Intelligent Risk Taking & Problem Solving · By Dr Ian Stewart Head of Leadership and...

Intelligent Risk Taking & Problem SolvingWhitepaper

By Dr Ian StewartHead of Leadership and Organizational Practice at Kaplan Leadership & Professional Developement

2www.kaplansolutions.com

INTRO – RISK, UNCERTAINTY AND DECISION MAKING

1 – PROBLEM TYPES

2 – EFFORTFUL PROBLEM SOLVING

3 – PROBLEM FRAMES, HEURISTICS AND BIASES

4 – COMPLEXITY AND AMBIGUITY

5 – LEADERSHIP STYLES AND AMBIGUITY

6 – MATCHING THE TEAM TO THE PROBLEM

7 – TOOLS, TECHNIQUES, APPROACHES

8 – EDUCATING OUR INTUITION

9 – INNOVATION TIPS

10 – LEADING INNOVATIVE TEAMS

11 – PERSUADING, INFLUENCING AND NEGOTIATING SKILLS

12 – WHAT CAN GO WRONG WHEN GROUPS MAKE DECISIONS?

13 – ASSESSING OPTIONS, MAKING CHOICES

14 – KAPLAN LEADERSHIP AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

APPENDIX – SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY AND READING LIST

CONTENTS


To make any decision is to take the risk that you might fail. Have you weighed up the evidence correctly? Have you generated the best options available? Do you have the right resources? Have you made the right choice? Will there be unintended consequences?

Unfortunately, many businesses today have a culture in which failure is not tolerated and is feared by many employees. This limits the value that employees could deliver in new, break-through ideas. In an increasingly volatile, uncertain complex and ambiguous world, the need to assess and take intelligent risks could not be more pressing.

The classic definition of risk is something that can be measured – often in the form of probabilities. In the case of the stock market, for instance: the value of assets, the company’s order book, its strategic plans, its leadership, etc. But as the profits of successful fund manager illustrates, it is not impossible. It is easier when you are spreading your exposure – if you’ve done assessments correctly – and you’ll win more than you lose.

It’s quite a different assessment, however, when it’s a one off decision. Do you take that new job? Does your business opt to open a new office in New Dehli or New York? In these cases, while a degree of technical assessment will be involved, the decision is likely to be as much a human one than a technical one. And, of course, these decisions contain elements of uncertainty. Risk and uncertainty need to be managed differently.

So it is essential to know about your personal default setting when it comes to risk and uncertainty. We know that some personality factors matter (‘success’ or ‘failure’).

We are also influenced by situational factors. By familiarity – have we done this before? How imaginable is failure? How much control do you believe you have over events? The intelligent risk taker knows how to conduct a technical assessment of a risk. But they also know themselves and their environment.

Ultimately, a professional’s ability is judged by the decisions we make.


“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

Thomas Edison

CONTENTS

RISK VERSUS UNCERTAINTY

▸ The risk is where we do not know what is going to happen next,but we do have knowledge of what the distribution of likelyoutcomes looks like. Uncertainty is a condition where there is noknowledge about the future events.

▸ Risk can be measured and quantified, through theoretical models.Conversely, it is not possible to measure uncertainty inquantitative terms, as the future events are unpredictable.

▸ The potential outcomes are (to some extent) known in risk, whereasin the case of uncertainty, the outcomes are (largely) unknown.

▸ Risk can be managed, if proper measures are taken to control it.On the other hand, uncertainty is beyond the control of the personor enterprise, as the future is uncertain.


PROBLEM SOLVING, DECISION MAKING AND EXPERTISEImportant skills and qualities count for little if we make poor decisions. And yet problem solving is often neglected as a subject of study in and of itself; we are simply assumed to develop and hone our decision making skills on the job.

At Kaplan we believe that the central skill that underpins and informs professional effectiveness is decision making and to develop this should be the ultimate aim of any Professional Development Program.

The purpose of this Kaplan whitepaper is to explore problem solving and decision making in a little depth – to offer some new perspectives and to encourage further personal study and professional development in this key capability. This is by no means an exhaustive or complete study of what is an enormous and complex area; however, it explores problem solving at the levels of the individual, the team and the organization.


“The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem.”

Theodore Rubin

CONTENTS


Simplistic Deterministic RandomIndeterminate

or ‘Wicked’

Role of judgement

Role of facts and/or algorithms

A good place to start to explore how we might solve problems is to identify what we are faced with. The type of problem affects the problem solving strategy we should use.

In the broadest terms, we can label them as: simplistic, deterministic, random or indeterminate. We can then plot the role that facts or logic play in solving some types of problem.

SIMPLISTIC PROBLEMSThere is one and only one answer. For example, who is the CEO of Bank of America?

DETERMINISTIC PROBLEMSWhere the answer is arrived at by the application of a formula, algorithm or protocol. For example, the circumference of a circle is found by applying a certain formula. Following a recipe to bake a cake is a simple example of a formulaic approach.

Note that in both simplistic and deterministic problems facts, processes and/or logical algorithms are applied; a wider consideration of the issue or the people it involves is not necessary.

RANDOM PROBLEMSThere is only one answer, but there are a number of possible correct answers. For example, who will win the World Cup? You know there is an identifiable set of possible winners but you don’t know for sure which. And while facts about previous winners will help guide you, known facts alone cannot be relied upon to give the answer – we are in the business of trying to predict the future and improbable events do sometimes occur.

INDETERMINATE OR ‘WICKED’ PROBLEMSWhere the answer itself is complex, hard to identify or changes in time. For example, how will we define ‘success’ in a relationship with a stakeholder? Answering this question means taking into account a huge range of factors including how others see the issue, how the issue has changed and how your earlier decisions and actions have themselves affected the issue.

1 – PROBLEM TYPES

“The most serious mistakes are not being made as a result of wrong answers. The truly dangerous thing is asking the wrong questions.”

Peter Drucker

CONTENTS


It is evident from the earlier diagram, random and wicked problems entail applying both facts and judgement. When facing a wicked problem, it is judgement that needs to take the lead role. We will explore judgement below; but faced with any problem, it is useful to categorise and ask ‘what kind of problem is this?’

Once the type of problem is identified you can assess if you are applying the best problem solving approach. As a guideline, problems, simplistic or deterministic problem types are easily delegated, whereas problems of the random or indeterminate type can only be delegated where you have given clear, and in the case of indeterminate problems continuous, guidance.

WICKED PROBLEMSWicked problems have a number of defining features:

▸ Solutions to wicked problems are not true-or-false, butbetter or worse.

▸ There is no immediate and no ultimate test of a solution to awicked problem.

▸ Every wicked problem is essentially unique.

▸ Every wicked problem can be considered to be a symptom ofanother problem.

▸ The solution depends on how the problem is framed andvice-versa (i.e. the problem definition depends on the solution).

▸ Stakeholders have radically different world views and differentframes for understanding the problem.

▸ The constraints that the problem is subject to and the resourcesneeded to solve it change over time.

▸ The problem is never solved definitively.

1 – PROBLEM TYPES

CONTENTS

What types of problems make up the bulk of the problems you face at work? The chances are they are a mixture of all these types. If so, how might you break them down into their elements to make solving them easier?

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PRO

BLEM

CREATIVETHINKING

SOLU

TION

(S)

Psychosocialfactors Options

Comprehensionspace

Evidencespace

Decision making space

Optiongeneration

COMPREHENSION SPACEWhere we make sense of the problem or problems before us. Crucial here is how the problem is presented or framed. For example, we know that the wording of problems can have an effect on how we might go about solving

it. A plan that will ‘save over 60%’ is often viewed as preferable to one that will ‘lose over a third’ even though the result can be the same. As well as the wording there are other factors at play – the time available, the seriousness of situation, the expectations of those around the decision maker, how the organization makes decisions and so on. The simple lesson is that we need to stop and think about how we comprehend the problem before we leap to a possible solution.

EVIDENCE SPACEThe phase where we interrogate the evidence in order to navigate our way through the problem. This is often best accomplished using a formal problem solving tool or approach. There are many of these available and the most appropriate depends largely on the type of problem we are faced with. These might be capital budgeting tools that identify expected rates of return or net present value models. Or they might be quantitative multiple scenario tools such as Monte Carlo simulations. Other types of problem will require qualitative scenario analysis or case based analysis.

OPTION GENERATIONWhere we generate options and/or possible solutions. In the option generation stage the solver should switch from logical, rational thinking to a more creative, innovative style – the idea here is to generate a range of options that meet the objective.


“Never try to solve all the problems at once – make them line up for you one-by-one.”

Richard Sloma

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DECISION MAKING SPACEThe final stage in the task is to weigh up and assess the options that have been generated. It can be wise here to use a formal decision making tool that will allow you to identify the criteria against which the options are to be assessed and provide a means of auditing your decision (i.e. you will be able at a later date to explain and justify your choice of option).


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Looking over that simple model, where do you tend to direct most of your time and energy when making decisions? What are the implications of this?

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HEURISTICS AND BIASES

▸ Anchoring: A tendency to rely too heavily, or “anchor,” on a pastreference or on one piece of information when making decisions.

▸ Availability heuristic: Using the evidence that is most easily broughtto mind but which is often biased toward recent, vivid, unusual, oremotionally charged examples.

▸ Bandwagon effect: The tendency to do (or believe) things because manyother people do (or believe) the same.

▸ Base rate neglect: Our tendency to base judgments on specifics, ignoringgeneral statistical information.

▸ Confirmation bias: A tendency to search for or interpret information in away that confirms our hypothesis or argument.

▸ Conjunction fallacy: The tendency to assume that specific conditions aremore probable than general ones.

▸ Gambler’s fallacy: The tendency to think that future probabilities arealtered by past events. For example, “I’ve flipped heads with this coinfive times consecutively, so the chance of tails coming out on the sixthflip is much greater than heads”.

▸ Hindsight bias: Sometimes called the “I-knew-it-all-along” effect, thetendency to see past events as being predictable at the time thoseevents happened.

▸ Loss aversion: Our tendency to weigh a potential loss more heavily than apotential gain.


THINK ABOUT HOW YOU ‘FRAME’ THE PROBLEMHow a problem is framed often shapes how you go about solving it. Imagine you manage a customer support call center for a consumer products company. The volume of phone calls and emails has increased so much that customer advisors cannot keep up. You assemble a team to help you decide what to do.

At the first meeting, you say: “We have a serious problem. Customers are waiting too long for advice. We need to fix it.” You’ve framed the issue as a problem with response time. So, the team will most likely focus on ways to reduce response time; for example, setting waiting time targets, adding more advisors, cutting down on call time, etc. These measures will address the symptoms of the problem – overloaded phone lines and email inboxes. But they may not address the root cause of the problem, which could range from defective products to inefficient distribution channels.

To get to the root cause, you frame the issue differently for your team: “We have a serious problem with our support center. The volume of calls and emails has increased, and customers are waiting too long for service. We need to find out why this is happening. Then we need to decide what to do about it.”

By framing the decision in this way, you’ve encouraged your team to think about what’s causing the problem. If they can accurately identify the root cause, they’ll make a smarter decision about what to do next.

CONTENTS


Raising our awareness of the heuristics and biases we are commonly prey to can be instructive. Heuristics are the mental ‘short cuts’ we take that provide us with an answer without having to weigh up the evidence rigorously; biases reveal how we attention to certain aspects of a problem ignoring others.

CONSTRUCTIVE INQUIRY AND COLLABORATIONFoster inquiry and temper overly aggressive advocacy in a decision-making group, by using these tactics:

▸ Encourage language that promotes openness to others’ ideas. Prefacecontradictory remarks or questions with phrases that remove blame andfault, which can trigger defensiveness: “Your arguments make sense, butlet me provide a counter-intuitive perspective for a moment.”

▸ Break up entrenched coalitions. Require people with different interests towork together on specific aspects of the decision.

▸ Shift individuals out of long-held perspectives. Ask people to adopt theperspective of someone from a functional or managerial role that they’venever filled: “Marcus, imagine that you’re the CEO of this company. Whatwould you recommend? Why?”

▸ Challenge stalemated participants to revisit key information. Ask them toexamine underlying assumptions and gather more facts.

COMMON COGNITIVE BIASES – HOW MANY DO YOU RECOGNISE IN YOURSELF?

Reliance on familiar experiences and past successes

We tend to base our decisions on events and information that we’re familiar with and that have positive associations for us.

A manager vividly remembers her launch of a new product in Spain three years ago; it was her first big marketing success. Because her memories of the successful launch are so vivid, she emphasizes this experience and discounts her experiences with unsuccessful launches elsewhere. When she tries to extend a similar product into Portugal, her efforts fail. While the strategy used for the Spanish launch may have been a good starting point, her reliance on that previous success led her to overlook critical differences in the Portuguese market.

Overconfidence in our assumptions

We generally feel overconfident in our assumptions. We thus generate too few alternatives when making a decision.

A manager purchases a software package offered by the largest vendor without collecting competitive bids. He assumes that because the package is the most popular one used in his industry, it will work for him. He fails to investigate other software packages that might better meet his needs.


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Affinity for the status quo

We have a tendency to resist major deviations from the status quo – the current way of doing things.

A company is using an outdated process to manufacture one of its products. However, the production unit resists using an alternative process. Their resistance is driven more by their familiarity with the process they are currently using and their reluctance to learn something new than by the quality of the current process.

Desire to confirm our opinions

Once we form an opinion, we typically seek out information that supports it. And we ignore facts that challenge it.

A manager searches the internet to find data supporting her preference for focus groups in market research. She doesn’t pay attention to information that highlights limitations of focus groups and that supports other approaches.

Emotional attachments

We can become emotionally attached to people, places, and things. These bonds can affect decisions we make related to these.

A manager was heavily involved in developing a product that performed well in the market for a number of years. In the past few years, sales of the product have flattened. The manager identifies with the product because of all the work he invested in it. Owing to this attachment, he refuses to consider retiring it.


CONTENTS


In problems it can be useful to identify the sort of complexity the problem presents. In broad terms, there are three main types of complexity: dynamic, generative and social:

Type High or Low Definition

DynamicLow Cause and effect are nearby (physically or temporally)

High Cause and effect are far apart (physically or temporally)

GenerativeLow Key aspects of the future are predictable

High Key aspects of the future are unpredictable

Social

Low When the people involved share assumptions and beliefs

High When the people involved have different assumptions and beliefs

Generally, problems that are of low complexity can be solved simply by piece-meal, backward looking, and authoritarian means: deal with the problem logically, one thing at a time, and what worked before will work now; ‘Listen to me, you know I know what I’m doing’.

However, high complexity problems require systematic, emergent and participatory approaches. The decision maker needs to understand the relationship between the context and the problem, and the problem and the context.

As issues reveal themselves be prepared to alter course and act differently, give ownership of the problem to as many relevant perspectives as possible. Talk openly and listen reflectively.

While most of the problems leaders face demand this latter approach, it is often attractive to adopt former approach instead. The result is often to alienate key stakeholders and either fail to solve the core problem or worse exacerbate it.

Identify an issue that you are dealing with currently and interrogate it in terms of its complexity and of the approach you are talking to dealing with it.

Your current approach: What might you do differently?


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AMBIGUITYA key driver of professional success at a senior level is the ability to deal with ambiguity. The effective decision maker has to take the initiative, to make sense of the situation and to give it meaning – to see the opportunities, to allot value where it is most appropriate and to articulate the key priorities.

Ambiguity comes in various forms: completely new situations with no familiar cues or precedents; complex situations in which there are a great number of stakeholder interests to be taken into account; apparently insoluble situations.

Being personally effective involves understanding your own preferences and motivations and dealing with them; the ‘default settings’ that can shape how we think and how we act. Consider, for example, ‘towards’ or ‘away from’ motivation. Although all of us are motivated to some extent by achieving successes and avoiding failures, we all have an overall tendency to be motivated primarily by working to ‘towards’ success and approval or ‘away from’ failure and disapproval. Whilst the ‘away from; motivation may sound negative, in fact many top performers are driven by the need ‘not to lose’.

Whatever our ‘default’ setting is, it is likely to affect how we approach problems, especially complex and ambiguous ones:

▸ Tolerate and manage change effectively.

▸ Be able to shift gears and/or change course quickly and easily.

▸ Be able to decide and act with incomplete information.

▸ Tolerate situations where issue are unresolved and ‘vague’.

▸ Be able to move between tasks and activities without having tofinish each one.

▸ Be comfortable with risk and uncertainty.

There are two sets of issues worth considering. The first are issues around your personal preferences and traits; the second is around the role of the leader.


CONTENTS


TOLERANCE OF AMBIGUITY

These automatic thoughts or appraisals of a situation generate emotions. Emotions, in this context, are best understood as signals to re-prioritise your attention and energy. Put simply a feeling is nature’s way of saying ‘act differently’. This is usually very useful: feelings of excitement can spur us on to greater things; feelings of contentment can allow us to take stock of a situation and identify.

Equally, we can measure our preferences regarding ambiguity. Is it something we are comfortable with or uncomfortable with? Do we seek to resolve it as quickly as possible and arrive at a clear solution, or do we look to use it to generate ideas and perspectives? Consider these statements from a standard ‘tolerance of ambiguity’ assessment tool:

‘An expert who doesn’t come up with a definite answer probably doesn’t know too much.’

‘There is really no such thing as a problem that can’t be solved.’

‘People who fit their lives to a schedule probably miss most of the joy of living.’

‘A good job is one where what is to be done and how it is to be done are always clear.’

‘It is more fun to tackle a complicated problem than to solve a simple one.’

‘In the long run it is possible to get more done by tackling small, simple problems rather than large and complicated ones.’

‘People who insist on a yes or no answer don’t know how complicated things really are.’

Note that some emotions generate calls for actions that may not be helpful solving the problem or making the decision. For example, the feeling of relief that an ‘away from’ motivated individual may feel at arriving at a ‘good enough solution is likely to serve as a cue for her to leave that issue and move on to another. Equally, the ‘towards’ motivated’ individual may experience high levels of frustration that will be counterproductive.


Taken together how might your preferences towards motivation and ambiguity together affect your behavior and the way you approach problems or make decisions?

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The leadership style that helps shape a team’s responses to ambiguity offers a useful way of planning. Wilkinson (2006) identified four leadership styles (or modes) – technical leadership, co-operative leadership, collaborative leadership and generative leadership.

He maps these leadership modes against their typical responses to ambiguity and uncertainty: how they commonly solve problems, and the sorts of problems that each mode is best suited to solve.


Wilkinson’s Leadership Modes and how they deal with Ambiguity

Leadership Mode Typical Responses to Ambiguity Problem Solving Mode Good for

Technical Leadership

• There is only certainty• Do something else or deny the ambiguity exists• Risks ignored/reduced as much as possible• Leader takes responsibility

• Leader-led and highly structured• Logical and linear: facts based, definite answers• Deference to heirarchies and expertise• Diversity not tolerated• ‘They say’, ‘The facts are’

• Technical problemsthat require technicalsolutions

Co-operative Leadership

• Ambiguity keenly felt• Tolerates internal ambiguity• Takes immediate steps to reduce external ambiguity• No one individual takes responsibility

• Research-led, based on the facts but opinions and subjectiveviews of different realities are explored

• Diversity accepted within bounds• ‘I think, ‘I know’

• Co-operative problemsthat require operativesolutions

Collaborative • All ambiguity explored and embraced – lots of talk, not much action• Shared responsibility• Happy in ambiguous situations for extended periods• Risks explored that bring about equal opportunities

• Group-led and consensual• Adaptive creative thinking processes• Supportive, low risk for the individuals, high risk for the collective• Diversity of thinking accepted• ‘I’m not sure’, ‘At the moment’

• Problems that requireadaptive responsesand solutions

Generative • All ambiguity explored for learning and opportunities• Seeks out ambiguity to find the advantage• Everyone takes responsibility for everything

• Leader and expert led• Expert views explored and built on• Creative divergent and evidence-based convergent thinking• Diversity essential – need a range of perspectives• ‘I don’t know’, ‘I wonder’, ‘Let’s try’, ‘Let’s act’

• Generative problemsthat require futurepacing and creationistparadigm

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JUDGMENTFinkelstein (2013) claims that the failures of judgment we see amongst leaders in many businesses and organizations can be put down to six factors:

▸ They rely too much on past experience.

▸ They become addicted to office politics.

▸ A failure of clarity about their and their organization’s purpose.

▸ They mismanage resources.

▸ They don’t see the opportunities.

▸ They simply don’t trust themselves to lead.

Do you rely too much on past experience?

The adage that ‘what got you here, won’t get you there’ applies in the case of decision making.

Whilst experience is invaluable, so, too, can be the ability to look upon a familiar looking problem, and the available evidence, with fresh eyes. Do they rely upon gut feeling, or engage in rigorous analysis? Do they employ a particular tool or technique? Do they involve others and if so how?

How clear are you about what the business needs right now?

Chris Argyris coined the term ‘Triple loop thinking’. The idea being that single loop thinking is asking ‘are we doing things right’; double loop thinking is asking ‘are we doing the right things. But triple loop thinking is asking ‘how do we decide what is right?’ This sort of thinking challenges the fundamental assumptions and can create paradigm changing ideas. It is the kind of thinking that leads to a business like O2 transforming itself from a business who saw itself in the mobile phone industry to one that saw itself primarily as providing customer service.

How well do you manage your resources?

A key resource is, of course, other people – colleagues, team members, peers, reports, etc. A responsive, decentralized decision making process in which individuals are both empowered to act and responsible for their actions has clear advantages.

For leaders, it is a process that they can adopt to delegate to, and empower, their followers. For the organization, it is a leadership culture which supports timely decision making.


CONTENTS

Consider Wilkinson’s leadership modes. Which does your team commonly use? How does it address ambiguity?

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In organizations, teams are created in order to achieve tasks more efficiently than an individual or a collection of individuals could. Ultimately, this means applying the resources of the team to solve problems. And as we have seen, not all problems are of the same order. While teams have some common features – a definable membership, a group identity, a sense of shared purpose, an ability to leverage interdependence and to effect productive interactions, etc. – their effectiveness is dependent on how well they are set up to solve problems.

PECKHAM IN TEAMSWrong Box, Wrong Time (1996) suggests four types of team that are relevant for different types of problem/potential solution. This is namely: problem-solving teams, creative teams, tactical teams and problem-finding teams.

In modern organizations, a variety of teams have emerged to address different tasks:

The Project Team

The project, or single, team consists of a group of people who come together as a distinct organizational unit in order to work on a project, or projects. Perhaps the most important issue in this instance is to develop their collective capability, since this is the currency for continued success. People issues are often crucial in achieving this.

The Matrix Team

In a matrix team, staff report to different managers for different aspects of their work. Matrix structures are often, but not exclusively, found in projects. Staff will be responsible to the project manager for their work on the project. Their functional line manager, however, will be responsible for other aspects such as: appraisal, training, career development, and ‘routine’ tasks. It is important to overcome the problems staff might have with the dual reporting lines (the ‘two-boss’ problem). This requires building good interpersonal relationships with the team members and regular, effective communication.

The Functional Team

This type of team work within a functionally organized group. In businesses where the functional divisions are relatively rigid, work is handed from one functional team to another in order to complete it. For example, work on a new product can pass from marketing, which has the idea, to research and development, then to design and finally manufacturing.


“Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well-informed just to be undecided about them.”

Laurence J. Peter

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The Contract Team

The contract team is a third party that is brought in, in order to do the project work. Here, the responsibility to deliver the project rests very firmly with the project manager. The client will find such a team harder to control directly. On the other hand, it is the client who will judge the success of the project, so the project manager has to keep an eye constantly on the physical outcome.

DECISION-DRIVEN GROUPS MAKE GOOD DECISIONS – AND IMPLEMENT THEM QUICKLY AND EFFECTIVELYYour group is decision-driven if you and your team:

Know which decisions matter most

You focus on decisions that create the most value for your organization. These include decisions that improve key operations or enable the organization to capitalize on strategic opportunities or to defuse major threats.

Define action as your decision-making goal

You ensure that decisions aren’t just made; they’re carried out as intended.

Establish clear accountability

Everyone knows who will contribute input to each decision, who will make the decision, and who will implement it.

Stay agile

People make good decisions quickly, which enables them to act on opportunities and overcome obstacles.

Involve the right people

People who will live with new decision roles are involved in designing them. The process of thinking about new decision behaviors motivates people to adopt them.


Using Peckham’s taxonomy, what sorts of skills, knowledge, structures and leadership do each team type need in order to solve the problems they face? For example, how would a team that faces known problems that have known problems differ in this regard from a team that faces unknown problems that have unknown solutions.

Now consider the team or teams you are part of, or contribute to regularly. How do they match up terms of the skills, knowledge, structures and leadership and the sorts of problems they mainly face? Identify anything that may serve to hinder their ability to be most effective.

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This section sets out some tried and trusted problem solving and decision tools and techniques. Using a formal technique can be very useful in ensuring that we test our assumptions and don’t leap to unwarranted conclusions.

COMMON PROBLEM-SOLVING APPROACHES▸ Abstraction: Solving the problem in a simplified model of the system

before applying it to the real system – can be very useful to help us understand the key issues in complex systems. Of course, it runs the risk of over simplification.

▸ Analogy: Using a solution that solves an analogous problem.

▸ Brainstorming: (Especially among groups of people) suggesting a large number of solutions or ideas and combining and developing them until an optimum solution is found. This can be very effective if the participants have been given time to work on the problem individually before coming together as a group.

▸ Hypothesis testing: Assuming a possible explanation to the problem and trying to prove, and just even more importantly, disprove the assumption.

▸ Lateral thinking: Approaching solutions indirectly and creatively – this method was popularized by Edward De Bono and well worth exploring.

▸ Proof testing: Try to prove that the problem cannot be solved. The point where the proof fails will be the starting point for solving it.

▸ Reduction: Transforming the problem into another problem for whichsolutions exist.

▸ Research: Employing existing ideas or adapting existing solutions tosimilar problems.

▸ Root cause analysis: Identifying the cause of a problem – a techniquehere is the 5 Whys.

▸ Trial-and-error: Testing possible solutions until the right one is found.

A SMALL SELECTION OF COLLABORATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING AND DECISION MAKING TOOLSThere are a wealth of tools and techniques that you can use – Root Cause Analysis, CATWOE, the 5 Whys, the Drill Down Technique, Cause and Effect Analysis, Appreciative Inquiry, Six Sigma, The Four Frame Approach, etc. Here is a selection of the tools we commonly use on our programs:

▸ McKinsey Seven Steps: This offers a useful framework to ensure a logicaland rigorous approach. In broad terms it breaks the problem into sevensteps: Define problem, Structure problem, Prioritize issues, Developissue analysis and work plan, Conduct analyses, Synthesize findings,Develop recommendation.

▸ Red Teaming: The practice of viewing a problem from an adversary orcompetitor’s perspective. The goal of most red teams is to enhancedecision making, either by specifying the adversary’s preferences andstrategies or by simply acting as a devil’s advocate.


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▸ World Café: A simple, effective, and flexible format for hosting large groupdialogue. It comprises Setting, Introducing , Small Group Discussions,Questioning, Harvesting.

▸ Brainwriting: Excellent for opening up discussions and explorations.Participants are required to write down 3 ideas within 5 minutes. Aftera number of rounds, during which participants swap their ideas over, over100 ideas can be generated in just half an hour.

▸ The Disney Method: A variation of De Bono’s ‘thinking hats’ where agroup uses four specific thinking styles to analyse a problem, generateideas, and evaluate ideas, construct and critique a plan of action.

▸ The Delphi Method: This is used to estimate the likelihood and outcomeof future events. A group of experts exchange views, and eachindependently and anonymously provides estimates and assumptionswhich feeds into a summary report, which the experts review and update,again anonymously. This process continues until all participants reacha consensus.

▸ Future Search: This is a popular methodology to ‘crowdsource’ ideas.Individuals with a range of perspectives – resources, expertise, formalauthority and need – have the same conversation. Meeting over threedays, they tell stories about their past, present and desired future.Through dialogue they discover their common ground. Only then do theymake concrete action plans.


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We often speak of intuition as if it were an attribute that is wholly visceral – some people have good intuitions some people don’t. But intuition canbe cultivated and developed. The difference between the novice and theexpert’s intuitive decision making is a combination of experience, habit andreflection. And while there is no perfect substitute for real world experience,there are a few practices you can adopt that will accelerate the acquisition ofexpert intuition:

▸ Incorporate the principals of the scientific method: observation,prediction, experiment, reflection.

▸ Use your experience and that of others as evidence to be assessed –not simply as proven fact.

▸ Be actively open to evidence that disproves your prediction or initialassessment – seek evidence that will disprove your hypothesis.

▸ Use critical thinking tools and techniques to guide your analysis ofambiguous evidence.

▸ Allow your thinking to be questioned; ‘test’ your intuition openlywith others.

▸ Consider how the aspects situation might be influencing your decision.

▸ Consider the role your emotions and those of others play in the decisionyou are making.

8 – EDUCATING OUR INTUITION

Consider the advice above. How often techniques such as these form part of your normal practice? How do you encourage these sorts of approaches in others?

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Perhaps the most important thing is to see being creative and innovative as a process, rather than a personal quality. Being creative is something we do, not something we are. Like any process, there are a huge range of tools and techniques that you can use to develop your skills and generate better outcomes. Here a few to get you started.

THE 5 WHYSFamously used at Toyota this is simply the process of asking ‘why?’. When a problem has occurred we ask ‘why?’, and then ‘why?’ again to help you drill further into the root cause of the problem. Once you better understand the problem, you’ll be better set to solve it.

OLD + OLD = NEWJames Webb Young’s work shows that the key to successful innovation is to refine and combine what we already know. So look at what works already and take two (or more) ideas together and see how you can adapt and adopt the lessons they teach.

WHAT WOULD CROESUS DO?Imagine that resources – time, money, expertise, etc. – are unlimited, and design the best possible solution or approach. Once you dream up what will undoubtedly be an expensive solution, now all you need is to figure a way to make it practical and affordable. Devised by Barry Nalebuff and Ian Ayres, it’s a simple idea that will generate a lot of ideas.

REVERSE ENGINEEROften the hardest place to start is at the beginning. So, start at the end. Ignore the problem for the time being and envisage and articulate the ideal solution. Then step by step move backwards asking ‘what do I need have done?’ to identify the actions that need to be taken.

GIVE THE PROBLEM TO SOMEONE ELSEResearch shows clearly that we are far more creative and innovative with other people’s problems than our own – our egos and the time we have invested in the problem can get in the way. So, turn it over to colleagues and step away. You’ll be amazed at what they can do for you.

9 – INNOVATION TIPS

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Leading a team that is expected to be innovative and drive change raises three simple questions: How is this team different from any other sort of team? What will I, as a leader, need to do differently? How will I know if I’m succeeding?

Kaplan’s Leading Innovative framework offers a flexible approach to developing the kind of teams necessary to drive innovation and embed sustainable organizational change. Drawing on a range of research on leadership, team and organizational performance, as well as best practice, it sets out an accessible and practical guide for leaders. This section presents a brief overview of the model, highlighting some of the key issues and leadership actions.


FIVE STEPS TO INNOVATIVE TEAMSStep 1: ‘Set the Compass’: Balancing the needs of individuals, the team and the organization; matching the team to the task; forging a personal leadership connection to team, its tasks and its purpose will drive performance.

Step 2: ‘Generate Capability’: Enabling decision making; allotting decision rights and responsibilities; encouraging initiative.

Step 3: ‘Embody the Team’: Providing the team with vision and representation; balancing the leadership role; focusing on how the team’s output is viewed by key stakeholders and the contribution your team makes to the organization’s strategic goals.

Step 4: ‘Coach the Team’: Use learning to drive the team forward; plan for the team you’ll need six months from now; expect and embrace failure as a way of learning and developing the team.

Step 5: ‘Win and Lose Together’: Hold each other accountable; celebrate successes and push forward.

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STEP 1: ‘SETTING THE COMPASS’

Balancing Individual, Team and Organization

Recognize the need to balance three sets of needs and motives – the personal motives and needs of the team members, the collective needs of a team and what the organization needs from them. A team that is unbalanced in any of these areas will under-perform in predictable ways – see Figure 1. This holds for any team, but is particularly relevant to a team tasked with driving change.

Figure 1: Recognizing an Unbalanced Team

Level of NeedTypical Behaviors

Need neglected Need overly dominant

Individual Withdrawal; disconnectionPersonal agendas take priority; Personal objectives and job specs are used to repel change

Team Dysfunctional personal relationships

Silo mentality rules; tactical and functional goals are pursued at the expense of strategic goals

Organizational Output misaligned to strategic objectives

Output often falls into ‘just enough, just in time’ categories; little discretionary effort in evident; Innovation suffers

Team Leader as Designer

In designing an innovative team, this often begins with defining innovation in its organizational context. Innovation in organizations is neither a prescription for ‘anything goes’ or simply applying the recipe for innovation that has worked in other places. The character of the innovation that you seek must fit with your organization. The ‘tests’ of ‘relative novelty’, ‘appropriateness’ and ‘commercial viability’ provide a useful starting point:

▸ Relative Novelty: Is this a need for innovation or adaptation? Do you need to embrace fundamental re-imagining or simply to adapt and improve exiting processes, products or services?

▸ Appropriateness: How does your ambition to innovate position your customers and your products? How does this sit with your corporate identity, core values and brand promise?

▸ Commercially Viable: What advantage is to be gained over your competitors? What is the opportunity cost?

Developing the Right Knowledge, Skills, Attitudes and Behaviors

The next task is to assess the team’s current level of Knowledge, Skills, Attitudes and Behaviors (KSAB) against the KSABs required by the task. Horth and Vehar (2012) have identified ‘innovative thinking’ as requiring a quite different skill set – and attitude – from business as usual thinking:


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Business Thinking

▸ Logical

▸ Deductive/inductive reasoning

▸ Needs proof in order to proceed

▸ Looks for precedents

▸ Makes quick decisions

▸ There is right and wrong

▸ Uncomfortable with ambiguity

▸ Wants results

Innovative Thinking

▸ Intuitive

▸ Abductive reasoning

▸ Asks what if

▸ Not constrained by the past

▸ Holds multiple possibilities

▸ There is always a better way

▸ Relishes ambiguity

▸ Wants meaning

Where there is a clear gap between current and desired KSABs, the first response may be to ‘put them on a training course’. However, this is almost certainly a mistake. The kind of thinking that is described above are high levels of thinking requiring more than just a range of ‘creative thinking’ tools and techniques. This is not a gap that can be bridged through training alone. ‘Training’ is a ‘technical’ solution: it imparts ‘skills and drills’.

The need here is for an adaptive solution – one that involves a transformation in how the individual sees themselves, their role and the organization. To create new ways of thinking, team members will have to create new ways of thinking about themselves.

STEP 2: ‘GENERATE CAPABILITY’

Match the Team to the Task

Essentially, the purpose of any team is to solve problems – their ability to perform is dependent on how well they are set up to solve the problems that they face. Peckham (1999) suggests four types of team that are relevant for different types of problem; namely, problem-solving teams, creative teams, tactical teams and problem-finding teams.

Known Problem Unknown Problem

Unknown Solution Need: problem-solving team with autonomy

Need: creative team with freedom

Known Solution Need: tactical team with role clarity

Need: problem-finding team (analytical and creative)

What sorts of structures and leadership does each team type need in order to be placed to solve the problems they face? For example, how would a team that faces known problems that have known problems, differ from a team that faces unknown problems that have unknown solutions? Think about the sorts of skills they needs, the kind and quality of knowledge they will apply, the attitudes and behaviors that need to be encouraged.


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Step 3: ‘Embody the Team’Research in leadership and social identity (Haslam et al. 2010) shows us that the most successful leaders personify their team’s purpose, values and interests. Leaders stand for the team in word and deed.

But, however strong that commitment is, it counts for little if the leader doesn’t make the time to lead. Taking a leaf from the military’s book, it used to be said that a commander had three ‘battles’ to attend to: the close, the rear and the deep. In the workplace the ‘close battle’ is the daily task list: the papers to read, the meetings to attend, the output to oversee, the emails to write, etc.

For many leaders it is this aspect of their job that dominates their time and, more importantly, their thinking. This leaves less time to attend to the ‘rear’ and ‘deep’ battles. The ‘rear’ battle can be thought of as people and resources – making sure personnel issues are dealt with, that people have the right training and resources, etc. The ‘deep’ battle is forward looking: it’s seeing ahead and planning for next week, next month, next year; it’s engaging with stakeholders across the business; it’s monitoring external events and their likely impact on the organization.

It is this work that enables the leader to create, update and refine, the vision they share with the team. It is this work that helps the team plan ahead. As such, ‘deep’ battle is, perhaps, the most important part of leading a team. It is also the part of the role that is most likely to get neglected.

Figure 2: Balancing the Leadership RoleIn the table opposite, set out how your time is currently spent and how it should be spent.

Leadership Role% of time currently

spent

% of time that should be allotted

‘Close’ – Engaged in BAU, ‘firefighting; carrying out tactical tasks that could be delegated .......................... ..........................

‘Rear’ – Dealing with the key personnel, resource and logistical issues that support and shape the team’s capability to deliver .......................... ..........................

‘Deep’ – Thinking and planning strategically; engaging with key stakeholders across – and outside – the organization; monitoring the external environment, assessing competitors, best practice, etc. .......................... ..........................

STEP 4: ‘COACH THE TEAM’Team leaders can think, plan and work at the level of events – they can focus on what just happened. On another level, they can study patterns of behavior to reveal trends and patterns that hold lessons. At a third level, they can think systemically – exploring the underlying causes of behavior. The innovative team leader needs to think and plan at all three levels, but with an especially keen eye on the latter. And their coaching must be informed by all three levels of thinking too.

Coaching an innovative team goes beyond simply competence in a particular area, function or specialism: they are coaching a team to challenge the fundamental assumptions that the organization makes. This is likely to challenge the leader as well as the team. They will need to actively seek to understand the other’s point of view, not simply state their own; they will need to make explicit the assumptions they are making and allow them to be challenged.


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It is a coach that takes advantage of “disorientating dilemmas” – the conflict between prior learning and new information or situation, that encourages collaborating where team members see other kinds of problem solving strategies used, discuss the case using their collective to take responsibility for their learning and development. It uses this capability to develop higher order thinking skills such as analysis, synthesis, evaluation, and creation of new knowledge.

STEP 5: ‘WIN AND LOSE TOGETHER’

Celebrate and Push Forward

Dealing with the team’s success and failures is a key issue. The leader’s behavior will support or undermine the team’s efforts. Our model advises leaders to celebrate success and to drive the team forward.

However, celebrating success does not come easily so to some leaders. Rather than celebrate it they hardly seem to recognise it. Others celebrate success but fail to push on to greater achievements. Understanding why this is the case involves the leader exploring the preferences and motives that shape how they think and act – in this case having a ‘towards’ or ‘away from’ motivation is especially relevant. While all are motivated by achieving successes and avoiding failures, each of us has a preference in one direction or the other: some are motivated more towards success and others away from failure. While these need not determine our behaviors, they often do. Presented with success or failure we experience certain emotional cues that serve to shape our actions – see Figure 3.

The feelings of excitement that a ‘towards’ motivated leader experiences can spur them on to demand greater things from themselves and their team. But on the other hand, if this same leader isn’t getting results quickly they may experience high levels of frustration that will be counterproductive and create difficult working environment for some.

For the ‘away from’ motivation the feelings of contentment or relief that the ‘away from’ motivated leader can see them accepting ‘good enough’ outcome. While this can have the benefit of giving the team a clear goal to aim at, it can create an attitude that prevents it from pushing on to greater heights. A leader who understands their personal motivation is essential in creating the environment in which an innovative team can flourish.

Figure 3: Attitudes towards Success and Failure

Leader’s MotivationSuccess Failure

Positive Emotions Negative Emotions

Towards SuccessElationEagernessExcitement

FrustrationAngerSadness

Away From FailureReliefContentmentSatisfaction

FearGuiltAnxiety


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Making a decision can be hard enough. Convincing others of its merits and getting their support can be even tougher. And yet, if we fail to communicate, convince and engage others then the decision itself becomes somewhat irrelevant.

This is not the place to go into too much detail on the tools and tactics available , but here a few ideas that may prove helpful around Persuasion, Influence and Negotiation.

Let’s start with basic definitions:

▸ PERSUADING involves being able to convince others to takeappropriate action.

▸ NEGOTIATING involves being able to discuss and reach a mutuallysatisfactory agreement.

▸ INFLUENCING encompasses both of these.

PERSUASION: THE BASIC SKILLSExplain the benefits of your argument. Salespeople will often use the phrase ‘sell the benefits not the features’. For example, if you were

attempting to persuade a shift manager to arrive at work half an hour earlier, you might emphasise the benefits of the extra time – a chance for you two to meet and agree the day’s priorities, an opportunity to get a better briefing from the outgoing shift, etc.

Tip: if you can’t think of a benefit for the other party, you are highly unlikely to sell the idea. Perhaps it’s time to revisit your idea.

Put your points across clearly and concisely. Present your case logically and make sure that any claims you make can be verified.

Tip: Less is definitely more when it comes to reasons: one or two compelling reasons are stronger than a list of six or seven. Prioritise one key reason.

Understand the concerns and needs of the person you are dealing with. Ask yourself the question are they ‘Ready’, ‘Willing’ and ‘Able’ to make or embrace the change that your idea implies. We often assume that people aren’t willing to take up our idea, that isn’t always the case. It might be that they are willing but don’t have the skills or resources; or that they are able and willing but not ready – there is too much else going on or that they don’t understand the importance of the change. Lastly, they may be able but just not willing – what’s in it for them? Focus on the needs of the other party.

Tip: Take time to listen carefully and find out about their interests and expectations. This will make it easier for you to outline the benefits of your proposal in terms that connect with your audience.


“Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower

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Remember the impact of negativity. The more hesitant language you use such as “isn’t it?”, “you know”, “um mm” and “I mean” the less people are likely to believe your argument. Do not couch your ideas in apologies or worries ‘I’m sorry that…. ‘my concern is.. etc.’

Tip: Use positive rather than negative language: instead of saying “You’re wrong about this”, say “That’s true, however ...”, “That’s an excellent idea, but if we look more deeply ...” or “I agree with what you say but have you considered ...”.

THE PRINCIPLES OF INFLUENCEDrawing on the existing research, Robert Cialdini (Influence: Science and Practice ,1984) identified the six principles of Influence from which specific influence tactics can be derived:

Reciprocity

Principle: We are hard-wired to return favors, pay back debts, and treat others as they treat us. According to the idea of reciprocity, this can lead us to feel obliged to others. This is because we’re uncomfortable with feeling indebted to them. If a colleague helps you when you’re busy with a project, you might feel obliged to support her ideas for improving team processes.

Tip: Identify your objectives and think about what you want from the other person. You then need to identify what you can give to them in return.

Commitment and Consistency

Principle: We have a deep desire to be consistent in thought and action. For this reason, once we’ve committed to something, we’re then more inclined to go through with it. For instance, you’d probably be more likely to support a colleague’s project proposal if you had shown interest when he first talked to you about his ideas.

Tip: Try to get people’s commitment early on, either verbally or in writing. For example, if you’re building support for a project, talk about ideas early on with stakeholders, and take their comments and views into account.

Social Proof

Principle: Our sense of “safety in numbers’’ dominates much of our behavior. For example, we’re more likely to work late if others in our team are doing the same. Here, we’re assuming that if lots of other people are doing something, then it must be OK. We’re particularly susceptible to this principle when we’re feeling uncertain, and we’re even more likely to be influenced if the people we see seem to be similar to us.

Tip: Create a “buzz” around your idea or initiative. For example, if you’re trying to get support for a new project, work on generating support from influential people in the business. (These may not always be leaders or managers.)


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Liking

Principle: We are more likely to be influenced by people we like. Likeability comes in many forms – people might be similar or familiar to us, they might give us compliments, or we may just simply trust them.

Tip: Ensure that you put in the time and effort needed to build trust and rapport with the people you work with, and behave with consistency. Develop your interpersonal and active listening skills, and remember that there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach when it comes to relating to others.

Authority

Principle: We feel a sense of duty or obligation to people in positions of authority. Job titles, uniforms, and even accessories like cars or gadgets can lend an air of authority, and can persuade us to accept what these people say.

Tip: Develop your personal and professional credentials, get ‘third party’ support from influential and powerful people.

Scarcity

Principle: things are more attractive when their availability is limited, or when we stand to lose the opportunity to acquire them on favorable terms. For instance, we might buy something immediately if we’re told that it’s the last one, or that a special offer will soon expire.

Tip: Use a sense of urgency to get support for your ideas. For example, you can highlight the pressing consequences of the problem that your idea helps to solve or what your rivals or competitors are doing.


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NEGOTIATION TOP TIPSNegotiation is a complex set of skills and techniques to master. Some training and development in this area is recommended for all professionals. In the meantime, here are few pointers:

Separate the People from the Problem

Never allow a negotiation to get personal – be hard on the issues at hand, but gentle on the people. Make sure that they will leave the negotiation content.

Focus on Interests not Positions

Positions are the publicly stated wants or desires. Do not argue over positions. This will only harden each party’s resolve. Explore these positions to the interests that underlie them. If you address the other party’s interests adequately, their positions will melt away.

Understand your own interests

Are you sure what you really want out of a negotiation? Think of the short, medium and longer term, consult your stakeholders. If you do not know what you really want, you are unlikely to get it.

Remember the generic human interests

Being treated fairly, having control and protecting ‘face’ and ensure these are met for the other party.

The other party’s perception of the issue isn’t part your challenge, it is all of it

Understand why the other party sees the issue as they do. Assume they are acting rationally and intelligently and map out their decision making processes.

Frame the context of the negotiation

The first things you say will frame the discussion. Spend some time thinking about how you want to use that.

Explore your options

Having well worked out alternatives will make a stronger and better informed negotiator.

Match the right negotiator to the right negotiation

Are you the right person? If not, who is? If it is a team, what roles will each member play?

Negotiation is a process not a performance

Step back and plan your negotiation. It may take several rounds before an accommodation is arrived at, think out your strategy.

Listen actively and listen with purpose

Most negotiations fail because one party doesn’t don’t believe the other heard them. Don’t make that mistake.


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Whilst there are a plethora of benefits when it comes to collaboration decision making, we must also be aware of the pitfalls. Our natural tendency to align ourselves with others, and the everyday pressures upon us to agree and ‘get on with it’ can lead to serious errors. Sunstein and Hastie’s recent research is useful in identifying some of the causes of these errors:

▸ The Cascade Effect: Unconscious convergence – we build on eachother’s ideas, creating a more homogenous outlook, becoming ‘moreof the same’.

▸ Proximate Knowledge Focus: Focus on what everyone knows already –not what they don’t know.

▸ Planning Fallacy: Groups more optimistic than individuals.

▸ Group Commitment and Cohesion: Commitment to the group can seemembers commit to failing actions more strongly than the argument orevidence merits in order to avoid censure or rejection from the group.

▸ Confirmation Bias: We don’t correct each other’s errors we amplify them.

12 – WHAT CAN GO WRONG WHEN GROUPS MAKE DECISIONS?

What practical steps could you take to avoid these happening when your team sits down to make a decision?

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In addition to the range of problem solving tools available, there are also a number of decision making tools you can use. In simple terms, these help you choose between the options that you have generated. Below is a simple decision making matrix that can offers us certain advantages:

▸ It encourages collaboration.

▸ It identifies the key criteria that we use to choose one option overothers – forcing us to articulate and ‘weigh’ the relative importance ofthese criteria.

▸ Provides an ‘audit’ trail of the decision that can be useful in explainingyour decision later.

The best way to assess the benefits of such a techniques is to use it yourself so a step by step guide has been set out below.

STEP 1 – USING A RANKED AND WEIGHTED DECISION-MAKING MATRIXArticulate the key question that your problem poses. For the sake of this demonstration let’s say ‘What’s the best film you have all seen?’ From the group get three nominations – e.g. ‘The Shawshank Redemption’, ‘Toy Story, and ‘The Godfather’.

In your group, decide upon the key criteria that the best option must meet to answer that question. For the purposes of this exercise, choose three criteria* that relate to ‘best films’, e.g. ‘quality of acting’, ‘plot’, ‘cinematography’.

Criterion A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Criterion B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Criterion C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

STEP 2 – DECISION-MAKING MATRIXPair-rank the importance of the criteria, each member of the group votes:

Vote cast for details

Criterion Criterion A B C

A

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B

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A

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C

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B

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C

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Total


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Criterion Given votes Final ranking

A

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B

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C

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Total votes

STEPS 3 – 5 – DECISION-MAKING MATRIXStep 3 – Weight the importance of each criterion. This is calculated by dividing the given votes by total votes (in all three rounds) . For example a criteria that received 16 /36 votes is weighted .44, a criteria that received 14 /36 is weighted .39, criteria that received 6 / 36 is weighted .17.

Note that taken together they add up to 1. However, their weighting reflects their relative importance – for example as a group you may believe that ‘plot’ is twice as more important than say acting or cinematography.

Then go to Step 4 – see next page.

Step 5 – Enter Step 4 “total votes” into the matrix and multiply by the percentage above them to get a final score and a final ranking.

Weighted Criteria

Final Score

Final Ranking

A

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

B

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C

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Option 1

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Option 2

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Option 3

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STEP 4 – DECISION-MAKING MATRIXWrite down three options your group has generated:

Option 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Option 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Option 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Pair-rank each option against each criterion.

Criterion A

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Vote for options

Option Option 1 2 3

1

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2

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1

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3

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2

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3

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Total

Criterion B

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Vote for options

Option Option 1 2 3

1

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2

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1

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3

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2

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3

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Total

Criterion C

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Vote for options

Option Option 1 2 3

1

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2

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CONTENTS


Kaplan is a leading international provider of training and education services operating in more than 30 countries and working with over 2,600 corporations and businesses.

Our Leadership & Professional Development programs develop the technical competence and the behavioral confidence of employees to help drive better decision-making at all levels within the organization. Using a consultative and collaborative approach to designing training, we offer multi-modular programs, business simulations, masterclasses and assessment tools that deliver challenging and practically relevant professional learning experiences.

Kaplan Leadership & Professional Development also provides professional accountancy and financial training, vocational qualifications and apprenticeships, financial markets, postgraduate and undergraduate degrees.

14 – KAPLAN LEADERSHIP & PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

If you’d like to learn more about our Leadership & Professional Development Program, speak to one of our L&D experts:

Phone: 877.656.5557 Email: [email protected]

To learn more, visit us at: www.kaplansolutions.com

CONTENTS


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Dawes, R .(2001) Everyday Irrationality. Oxford: Westview

Deal, T.E and Kennedy, A.A. (2000) Corporate Cultures. London: Basic Books

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Eagly, A. J., & Chaiken, S. (1993). The psychology of attitudes. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt,

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Gigerenzer, G., Todd, P. M., & the ABC Research Group. (1999). Simple heuristics that make us smart. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Gilovich T, Griffin, T , Kahneman, D. (eds) (2002) Heuristics and Biases: The psychology of Intuitive Judgement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

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Hammond, J.S. andKeeney, R. L. (2015) Smart Choices: A Practical Guide to Making Better Decisions. Harvard University Press


CONTENTS


Hogarth, R. (2001) Educating Intuition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

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Klien, G (2014). Seeing what others Don’t. London: Nicholas Brearly

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McGrath, J. E. (1984). Groups: Interaction and performance. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Nisbett, R. E. (2015) Mindware:Tools for Smart Thinking. Allen Lane

Northouse, P.G. (2004) Leadership: Theory and Practice (third edition). London: Sage.

Peckham, M (1996) Teams: Wrong Box, Wrong Time. Management Development Review, Vol.9, No4, 26-28

Plous, S. (1993) The Psychology of Judgement and Decision Making. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Popper, K. (1999). All life is problem solving. New York: Routledge.

Pratkanis, A. (ed) (2007) The Science of Social Influence. Psychology Press

Schein, E. and Gallos, J (Eds) (2006) Organisation Development. London: Jossey-Bass

Senge, P (revised Ed 2006) The Fifth Discipline. London: Random Books

Surowiecki, J. (2004). The wisdom of crowds. New York, NY: Doubleday.

Thompson, L. L. (2004). Making the team: A guide for managers (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

Wilkinson, D. (2006). The Ambiguity Advantage: What great leaders are great at. London: Palgrave Macmillan.


CONTENTS

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