essences of decision making

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cell +49.(0)160.79 38 807 | email: [email protected] | web: www.a-zeuch.de | integral.blog: www.psychophysik.com/integral-blog | podcast: www.dasabenteuerleben.de DR. ANDREAS ZEUCH Intuition, „Nichtwissen“ and Decision-Making The Essences of Decision-Making

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A short and compact white paper on the essences of decision-making: How can you use professional intuition and "Nichtwissen" (read the paper to learn more about this term...) for an effective culture of decision-making?

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Page 1: Essences Of Decision Making

cell +49.(0)160.79 38 807 | email: [email protected] | web: www.a-zeuch.de | integral.blog: www.psychophysik.com/integral-blog | podcast: www.dasabenteuerleben.de

DR. ANDREAS ZEUCH

Intuition, „Nichtwissen“ and Decision-Making

The Essences of Decision-Making

Page 2: Essences Of Decision Making

© ANDREAS ZEUCH 2009

The Essences of Decision-Making

‣You can not not decide: Every single perception,

thinking and acting is a decision.

‣ To look in one direction means to exclude other visual data.

‣ To think one thought means to exclude another one.

‣ To act in one way means to exclude another action.

‣ You can dissolve this exclusion only in time: One by one.

Page 3: Essences Of Decision Making

© ANDREAS ZEUCH 2009

The Nature of Decisions

‣Every decision is made by rationality and intuition.

‣There is no pure rationality nor intuition. You can

imagine these opposite poles as a throttle: It‘s

possible to scroll your style of decision-making in

either one or the other direction. But you will never

reach the final points.

Rationality

Intuition

Page 4: Essences Of Decision Making

© ANDREAS ZEUCH 2009

Incomplete Information: Basics

‣Most decisions have to be made on the basis of

incomplete information.

‣Especially in complex systems there is no such thing

like complete information.

‣Paradoxically, the lack of information regarding to the

relevant data you would like to obtain will grow in

knowledge-society.

Page 5: Essences Of Decision Making

© ANDREAS ZEUCH 2009

Incomplete Information: Less is more

‣The quality of decision-making is unproportional to the

amount of gathered information

‣The ratio of amount of gathered information and

quality of decision-making is a bell-shaped curve: Up

to a certain point it will increase then decrease.

+-

+

Amount of Informationen

Quality

of

Decis

ion

Page 6: Essences Of Decision Making

© ANDREAS ZEUCH 2009

Consequences I: Professional Intuition

‣ Therefore and because of the following aspects it‘s no

luxury but necessity to develop the professional intuition of

your employees.

‣ Intuition is a basic function of every human being. It‘s

rooted in implicit knowledge, subliminal perception and

information processing and mirror neurons.

‣But: Intuition is ressource and risk!

‣ Experience and perception can lead to errors (e.g. Anchor-Heuristic)

‣ Judgements can be distorted by the „Halo- and Devil-Effect“:

Deducing an overall assessment from one single attribute.

‣ For this reasons it‘s important to learn to distinct between functional

and dysfunctional intuition

Page 7: Essences Of Decision Making

© ANDREAS ZEUCH 2009

The Meaning of the Term „Nichtwissen“

Nichtwissen is the German term for "absence of

knowledge", including conscious and unconscious

aspects of not-knowing. In contrary to ignorance it does

not automatically feature not wanting to know, which

could be seen as a special subtype of "Nichtwissen".

Errors and misconceptions are other contributing

subtypes of "Nichtwissen".

Page 8: Essences Of Decision Making

© ANDREAS ZEUCH 2009

Consequences II: Constructive Culture of Nichtwissen

‣ It‘s important to develop a constructive culture of

„Nichtwissen“

‣Because of the growing daily lack of information.

‣Because every knowledge produces new Nichtwissen.

Remember your time at the university: After having written

your thesis you know, what you‘re not knowing (Important

distinction: conscious and unconscious Nichtwissen!)

Page 9: Essences Of Decision Making

© ANDREAS ZEUCH 2009

Consequences II: Constructive Culture of Nichtwissen

‣Nichtwissen is not a problem only. It‘s a deep ressource for creativity and innovation, too.

‣ Become „Open Experts“: Work hard on your expertise and respect it but stay flexible to look with beginner‘s eyes on your questions, problems and challenges.

‣ Respect the question. Every good answer is rooted in a better question!

‣ Anchor intelligent methods of communication like Dialogue-Rounds, Open Space as regular and permanent learning cycles in your organization.

‣ Learn from your errors. There is no error-free organization (even if Fredmund Malik demands it...). Errors will happen. They‘re not intended. Otherwise it would be sabotage.

Page 10: Essences Of Decision Making

© ANDREAS ZEUCH 2009

Consequences III: The organizational model

‣Every hierarchical, central command-and-control

Organization will kill the intuition of its employees. There is

no space for a constructive culture of Nichtwissen.

‣ To create an ideal context for the described necessary

decision-making culture the Beyond-Budgeting model is a

great choice.

‣And on the other side: Beyond-Budgeting claims intuitive

employees and leaders, and a constructive culture of

Nichtwissen.

Page 11: Essences Of Decision Making

© ANDREAS ZEUCH 2009

Learn more:

http://www.a-zeuch.de/index.php?l=en