Hi, the third question I'll address this week was a tough one. Actually in general, I think you guys have really hard questions this week and in some cases I don't have an amazing answer always. But in this case, there's a question that says how can we make sure the right decision is made and it was by Laura gate, sorry. And she says, we talk a lot here about decision-making processes and changes in organizational culture. But how do we know that the new decision changes will work? I understand we are looking forward to apply relevant theories, but how can know in advance that we apply the right theory? We applied theory in a right way. We apply a theory in the right environment. For example, let us say we have to create a strategy to reach a defined goal. How can I make sure strategy would be efficient or at least will work? Tests may not be an option. But what else is supposed to be done? And a variety of you guys responded in interesting ways. Said, it's easy. It depends on the result. You make the decision based on data analysis and logic. Sometimes, to get it right, you have to make any decision. And based on its results, you correct your strategy til you hit the right bullseye, right? So on it goes. So, it's really in the results. You, Julio Mastreli says, you cannot know. At least, you can't know if you define right in the sense you clarify with an example. If the future is unknown, you really just don't know. Any strategy in the decision that deals with it must deal with unknown quantities, and therefore, it's based on assumptions. So, a lot of these views are kind of implying a logic of consequence, because we talked about efficiency and working. So I think that's a clear thing going on in a lot of the responses. It assumes a logic of consequence in many of the cases. Martin Lawrence McDonald brings up a different point. He says, well, if we take a process view, maybe we'll sees things kind of different. He says, from my perspective, where organizations fail, is they underestimate the importance of the process, and they do not promote process. I think that's a good point, that actually decision making is not just a particular act. There's an actual process to it. And perhaps part of understanding the successful application of decisions is not in the consequences per se. But in whether that process was working well or worked according to rules of that decision making. Now, there are different forms of utilities theory out there and it's fun to think about it in terms of logical consequence. There are some that a few of utilities as act utilitarian as in where you choose an action that's the optimal, regardless you weigh off the cost. The argument is that if I kill ten people it's worth it if I save eleven kind of thing, right? So, that's the kind of act, utilitarian view, but then there's principle based utilitarian views which are that well, if we extended that rule to a universal, we would have something that we don't want as a consequence, right? We don't want revenge killings, we don't want that kind of action, according to a different kind of a logic of consequence, and ethic. That's something interesting, here, about the right decisions. Ethics is a key part In decision making that I haven't fully integrated into the course, but it's interesting to think about in terms of the different procedures we have for making decisions may actually imply unethical decisions in the end. So, that's something for a lot of us to consider. I mean, there are ethical theories about how no wrong act ever justifies a right, right? Or no, yeah, no, I think that's right. That's like ethics, as some people have called it, where no evil deed, even if it creates a good, is justifiable. So, that's like a logic of appropriateness rule almost, in terms of decision making. So, we see them all over the place, and it's not always clear what the right answer is. In terms of logical appropriateness too, we have a different basis of judgement, of decision making I think. Sometimes in a logical appropriateness, the process is ambiguous, we don't know the right matching. We don't know the right identities. And therefore, a lot of the conversation, decision making that we have is really about meaning making. It's about discussing the ambiguity. It's about figuring out where everybody stands, where everybody is positioned. Allowing people to express themselves. It sounds like, I mean a lot of our decisions are very they're about minutia. They're not that important. They're inconsequential. But the process is important. So, even when the consequence doesn't terribly matter, decision making processes could be terribly important for say figuring out where people are when an important decision actually does arise. So, week four will be a lot about that, about garbage can theory, organized anarchy, where things are so dynamic and anarchic that the process of decision making is, we can't predict the outcome. So therefore, the basis upon which we judge decision making is different. We can even embrace the ambiguity and say, this process of continual discussion in trying to figure out the process of decision making is an end in itself. It's not necessarily outcome. And that fits the logic of appropriateness but in kind of an extreme way. Now if I go back to Laura's questions though, how can we know in advance that we apply the right theory? That we apply a theory in the right way, and that we apply a theory in the right environment. I think, through this course, what you're going to find is that as we go through cases, that certain theories apply better to some cases than others. And so for example, the first three weeks of this course, they're going to be all about decision making within kind of mostly administrative units of organizations. And other weeks of the course are going to be about an organizational culture, and about staging or conditions of a culture, or about how to create standard operating procedures by which we would remember things or notice things that we actually did well. Those are different, they're not about a particular decision moment, a key decision moment, and seeing these kind of options or politically wrangling kind of a decision out of it. Like the first three weeks of the course are. In later weeks it'll shift from kind of the moment of a decision to kind of conditions. And under which a decision would be made, the natural kind of system view. And then also later, later in the course we will talk about the environment and how that establishes conditions about decisions. And it may be that each of these theories kind of suggests certain managerial practices. But that they're quite distinct and I think overtime, as we get from case to case where the problems arise in different environments or within deciding units of the firm, that we're going to think that certain theories are more applicable than others. And so I think that's the key thing is, think of them more as tools, than is thinking of them as kind of an if then [LAUGH] situation of where these theories can be best if there's a rule on how to best apply these theories. I think you're going to find it's kind of contingent on the situations and the cases that we actually confront. So hopefully that becomes clear as the course goes on. And I appreciate you asking the question though.
