models of decision making
read to prepare yourselves for session 18
- Choo, C. W. (2006). The knowing organization: How organizations use information to construct meaning, create knowledge, and make decisions. New York: Oxford University Press. Chapter 5, "The management of uncertainty: organizations as decision-making systems." 155-206.
- Pfeffer, J., & Salancik, G. R. (June 01, 1974). Organizational Decision Making as a Political Process: The Case of a University Budget. Administrative Science Quarterly, 19, 2, 135-151.
things we'll talk about
- plan to discuss Choo's model of organizational decision making [bounded rationality, process, political, anarchic]
- plan to discuss the risks of making decisions as a group (groupthink)
- plan to share personal experiences with decision making in organizations
- how do different organizations deal with shifting priorities when making decisions?
We also want to use these examples from last session one more time ...
so read the linked items to prepare yourselves
Strange Defeat
Read from page 25 to page 36, up to the sentence that says
"our leaders, or those who acted for them, were incapable of thinking in terms of a new war.
In other words, the German triumph was, essentially, a triumph of intellect --
and that is what makes it so peculiarly serious"
You may read further, but reflect on that last statement.
The book focuses on the causes of the French defeat in the Battle of France in 1940 ... The main thesis of the book is that the French leadership failed to recognize that, since World War I, "the whole rhythm of modern warfare had changed its tempo."
There are only three chapters:
Presentation of the Witness, being a short personal history of a life devoted to historical study and interrupted by World War I;
One of the Vanquished Gives Evidence, a factual account of his experience in the battle of France; and
A Frenchman Examines His Conscience, a biting analysis of the thinking and actions of the generation between the wars.
Bloch reports a harsh and forthright view of the cause of the defeat as he and fellow officers saw it at the time (p. 20 of the printed French edition, p. 45 of the manuscript, written between July and September 1940): "... whatever the deep-seated cause of the disaster may have been, the immediate occasion was the utter incompetence of the High Command."
from the Wikipedia article
Strange Victory
Read pages 448-464, reflecting in particular on several thoughts.
On page 449 - "France was handicapped by having been the victor in the Great War."
On page 460 - "the essential thread in the story of Germany's victory over France
hangs of the imaginativeness of German war planning
and the corresponding lack of imaginativeness on the Allied side."
The author examines the book Strange Defeat by the French historian Marc Bloch and "argues that Germany's success is even more of a puzzle than Bloch could have imagined, for we now know that its armed forces were measurably inferior to those of France and its allies, even in tanks, and its top military leaders all considered an attack on France to be a long-odds gamble."
from the WorldCat listing
Into the Storm: A Study in Command
This is an account of what was an overwhelming victory, from the perspective of one of the key actors.
Read from "Organization" on page 140 to "Principles" on page 151 to get a sense of how Fred Franks' organization was structured.
Then read from "Rendezvous with MG Griffiths somewhere in Iraq about 0830" on pages 297 to 299 to get a sense of how difficult it was for LTG Franks to find out what was going on.
Continue that theme with the sections starting with the star on page 500 and continuing to page 515. It was very difficult, even with all the planning and information tools, for LTG Franks to "see" the situation.
Finally, read pages 566 to 569 from "Conversation with the CINC" to "enemy forces" to get a sense of how higher echelons of command had a seemingly different sense of the situation. Who was right?
