can make the best choice. Indeed, our research over the
past several years strongly suggests that, simply put, most
leaders get decision making all wrong.
The reason: Most businesspeople treat decision making
as an event-a discrete choice that takes place at a single
point in time, whether they're sitting at a desk, moderating a meeting, or staring at a spreadsheet. This classic view
of decision making has a pronouncement popping out of
108
HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW
SEPTEMBER 2001
109
What You Don't Know About Making Decisions
a leader's head, based on experience, gut, research, or all
three. Say the matter at hand is whether to pull a product with weak sales off the market. An "event" leader
would mull in solitude, ask for advice, read reports, mull
some more, then say yea or nay and send the organization off to make it happen. But to look at decision making that way is to overlook larger social and organizational contexts, which ultimately determine the success
of any decision.
The fact is, decision making is not an event. It's a process, one that unfolds over weeks, months, or even years;
one that's fraught with power plays and politics and is replete with personal nuances and institutional history; one
Decisions as...