Business Spotlight – Nr.6 2019

44 BUSINESS SKILLS

Illustrationen: Yann Bastard

Business Spotlight 6/2019

Ask yourself: To what extent can I trust

the data that our systems provide us with

to make decisions? What other sources of

information that we have, or could get ac-

cess to, might serve us better?

c) Much data doesn’t have a clear mes-

sage. Let’s take a very practical exam-

ple: if my first-quarter sales data show

a decrease, what should I do? Should I

take these numbers as evidence of sales

staff failure and incompetence, and fire

people? Should I initiate a round of cost-

cutting and stop all business travel? Or

should I wait for another three, six or pos-

sibly 12 months until I am confident that

I can see a meaningful trend? We often

cannot be sure of the messages that data

is giving us until well after the event. And

the data alone doesn’t show us the causes

of the changes we observe.

Ask yourself: What are the time con-

straints within which my decision-

making operates? To what extent do these

constraints limit my decision-making?

What can I do to avoid taking decisions

too quickly or too slowly?

d) Our minds distort reality. There is in-

creasing awareness of the regular failure

of our attention and memory, and of how

our minds take poor decisions as a result.

We also know about the risks of quick

decision-making, particularly by leaders

who assume they know everything about

an organization or context, a particularly

dangerous assumption when working in

unfamiliar cultures and markets. Many

organizations now invest in cognitive

bias training, alerting employees to the

fact that our natural thinking processes

distort the way we see things (see also

Business Spotlight 4/2018). One of the most

serious of the cognitive biases is “hind-

sight bias”, which we use to convince

ourselves that we knew all along that a

decision we made was poor, and that we

were forced to take it against our better

judgement. This is a great way to pretend

to ourselves how smart we are. It also re-

duces our ability to learn and think more

carefully about our next decision.

Ask yourself: How well do I understand

cognitive bias and its impact on my deci-

sion-making? What can I do to avoid my

own blind spots and those of my team

when taking important decisions? When

can I trust my intuition?

alert sb. to sth.

[əˈlɜːt tE] , jmdn. auf

etw. aufmerksam machen

appreciate sb.

[əˈpriːʃieɪt]

, jmdn. wertschätzen

appropriate

[əˈprəʊpriət]

, richtig, geeignet

blind spot [(blaɪnd spɒt]

, blinder Fleck,

Schwachpunkt

cognitive bias

[)kɒɡnətɪv (baɪəs]

, kognitive Verzerrung

core need [ˌkɔː (niːd]

, Kernbedürfnis

derive from sth.

[diˈraɪv frQm]

, aus etw. resultieren

distort sth. [dɪˈstɔːt]

, etw. verzerren

efficacy [ˈefIkəsi]

, Wirksamkeit;

hier: Wirkungskraft

ego preservation

[ˈiːɡəʊ prezə)veɪʃ&n]

, hier: Erhalt des

Selbstwertgefühls

engagingly

[ɪnˈɡeɪdʒɪŋli]

, hier: andere einbe-

ziehend

entity [ˈentəti]

, Einheit; hier: Wesen

harsh lesson

[ˌhɑːʃ ˈles&n]

, harte Lektion

hindsight bias

[ˈhaɪndsaɪt ˌbaɪəs]

, Rückschaufehler

humility [hjuːˈmɪləti]

, Bescheidenheit

impede sth. [ɪmˈpiːd]

, etw. behindern,

erschweren

outcome [ˈaʊtkʌm]

, Ergebnis

out of all scope

[)aʊt əv )ɔːl (skəʊp]

, hier: jeden Rahmen

sprengend

radar [ˈreɪdɑː]

, hier: Kontrollsystem

return on investment

[ri)tɜːn ɒn ɪnˈvestmənt]

, Kapitalrendite

revenues [ˈrevənjuːz]

, Einnahmen, Erlöse

technical [ˈteknɪk&l]

, hier: rational

time constraint

[(taɪm kən)streɪnt]

, zeitliche Einschränkung

WHAT LOOK

LIKE BAD

DECISIONS

CAN TURN OUT

TO BE GOOD

DECISIONS

e) Decisions are often based on feelings,

not facts. Most professionals view them-

selves as technical beings rather than as

emotional entities. This is far from reali-

ty. As we listen to others, hear what they

say and prepare what we want to say and

which decisions we want to take, a fun-

damental, powerful emotional childlike

radar is always on. Am I liked? Am I appre-

ciated? Am I safe? Is my role respected?

Am I a part of this community? If our an-

swer to any of these questions about our

core needs is no, this affects our ability to

listen and speak openly and engagingly.

We stop listening, and speak defensive-

ly and critically, which itself stops others

listening. Ego preservation takes over

from data collection as our priority. The

flow of information is impeded, and the

quality of our decisions diminishes.

Ask yourself: How strong is my emotion-

al awareness and control? How effective-

ly can I listen to others without judging

them? How much empathy do I have for

others? Can I encourage others to say

what they truly think in order to make the

best decisions?

4. Is there such a thing as a bad
   decision?
   It seems obvious to suggest that there are
   decisions that we can confidently classify
   as “good” or “bad”. It’s simply a question
   of measuring outcomes, isn’t it? For ex-
   ample, most investment decisions can
   easily be measured using a return-on-
   investment calculation. And there are in-
   deed quantitative and qualitative meas-
   ures that we can apply to evaluate the
   quality of our decisions. But there are
   complexities to analysing the efficacy of
   a decision, and these need to be consid-
   ered in order to determine the appro-
   priate decision-making culture for your
   team and organization.
   What look like bad decisions can turn
   out to be good decisions. For example, if
   we fail badly and receive a harsh lesson, we
   may learn humility and become stronger,
   making us more likely to succeed in the
   future. Unexpected benefits derive from
   failure. The Sydney Opera House, as a
   project, failed on every criterion of suc-
   cess: over time, over budget and out of all
   scope. It is now a landmark of Australian
   culture and generates enormous revenues
   from visitors. Likewise, most millionaires
   fail several times before they succeed.