Why Decisions Fail

After 25 years of research on nearly 400 companies, Paul C. Nutt, Professor of Management Sciences, Ohio State University found that tough decisions by organisational leaders failed half the time.

This is amazing. They might well have flipped a coin.

He identified 10 blunders and traps that decision makers fall prey to:

The Blunders
• Premature commitments.
• Misused resources.
• Failure-prone decision-making practices.

The Traps
• Ignoring conflicting claims that hide stakeholder concerns and considerations
• Unmanaged social and political forces that provoke peoples’ interests
• Vague or missing direction
• Limited search, no innovation
• Defensive evaluations
• Overlooking ethical questions
• Failure to learn

It seems to me that these fall outside of the ‘visible’ system of the organisation or the linkages and interactions between the people, roles and functions etc that one would normally look to in order to understand how an organisation works.

These failures are more related to the invisible system or even the shadow side of the organisation. They are reasons that could and need to be in the consciousness of the decision makers but somehow don’t make it.

I use an ancient way of seeing the wholeness of systems as a pattern of energies or, for this purpose, eight perspectives that one can look through when making a decision. What I found interesting is that I can map each one of the blunders/traps back to a perspective on the Wisdom Council Wheel:

Freedom and Creativity
• Limited search (for alternative solutions), no innovation

Present Condition and Appreciation
• Ignoring conflicting claims that hide stakeholder concerns and considerations

Power and Danger
• Unmanaged social and political forces that provoke peoples’ interests
• Defensive evaluations (needed to support difficult to justify decision)

Purpose and Direction
• Vague or missing direction

Maintenance and Balance (includes caring for the systems and processes that ensure the sustainability of the organisation)
• Failure-prone decision-making practices.

Inter-relatedness and Timing (includes learning from cause and effect relationships)
• Premature commitments.
• Failure to learn

Clarity and Action
• Misused resources.

Integrity and Vitality
• Overlooking ethical questions

Perhaps the old ways are the best.