The required book for the course "Management Decision Making" is Winning Decisions (Russo & Schoemaker). The class doesn't start until next week, so Lucky is using this time to read ahead, for once in his life.
The book appears quite promising. At the very start, the stages of decision making are explained. They are:
- Framing
- Gathering intelligence
- Coming to conclusions
- Learning from experience
Interestingly, we all go through these stages (at least the first three) each time we make a decision, but we are not always cognizant of the stages as such. How much time time to allocate to each stage is also important, and is often done implicitly. One of the values of this course is that it teaches you to have better process, with greater transparency, as a result of explicit choices. This will help guard against the problem of being successful without really knowing why.
Framing is the first part of any decision. I've written before about two pioneers in this area, Kahneman and Tversky; their research has shown that the way in one looks at a situation affects how one responds to it.
Some great examples of frames that we use everyday:
- Buy/sell exchange: a transaction, or part of a relationship?
- Training: cost or investment?
- Organizations: a collection of contracts (the Coasian view) or a community of people?
I tried to think of frames that pervade my current existence. The best one so far: why attend the Insead MBA programme? Many people came to get better jobs or to change careers. Others came to make contacts or have fun. Still others came to learn and grow.
Whenever you ask someone how they perceive their experience, their answer depends on the frame they used to decide to attend the program. If they came here to get a better job, their answer depends largely on whether or not they have offers. If they came here to learn, their current job situation will be mentioned as an afterthought, if at all.
5:32:37 PM 
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