Tag: Management

Role of decision making in Management

Role of decision making in Management

In the beginning of the NYT essay https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/21/us/politics/gorsuch-congress-trump-tariffs.html we find the following:
“Yes, legislating can be hard and take time,” wrote Justice Gorsuch, a Trump appointee who is part of the court’s conservative majority. “And yes, it can be tempting to bypass Congress when some pressing problem arises. But the deliberative nature of the legislative process was the whole point of its design. Through that process, the nation can tap the combined wisdom of the people’s elected representatives, not just that of one faction or man.”

These are wise and timely words, also implying the failure of the current Congress and its willingness to sit on the sidelines, abrogating all its power and authority to an Executive intent on enlarging his power, laws and Constitution be damned!

There are obvious failures and pitfalls in our current political process. Every citizen in this great Democracy must reflect upon it and act as required! “A republic, if you can keep it” is a famous, cautionary quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin in 1787, emphasizing that maintaining a free, representative government requires active civic responsibility, not just its establishment!

“All politics is local” is a famous maxim coined by former U.S. Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill. Generally it is used to handle political issues by chasing its roots to the local population. We could also chase down the current plotical quagmire or failure in our governing process at the national level and its similairity to what is generally known as “management problem”?

Above words of Justice Gorsuch have profound implications in any management process as well. After all any management effort requires a relentless chain of “Plan / Organize / Coordinate / Control (verify against plan)”. In every step, decision making is required. Such decision making would be objective and free of personal bias (un-attached) when input from all sides and from everyone involved is included. Not every decision can be left to the Chief Executive. Everyone at every level has to make their decisions and stand up to defend all such decisions. It can be tempting to bypass established roles and processes when some pressing problem arises. It is such systemic failure in decision making at various levels and functions that is the root cause of what we commonly identify as “Management Failure”?

Three levels of System Thinking

In a recent blog post: http://blog.readytomanage.com/how-is-critical-thinking-different-from-analytical-or-lateral-thinking/  three kinds of “thinking” are described – Analytical, Lateral and Critical thinking. Following is our take on this subject:

In our view, every activity and/or solution is an INPUT/TRANSFORMATION/OUTPUT system.

TRANSFORMATION represents the Phenomena pertinent to the activity. Understanding the Transformation implicitly, explicitly or through inference/intuition is the “SCIENCE”. Application of the Transformation to obtain the desired change of the inputs to outputs is the “ENGINEERING” behind the activity or solution. Discerning the Output between the “What?” and “Why?” is the strategic thinking. Ensuring that the desired outputs are achieved by orderly integration – with respect to time, cost, resources and their efficient deployment – of the inputs to effect the transformation is the “Operational” aspect of the activity. Strategy and Operations are the two sides of anything we call as “MANAGEMENT”.

In this Systems thinking there are three levels, which relate to the three aspects described in in the blog post mentioned above

AWARENESS: analytical thinking mainly aims to review the data/information we are presented with (for relevance, patterns, trends etc.) — the ability to clarify the information on-hand and their assignment into the various aspects of the “System” as defined above. It also helps to identify the missing data or gaps and the questions to ask and in what order?

ANALYSIS: Lateral thinking aims to put data/information into a new or different context (in order to generate alternative answers or solutions) — answer the questions raised using the tools of Science, Engineering and Management in an interdisciplinary manner. Today such lateral thinking is part of higher education, but limited to the three disciplines, but mostly as impermeable silos!

SYNTHESIS: Critical thinking aims to make an overall or holistic judgment about the data/information which is as free from false premises or bias as much as possible — ability to answer the question ” 2 + 2 = ?” with an answer, “Why is this question raised in the first place” ? Then find answers which might lead to “2+2 = 3, 4, 5 or Fruit Salad”. In the last case it will be the sum of two fruits (Apple and Orange) with two other fruits (Peach and Banana) together with some ice cream on the side making the whole the Fruit Salad! Hence CRITICAL THINKING can be thought of as third level of SYSTEM THINKING, where the whole is seen as larger (or smaller, if that is the output of the “System”) than the mere sum of the parts. It is an ability to see the picture or pattern, rather than the mere emphasis on the pixels! For more details on System Thinking and the three levels: https://stimsinstitute.com/20151207books/