Black man working large electric phosphate smelting furnace make elemental phosphorus, TVA chemical plant Muscle Shoals, AL). 1942 by Alfred T. Palmer (via LOC)

Managerials Decisions Requiring ESP?

Forrest ChristianDecision-making Leave a Comment

You may have gotten the impression that Gary Klein’s Recognition-Primed Decision Model (PDF) was based on intuition. You would be in good company. Lots of people who write about RPD infer that it’s all about intuition, about gut feelings, about making fast decisions. That’s not really true. It may have been the many firefighter stories. The chief at the kitchen …

Defense.gov News Photo 120324-M-AV740-001 by Staff Sgt. Clinton Firstbrook, U.S. Marine Corps (2012)

Make A Better Decision Using Intuition—With Data!

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As I said in Just Make A Decision!, my father was an advocate of “Just make a decision!” You might have thought that this meant that he didn’t think that data and information could help you make better decisions. You wouldn’t be farther from the truth. My father was a Statistical Process Control expert, which became Quality Control which became …

Men of Fort Story operate an azimuth instrument, to measure the angle of splash in sea-target practice. 1942. (reversed)

Learn Decisional Due Date and Build Dynamic, Decision-Driven Organizations

Forrest ChristianDecision-making Leave a Comment

Elliott Jaques is rightly praised for many things: first one to apply the ideas of social culture to the life inside organizations; identified and named the “mid-life crisis” (sorry Gail Sheehy!); led the longest on-site social research efforts at Glacier Metal Company, running some 25 years; and developing a method for building the requisite organizational structure for any managerial endeavor. …

Oklahoma Land Rushm 1893 by William S Prettyman

“Just make a decision!”

Forrest ChristianDecision-making Leave a Comment

Last time we heard from Danny Fleming, the banking executive, who said that his success was in a large part due to his ability to make decisions when others would dither. This time I’m going to a Danny closer to home: my late father, “Danny” Christian. I was reminded of his thinking on decision making recently when a relative told …

7 Decision Making Approaches: IMAGINIST / INTUITIONIST

Forrest ChristianDecision-making, Theory, Warren Kinston 8 Comments

[I continue my notes on Kinston & Algie’s decision systems.] As we continue with our exploration of the seven approaches to decision making that were originally developed by Jimmy Algie, reformulated by he and Warren Kinston, then extended by Warren [refs follow below], keep in mind that they can also be seen in two other ways. Languages of Achievement: The …

Stack of golden George Washington dollar coins,. (c) 2007 Bill Koslosky, MD (CC BY 2.5)

McKinsey on how companies spend money

Forrest ChristianDecision-making, Reviews - Articles Leave a Comment

From “How Companies Spend Their Money” [PDF] (McKinsey Global Survey) A survey of executives from around the world highlights how frequently — and why — a company’s resource allocation decisions go wrong. Companies start off well, respondents say: senior executives are heavily involved in these decisions and routinely assess the prior performance of business units and the value creation protential …

7 Decision Making Approaches: EMPIRICIST

Forrest ChristianDecision-making, Reviews - Articles, Warren Kinston 4 Comments

Empiricists love data. Lots of data. Warren Kinston and Jimmy Algie posited that there are seven, and only seven, unique mindsets or approaches humans use when making decisions about action. This is conscious decision, not simply unconscious reaction based on stimula-response. I’ve got the full article available, although the quality is wanting. (See [2]) Warren Kinston and Jimmy Algie weren’t …