Transcript Slide 1

Welcome Back!!!
Organizational
Decision-Making
Michael Sacks
Associate Professor in the
Practice of Organization and
Management
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Agenda
Individual vs. Organizational decisionmaking
Two-part case analysis
Common organizational traps
Optimizing Organizational Decisions
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Patterns in Individual Decision-Making
Think about your
colleagues, your boss,
and most importantly
yourself. What types of
patterns (both good and
bad) characterize
individual decisionmaking?
How are organizational
decisions the same or
different than individual
decisions?
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Xerox PARC & the Alto
By mid-1970’s, Xerox’s Alto had
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Graphical user interface (GUI) operating system
Coordinated suite of office application programs
Mouse pointing device
Disk storage device
Ethernet local-area network with e-mail
Object-oriented programming
Laser printing/WYSIWYG Desktop publishing
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A Discussion Question
With such an enormous early advantage in
technology, why did Xerox not become the
dominant player in personal computing?
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Common Organizational Decision-Making Errors
• Strategic Inertia
• How many firms on the original Fortune 500 list are
still on that list today?
• Sioled Thinking
• Merketing vs. dales in a down economy
• Perverse incentives
• P&L purely at the divisional level
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A General Decision Making Framework
Define the
Problem
Decision
Criterion
Data Needs
Collect the
Data
Analyze
the Data
“Context
Analysis”
Implement
Decision
Assess the
Outcome
Modify Decision
if necessary
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Getting to a Decision
Opinions
Data
Judgment
History
Experience
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Decision-making Takeaways
Implications of organizational decision-making:
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One of the top impediments to effective organizational decisionmaking is failing to agree on the goal for the decision.
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Insisting on holistic organizational decision-making can maximize
each units contribution to the goals of the organization
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Few decisions are perfect the first time; revisit the outcomes and
be careful about their fit with your organizational culture
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