13 - Decision making

Summary

The only point at which knowledge can affect a social system is through its impacts on decisions.

(Boulding 1966, p. 30)

Decisions require clarity, closure, and confidence. As a result, decisive action comes more easily from the ignorant than from the wise, more easily from the short-sighted than from those who anticipate the long run.

(March 1991, p. 265)

Decision makers look for information, but they see what they expect to see and overlook unexpected things.

(March 1994, p. 11)

We take it as a given that some of the information that is important for the organization to make good decisions is not directly available to those charged with making the decisions. Instead, it is lodged with or producible only by other individuals or groups that are not empowered to make the decisions but may have a direct interest in the resulting outcomes…In such situations, the members of the organization may have an incentive to try to manipulate the information they develop and provide in order to influence decisions to their benefits.

(Milgram and Roberts 1988, p. 156)

Every day we see the consequences of poorly made decisions, especially in our political life. The term groupthink has come to symbolize the very human, group processes (e.g., cohesiveness, conformity) that conspire against “good,” rational decision making. Janis (1971), in tracing the decision making of the US foreign policy establishment regarding Vietnam, the Cuban missile crises, and the Bay of Pigs, found one recurring theme – how group processes and the limits of human decision making restricted the range of information that was sought and the consideration of a range of alternatives once information was obtained.