A632.3.4.RB_LarsonKurt, Reflections on Decision Making

Shoemaker and Russo discuss the hazards associated with "frame blindness" and how to guard against it.  Discuss three ways you can avoid "framing traps" and provide a detailed example of each from your life experience.  

Could you have framed each situation differently? What did the exercise teach you about complex decision-making? What additional tools or "frames" would've helped you through the process? How much "risk" do you feel was in your recommendation? What did you learn about yourself through this exercise? 

Frame blindness according to Shoemaker and Russo that simply being unaware of our frames can be an enormous risk. Furthermore as stated in Hoch (2001,) it is managers who run the greatest risk of viewing things via only one mental window often failing to see the views that can be seen if looking out other windows at their disposal. In my opinion this equates to basically having blinders on such as a horse might wear during a race to keep it focused on the task at hand and not be distracted by outside influences. This condition would be detrimental to a manager, or anybody who must see and act from differing perspectives.

Frame blindness in my opinion and experience can be avoided through several methods. I will discuss three:

Avoid the trappings of “my way or the high way”. Individuals who are accustomed to this manner of thinking and leadership can be summed-up as suffering from a Neapolitan complex, whereby they must always be correct, leaders who subscribe to this toxic type of leadership are overconfident and extremely judgmental toward those who would challenge their authority.

  

I have learned that it is impossible to reason, discuss or correct an individual of this caliper. The best thing to do is keep your distance and limit contact. When contact is inevitable, limit it to the situation at hand and utilize only fact-based answers with supporting documentation. Keep opinions to ones self and avoid discussion contentious issues not relevant to the topic at hand.

Another situation of frame blindness is “groupthink”. Groupthink is another toxic situation, whereby the practice of thinking or making decisions as a group in a way that discourages creativity or individual responsibility. There’s always a danger of groupthink when two leaders are so alike.

My experience of groupthink can be attributed to addressing a problem or situation that has been allowed to exist prior to my affiliation with the organization. The organization was regulatory not in compliance and my addressing of the situation including the fact based data showing the discrepancy could possibly mean that years of collected data might be inaccurate. Groupthink came to full circle, protecting the sanctity of the established by successfully shooting the messenger and desecrating the message.

What would have helped if I knew that my supervisor had my back (he did not,) and that I could count on him for support in the meeting that I announced the discrepancy and proposed corrective action. Unfortunately there are times you must stand your ground… alone and do your due diligence, other wise you become one of the mindless sheep and quite possible culpable in not addressing an issue that may have safety, financial or proprietary concerns at stake.     

The third and final method of frame blindness is “that’s the way we have always done it”. Never in my life have I witnessed so narrow-mindedness as individuals or groups that refuse to change or improve with the times. In my opinion it is attributed to mostly laziness, that if could be convinced without conflict might see the new method could be a vast improvement and actually create an easier and more enjoyable working experience.

My experience with this is you must slowly introduce changes utilizing a timeline of milestone to gauge successful deployment of a change to a policy, regulation, or program. That in the end could have been implemented quickly and completely, possibly saving time, money and conflict.

Reference:

Hoch, S., Kunreuther, H., & Gunther, R. (2001). Wharton on Making decisionsdoi:www.wiley.com

A632.2.3.RB_LarsonKurt, Sheena Lyengar: How to Make Choosing Easier

We all want customized experiences and products -- but when faced with 700 options, consumers freeze up.

With fascinating new research, Sheena Iyengar demonstrates how businesses (and others) can improve the experience of choosing.

Identify four of the methodologies Sheena Iyengar suggests as methods of helping us improve our experience in choosing.

The first thing that Sheena discusses is cutting, her method behind the madness is simply, and less means more. I must say I agree with her analysis, as too many choices can be just as difficult or frustrating as too few. In my opinion it simply boils down to the expediency of the economy of scales whereby, better attention to better products without redundancy is the way to an increase in sales, better inventory control and less capital expended to store and handle items that may or may not be of consequence.

Her second technique of choice overload is concentration.  Again too many choices too little time is spent upon examining the differences and benefits of a limited selection.

Sheena’s third technique is categorization. Simply stated that we as consumers are able to handle or grasp the amount of categories better than we can handle or grasp a vast amount of choices.

The fourth and final technique discussed is the condition of complexity. According to Sheena, we as humans possess the ability to actually handle more information than we give ourselves credit for. We simply must be cognizant of our abilities, taking them one step at a time, gradually increasing the amount of and size of complexities we intake. Avoiding sensory overload, the wrong time or place from which we increase our understanding of a condition or its complexity.

Discuss the implications of two of these methods in terms of your own decision-making as an individual and a member of an organization.

From my perspective I have always subscribed to the first method that Sheena discussed… less means more. I use as an example a book I am current reading by adventurist and survivalist, Robert Young Pelton titled Come Back Alive, Survival Lessons from Dangerous Places. In the book Pelton (2013,) discusses the same theory of less is more in his analysis of the vast amount of survival books that are currently on the market, and how they as Pelton explains “They instill pure terror by harping on esoteric conditions that perhaps affect 40% of the population only 5% of the time”. In other words they apply sensory overload and blithely ignore real life. Again too many choices. I whole-heartedly agree with Pelton in his analysis of true survival means knowing the risks, weighing the benefits, and taking responsibility for your actions. His last statement is a lifelong motto of mine and can apply into any and all situations.

Another technique that I continually use in my work/life is the Condition of Complexity or as may be commonly referred to as the KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid) theory. Again we as human are capable of absorbing a vast amount of data, knowledge and information. We can quickly run into sensory overload if we are hit with too much to fast or too often, differentiating amounts from too many angles or topics requiring too many decisions in too little tome frame can and will lead to mistakes. The trick as Sheena stated would be to categorize information based upon complexity, severity criticality of time and to not attempt to decipher all information at once. As an aviation incident investigator I routinely compartmentalize items based upon their complexity, severity and criticality, I also must be cognizant of how each are separate and yet inter-connected in some fashion.

By keeping things in their proper perspective, amount and complexity, I am able to improve my decision-making skills in all situations including work/ life, emergency and survival necessities.         

Reference:

Lyengar, S. (Performer) (2011, November). Sheena Lyengar: How to make choosing easier. TED. [Video podcast]. Retrieved from www.TED.com

Pelton, R. (2013). Come back alive, survival lessons from dangerous places. Guilford: The Globe Pequot Press. DOI: www.comebackalive.com

A632.1.4.RB_LarsonKurt, Multistage Decision Making

In my experience as an aviation safety inspector/aviation safety officer, the use of or application of formulas for the investigation into the probable cause, criticality, and events leading to the accident and/or incident would not have a great impact on the outcome of a mishap investigation. What does have a positive impact is the ability to look several steps ahead, also known as foresight with a hint of intuition. As discussed in Hoch (2001) most decision makers do not possess the ability of looking beyond one step ahead of a given situation or problem, hence a good hypothesis for the mindset of our political leadership… if you so choose to call it that.

As with any decision-making process as discussed in Hoch (2001) there are no right or incorrect answers. I equate this to Thomas Edison’s trial and error of invention of the light bulb. He (Edison) did not fail in his attempts in finding the right filament to sustain light. He simply had not found the correct one to consistently sustain light. The accumulation of knowledge like Edison will evolve over time and by keeping things simple there will be a new discovery with certainty of the decision policies that guide those with the knowledge.

An example from Hoch (2001) discussed large firms and software upgrading as a stopgap between Y2K and loss of data, money and organizational well being. The fact that nothing happened and organizations were unable to make sense of the fact that nothing occurred leaves a gap in future responses to software threats, is relatively inconsequential.  The fact that organizations say a potential threat and took what was considered to be appropriate precautions is a testimony to forward and proactive thinking.

I firmly believe that we as critical thinkers have an innate ability toward problem solving through reviewing past solutions to similar or like instances. Critical thinking is dependent upon creating analogies like described in Hoch (2001) we as humans tend to look upon when problem solving, and that the ability to determine the point of difference from similarities of past experiences or in my case past accidents/incidents and the ability to self correct from those previous solutions while maintaining any and all details of an investigation are critical to a complete and concise chain of events leading up to an accident/incident. In other words, never discount details that are not relevant today because they might become relevant tomorrow.    

Reference:

Hoch, S., Kunreuther, H., & Gunther, R. (2001). Wharton on Making decisionsdoi:www.wiley.com