Good Decisions Are Choices, Not Accidents
“Life is the sum of all your choices”, said Albert Camus aptly. The same holds good even for organizations—their success or failure is the culmination of a series of decisions taken over their lifetime. Thus, decision making remains at the very heart of not only personal and professional lives, but also business organizations.
Bill George, former professor of Organizational Behavior, states that for organizations to make good decisions, “contention is essential”. And for this to happen, the top must have the courage to demand and reward high contention, else it will not operate in other places. According to him, effective decision making involves: one, raising probing questions and insisting that managers present each situation in objective terms rather than with a positive spin, and two, acknowledging and thanking those who disagree by telling them that it is their discussion that made the ultimate decision much better. Indeed, George recommends: “You need to reward and promote the mavericks or else the organization will lose its creative edge. You try to create tension inside because the outside challenge is so great.”
Michael Tushman, professor of Organizational Behavior, HBS, is also of the opinion that for sound decision making in organizations, there must be an aware, open, and inquiring senior team. According to him, unless senior teams are able to hold paradoxical ideas, the past will always trump the future—people prefer not to know about the future because it is so threatening to entrenched interests and to career competencies.
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