by Peter A. Arthur-Smith, Leadership Solutions, Inc.®

‘Is effective decision-making an art or a science?’ 

      Scores of learned people out there are convinced decision-making is a science. Many business school professors have devoted their lives toward making it into a science. Economists, since the subject-name came into existence, have lathered us all into believing that every business or economic decision can be quantified. Interestingly enough the discipline of economics has come under sufficient scrutiny of late that we now have a deviation called behavioral economics: because universities like Harvard and MIT came to appreciate that data and numbers couldn’t provide all the answers. These two institutions were the first to award PhDs in the new discipline.

Did you read the article, “Ask a Sociologist to fix the Economy,” in a recent March edition of New York Sunday Times, business section? In Neil Irwin’s ‘Economic View,’ he pointed out: “Economists hold sway in policy-making circles, but they don’t have all the answers.” Economists have been clever enough to hold sway because they spend their lives trying to find simple measures or formulas for us to decide our issues. Being the human dupes that we are, including this writer, we easily fall for it because we like things being made easy for us; even if they’re not particularly true.

So coming back to Bill Bellichick, our hapless Patriots’ football team coach;  he has to make some key decisions over the next year, if he’s going to guide his franchise to another Superbowl win in 2018. He’s probably just returning from his end of football season vacation by now, hence his next important decision is pending.

Does he get out all his books on decision analysis, decision-science, quantitative analysis, or even consult with IBM’s Watson? Does he tap into the growing number of decision-quants that many sports-teams now have on their payroll?

Don’t get this writer wrong: it certainly makes good sense to take a more measured approach toward decision-making, rather than our traditional haphazard approach. Bringing home another Superbowl is a big deal. Fans demand it, team members’ families expect it, and the economic and prestige gains to the owners are enormous.

However, there’s a very good bet that Bellichick has previously orchestrated success through a combination of sound rational thinking and good intuitive experience. This is why he has a reputation of brushing off sports reporters because they are too obsessed with numbers, easy rational views and banal questions. He is likely in lock-step with Neil Irwin, who wrote: ‘They say: When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.’ In the same vein, Bellichick could be nudged by sports-writers and economists to believe that, if he had enough franchise money he could buy the perfect team of players. He’s wise enough, nevertheless, to know it doesn’t work like that, since there are many things that go into a winning team which money cannot buy.

Assuming he’s a coach who uses a good combination of rational and intuitive judgment to make the right calls, it would be great to introduce him to option solving as an able assist with his decision clarity. Due to media constraints, we

can only show a skeleton form of his potential option solving “picto-gram.” Option solving takes advantage of our fabulous intuitive powers – some experts reckon they’re 275,000 times more powerful than our rational capacity – which work much better to with pictures than words.

Our rational mind gobbles up words, although it is enormously challenged by pictures; whereas our intuitive mind is in seventh-heaven with pictures. That’s why you need your rational mind to convert words into pictures. But it’s only with certain types of stories that our imagination is fired-up into pictures…get it? Dull business and economic reports don’t inspire pictures; except for economists and finance people, who then often convert them into formulas which are another form of picture anyway.

Only when you are able to picture your decision-issues in your mind are you able to make your most confident decisions. And so with our given “pictogram” above:

» Q= Bellichick’s rational question – “What is the Patriot Football team’s required optimal change to increase its chances of repeating, playing-winning the Superbowl trophy in 2018: considering 1) it’s tough to win successive Superbowls, 2) competitors become smarter-better, 3) re-raising player-staff sights once more is tough, and 4) an opportunity to impress the sport’s press for eternity?”

» B/E= “Yin and Yang” bookends that offer extreme options, which are unlikely to be chosen because they are so unrealistic: such as – to your left – “Same approach as for 2017” and to your right “Rebuild team from scratch.” Such unrealistic “bookends” force our intuitive minds to really focus on our most realistic options, since one’s intuitive mind needs immense help to keep it on track. It’s too easily distracted toward other interesting things circling around us.

» A thru F= These are potential options that he might realistically consider, where:

A= Upgrade coaching staff;   B= Upgrade offensive team; C= Upgrade defensive team;

D= Introduce fresh skill plays; E= Introduce fresh success values into the Patriots’ team culture;

F= Upgrade both offensive and defensive teams 

Once Bellichick has created his “pictogram,” he is encouraged to set it aside overnight – or for a few hours – to allow it to gestate through his intuitive filter. When he returns to this pictogram, his intuitive muscle will guide him toward his best option in the circumstances. Assuming he posed the right question at the outset, with its clarifying considerations, he should not question his intuitive option in any way and just go with it. If he were to second-guess himself, the chances are he would be allowing his rational mind to take over and, according to Dr. Richard Sperry, a past well-known neuro-scientist, our rational mind “cannot tell truth from fiction.” What would be your choice in the circumstances?

Bellichick is the best one to make the call, since no-one else has his perspective, experience and level of absolute responsibility – so give up on trying to formally second-guess him, even though we gave you that option above. The only thing you could possibly question; is the phrasing or substance of his initial rational question. From there on it’s his call, since he has to live with the consequences. This is another reason he gives the press short-shrift.

So, as you can see, option solving goes a long way toward decision-clarity, as it draws upon our rational and intuitive capacities. Our intuitive power actually takes our decisions, while our rational mind only poses the questions. According to Dr. Sperry, your rational mind cannot discern colors within a picture: only your intuition can do that.

Hence, going back to our initial question, ‘Is effective decision-making an art or a science?’  It is clearly both and don’t allow any learned person, professor or economist convince you otherwise. Ever since the Greek philosophers influenced our culture and decision-making approach, we have allowed ourselves to be persuaded by rational thinking. It’s time in our highly dynamic age for us to dovetail it with a good degree on intuitive thinking. This happens anyway, without being acknowledged by our rational thinkers. However, intuitive thinking is maximized with pictures or metaphors, something that rational thinkers struggle with…hence the art. No doubt the 21^st-century will see the struggle between the two-forms of thought played out.

    Just think about your current most pressing dilemma and apply it to option solving today. Within an hour, a few hours, or maybe by the following morning, you will have arrived at an optimum decision, through a “pictogram”…just as Bill Bellichick will. Go to it, right now.

   You can also learn more about option solving at www.optionsolving.com

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