Archive for the ‘Decision Making’ Category
Desperately seeking reason(s): Franklin’s Gambit in organisational decision-making
In his wonderful book on obliquity, John Kay tells of a famous letter in which Benjamin Franklin describes a decision-making method. Here is a description of Franklin’s method, excerpted from his letter:
…my Way is, to divide half a Sheet of Paper by a Line into two Columns, writing over the one Pro, and over the other Con. Then during three or four Days Consideration I put down under the different Heads short Hints of the different Motives that at different Times occur to me for or against the Measure. When I have thus got them all together in one View, I endeavour to estimate their respective Weights; and where I find two, one on each side, that seem equal, I strike them both out: If I find a Reason pro equal to some two Reasons con, I strike out the three. If I judge some two Reasons con equal to some three Reasons pro, I strike out the five; and thus proceeding I find at length where the Ballance lies; and if after a Day or two of farther Consideration nothing new that is of Importance occurs on either side, I come to a Determination accordingly.
And tho’ the Weight of Reasons cannot be taken with the Precision of Algebraic Quantities, yet when each is thus considered separately and comparatively, and the whole lies before me, I think I can judge better, and am less likely to take a rash Step; and in fact I have found great Advantage from this kind of Equation, in what may be called Moral or Prudential Algebra.
Modern decision making techniques often claim to do better than Franklin because they use quantitative measures to rate decision options However, as I have pointed out in this post, measures are often misleading. There are those who claim that this can be fixed by “doing it correctly,” but this is a simplistic view for reasons I have discussed at length in this post. So, despite all the so-called “advances” in decision making, it is still pretty much as Franklin wrote: “the Weight of Reasons cannot be taken with the Precision of Algebraic Quantities” .
With that for background, I can now get to the main point of this post. The reader may have wondered about my use of the word gambit rather than technique (or any of its synonyms) in the title of this post. A quick look at this online dictionary tells us that the two words are very different:
Technique (noun): the body of specialized procedures and methods used in any specific field, especially in an area of applied science.
Gambit (noun): a manoeuvre by which one seeks to gain advantage.
Indeed, as Kay mentions in his book, Franklin’s method is often used to justify decisions that are already made – he calls this Franklin’s Gambit.
Think back to some of the recent decisions you have made: did you make the decision first and then find reasons for it or did you weigh up the pros and cons of each option before reaching your decision? If I’m honest, I would have to admit that I have often done the former. This is understandable, even defensible. When we make a decision, we have to make several assumptions regarding the future and how it will unfold. Since this is based on (some times educated) guesswork, it is only natural that we will show a preference for a choice that we are comfortable with. Once we have settled on an option, we seek reasons that would enable us to justify our decision to to others; we would not want them to think we have made a decision based on gut-feel or personal preferences.
This not necessarily bad thing. When decisions cannot be rated meaningfully, any choice that is justifiable is a reasonable one….providing one can convince others affected that it is so. What one should guard against is the mindless use of data and so-called rational methods to back decisions that have no buy in.
Finally, as we all know well from experience, it is never a problem to convince ourself of the rightness of our decision. In fact, Mr. Franklin, despite his pronouncements on Moral Algebra understood this. For, as he once wrote:
…so convenient a thing is it to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one had a mind to do.
Indeed, “reasonable” creatures that we are, we will desperately seek reasons for the things we wish to do. The difficulty, as always, lies in convincing other reasonable creatures of our reasonableness.
The DRS controversy and the undue influence of technology on decision-making
The Decision Review System (DRS) is a technology that is used to reduce umpire errors in cricket. It consists of the following components:
- High-speed visualisation to track the trajectory of a ball as it goes past or is hit by a batsman
- Infra-red and sound-based devices to detect whether or not the bat has actually made contact with the ball.
There were some misgivings about the technology when it was first introduced a few years ago, but the general feeling was that it would be beneficial (see this article by Rob Steen, for example). However, because of concerns raised about the reliability of the technology, the International Cricket Council did not make the use of DRS mandatory.
In the recent Ashes series between England and Australia, there have been some questionable decisions that involved DRS. In one case, a human umpire’s decision was upheld even though DRS evidence did not support it and in another an umpire’s decision was upheld when DRS evidence only partially supported it, See the sidebar in this news item for a summary of these decisions.
Now, as Dan Hodges, points out in an astute post, DRS does not make decisions – it only presents a human decision-maker (the third umpire) with more, and allegedly better, data than is available to another human decision-maker (the on-field umpire). This is a point that is often ignored when decision support systems are used in any kind of decision-making, not just in sports: data does not make decisions, people do. Moreover, they often reach these decisions based on factors that cannot be represented as data.
This is as it should be: technology can at best provide us with more and/or better data but, in situations that really matter, we would not want it making decisions on our behalf. Would we be comfortable with machine diagnoses of our X rays or CT scans?
Taking a broader view, it is undeniable that technology has influenced the decisions we make: from the GPS that directs us when we drive, to Facebook, Linkedin and other social media platforms that make suggestions regarding who we might want to “friend” or who “connect with.” In his book, To Save Everything, Click Here, Evgeny Morozov argues that this is not a positive development. He takes aim at what he calls technological solutionism, the tendency to view all problems as being amenable to technology-based solutions, ignoring other aspects such as social, human and ethical concerns.
Morozov’s interest is largely in the social and political sphere so many of his examples are drawn from social networking and search engine technologies. His concerns relate to the unintended consequences of these pervasive technologies- for example, the loss of privacy that is the consequence of using social media or the subtle distortion of human behaviour through the use of techniques like gamification.
The point I’m making is rather more modest: it is that technology-based decision-making tools can present us with more/better/refined data, but they cannot not absolve us of our responsibility for making decisions. This is particularly evident in the case of ambiguous issues. Indeed, this is why decision-making on such matters has ethical, even metaphysical implications.
And so it is that sports needs human umpires, just as organisations need managers who can make decisions that they are willing to stand by, especially when situations are ambiguous and data is open to interpretation.
Wickedness, undecidability and the metaphysics of decision-making in organisations
Wickedness
A central myth about decision making in organisations is that it is (or ought to be) a rational and objective process. Although this myth persists, there is a growing realisation that many organisational issues are wicked – i.e. they are hard to define, let alone solve. The difficulty in defining such problems arises from the fact that they are multifaceted, which in turn gives rise to a diversity of viewpoints about them. So it is that people involved in a wicked decision problem will have different opinions on what the problem is and how it should be tackled. This makes it impossible to decide on wicked issues on logical grounds alone , and hence the ineffectiveness of rational decision making processes for such problems.
Often times the wickedness of a problem is a consequence of the way in which it is framed. I’ll have more to say about frames later in this post, for now I’ll just note that the term frame refers to the perceived assumptions and context regarding a problem, and I say perceived because these are often matters of opinion and belief . For example, depending on ones background and beliefs, the issue of crime may be seen as a law and order problem (lack of policing) or an economic one (poverty or lack of opportunity).
Although organisational issues are not as complex and multifaceted as social ones such as crime, most managers would have experienced situations in which they simply did not know what to do because the problem was not decidable based on their preconceptions regarding the facts and assumptions surrounding the problem, and the organisational situation in which it lives (the context).
Undecidability
My use of the word decidable in the previous sentence may raise some eyebrows because the term has a very precise meaning in mathematics. The notion of undecidability (or decidability) comes from the work of Kurt Goedel who proved that any system based on a set of axioms (premises) will necessarily contain statements that can neither be proven nor disproven within that system.
Now an axiomatic system is nothing but a framework consisting of a set of premises plus some logical rules using which one can derive statements that are true within the system (these true statements are theorems). One can thus make an analogy between axiomatic systems in mathematics and (for the want of a better term) decision systems in organisations: decisions in organisations are outcomes of a set of premises plus some rules (not necessarily logical ones!) using which one can make arguments supporting one or the other viewpoint. In terms of the analogy, it is clear that wicked problems in organisations are akin to undecidable problems in mathematics in that they are not solvable within the frame in which they are posed.
The interesting thing about undecidable problems in mathematics is that although statements may be undecidable within a particular system of axioms, they can sometimes be rendered be decidable within another, broader system. Put simply, a proposition that is undecidable may be rendered decidable by modifying or expanding the underlying premises or assumptions. In even simpler terms, the decidability of a statement depends on one’s frame or viewpoint. In terms of the analogy this amounts to saying that wickedness (or the lack of it) depends on how the problem is framed.
Wicked (or undecidable) decision problems can sometimes be managed (or rendered decidable) by an appropriate choice of frame.
The metaphysics of organisational decision-making
I should hasten to add that the foregoing cannot be used as a justification for making a decision based on a convenient frame that is aligned to one’s own interests and opinions. Indeed, an appropriate choice of frame is one that takes into account the entire spectrum of interests and opinions relating to the decision problem. So much so that the choice of a correct frame is a metaphysical issue because it forces the decision-maker(s) to choose how they view themselves in social and ethical terms – in short, as socially responsible human beings!
I realise this statement may sound over the top to many readers so I’ll try to argue for its plausibility, if not its truth, by drawing on a brilliant paper entitled, Ethics and Second-Order Cybernetics, by the eloquent cybernetician and polymath, Heinz von Foerster.
Noting that just about everything about metaphysics is controversial, von Foerster tells us:
When I invoke Metaphysics, I do not seek agreement with anybody else about her nature. This is because I want to say precisely what it is when we become metaphysicians, whether or not we call ourselves metaphysicians. I say we become metaphysicians whenever we decide upon in principle undecidable questions.
Why does our deciding on undecidable questions make us metaphysicians?
The answer lies in the difference between decidable and undecidable questions. The former are unambiguously decided by the framework within which they are posed whereas the latter are not. Therefore we are forced to make a choice (of framework and consequent decision) based on our interests and opinions. The point is, our interests and opinions tell us something about who we are, so the choices we make when deciding on undecidable questions define our individual human qualities.
As von Foerster states:
Decidable questions are already decided by the framework in which they are asked, and by the rules of how to connect what we call “the question” with what we may take for an “answer.” In some cases it may go fast, in others it may take a long, long time, but ultimately we will arrive, after a sequence of compelling logical steps, at an irrefutable answer: a definite Yes, or a definite No. But we are under no compulsion, not even under that of logic, when we decide upon in principle undecidable questions. There is no external necessity that forces us to answer such questions one way or another. We are free! The complement to necessity is not chance, it is choice! We can choose who we wish to become when we decide on in principle undecidable questions.
The claim that we choose who we wish to become becomes evident when one notes that organisational decisions often put decision makers into situations in which they have to make ethical choices. For example, cost cutting measures may lead to job losses, changes in work policies may affect employee well being, wrong choices of technologies may pollute the environment and so on. The point is that most undecidable (or wicked!) problems in organisational life have ethical dimensions, and we define ourselves as human beings when we make decisions regarding them.
No wonder then that we have so many devices by which people try to avoid the making decisions and the consequent responsibility that comes with it. As von Foerster states:
With much ingenuity and imagination, mechanisms were contrived by which one could bypass this awesome burden. With hierarchies, entire institutions have been built where it is impossible to localize responsibility. Everyone in such a system can say: “I was told to do X.”
On the political stage we hear more and more the phrase of Pontius Pilate: “I have no choice but X.” In other words “Don’t make me responsible for X, blame others.” This phrase apparently replaces: “Among the many choices I had, I decided on X.
Then, aiming squarely at rationality and objectivity, he writes:
I mentioned objectivity before and I mention it here again as another popular device of avoiding responsibility. Objectivity requires that the properties of the observer shall not enter the description of his observations. With the essence of observing, namely the processes of cognition, being removed, the observer is reduced to a copying machine, and the notion of responsibility has been successfully juggled away.
..and I take it as given that none of us wish to be reduced to mere copying machines.
Conclusion
The mechanisms of decision making in organisations encourage decision makers to avoid the burden of responsibility rather than accept it – “Sorry, but it is business” or “I’m just following orders” are common phrases that flag such avoidance. From personal experience, I’m painfully aware of how easy it is sweep ethical issues out of one’s field of vision when dealing with wicked problems…and I now also understand that metaphysics is not a rarefied academic discipline, but one that holds practical lessons for us all – you, me, our peers, and those who sit on the floors below and above us.
Eight to Late 