Tuesday, 30 August 2016
Task 5-Contemporary Technology Responses - Personal Decision Making tools
Task 5-Contemporary Technology Responses - Personal Decision Making tools
I read the 2 articles about rational decision making and overconfidence with rational decision making includes identifying the problem, good research, creating solutions, making the decision. Overconfidence can be defined as overestimating our capabilities in other we think we can do more than what we are capable of. The 2 most interesting things I learnt about overconfidence were:
1) People overestimated their abilities.
2) The confirmation bias.
I did not realize that overestimating ones own ability actually affected their decision making process. An interesting point that I took away from the readings was that physiologically if you are not aware of the problem of overconfidence you can not rectify it in decision making. Also that overcome is not entirely a negative issue. I use sport as an example of this if you are not confident of your ability it will affect your performance. Having awareness of overconfidence means that managers can insure that do not allow themselves to be overconfident when making decisions within the workplace
When people make decisions you look for confirmation to confirm you have made the right decision.
Looking at one perspective is limiting. To help remedy a confirmation bias managers should consider that they might be wrong, and also get other peoples ideas as to what counter arguments might exist.
In my experience in which I have previously been overconfident some of my decisions been less than fruitful as I did this intuitively rather than knowing about MBA decision making processes I have learnt during my studies. As a consequence I now seek other people opinions and also have a more consultative approach. Also in a workplace environment I would put in place policies that would be more consultative to avoids overconfidence. Also I believe ego plays a part in overconfidence and I have worked in previous jobs where workmates had huge egos which led to overconfidence, These people usually were not the better performing workers So I would ensure that I would be mindful of egotistical behaviour.
One important aspect of decision making is understanding limits of our own knowledge. In a global world where managers are dealing with global workforces, global decisions and making decisions that affect diverse cultures I would argue that it is extremely important that managers understand that their limitations and knowledge.
Links for further research:
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/main/newMN_TED.htm
http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/6162-decision-making.html
http://www.minddecider.com/Articles.Decision-making_software_review.htm
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hi Graeme,
ReplyDeleteGreat blog on overconfidence and decision making. Your structure frames your discussion well outlining that as a result of two articles, you have identified two key interesting points and can apply these learning to practical changes in your own practice. It would have been great to see some reference to the two articles you were referring to seeing as you explicitly state this at the beginning.
I think the use of colour to highlight key words or concepts was smart and makes it easy for the reader to set these concepts apart from the rest of the text. The inclusion of headings or moving interesting point one and two to be above the paragraph that discusses them, would further enhance the ease of readability of the blog. There appear to be large gaps between your links for further research and I'm wondering if perhaps something is missing or whether there is room to bring the formatting of those links closer together.
I thought the link on the sentence of "having an awareness of overconfidence" was smart and a great interactive feature, however when I clicked on this link it took me to a blank proquest search page, so I was unable to access whichever resource you were anticipating readers having access to. I did like that the link took me to an external page, enabling me to flick back to your blog simultaneously.
Thanks for sharing your learning and experiences through this blog.
Graeme you have articulated the articles well and captured the essence of overconfidence working within the realms of your capabilities. The articles have also reminded me that we are in an era of continuous development of theory and practice whereby as managers of people it is imperative that we approach any decision making process with an appreciation of the situation albeit one presenting familiarity. You have clearly identified that as leaders/managers of people there has to be an opportunity to develop a systems approach but interacting in a way does not emit an air of overconfidence which may be perceived as arrogance. Great blog and finishing off with the a reminder that we as mangers we understand that we have limitations was timely.
ReplyDelete