For Lesson 15, prepare an essay of approximately 1,000 words in which you address Thought Question 1. Respond to all parts of the question. Draw on and make appropriate references to relevant portions of the reading assignment throughout.
Expected Outcome
In completing this lesson and preparing the required document, you will have means at your disposal for improving in making decisions and have a reasonably clear sense of what should have the highest priority as you attempt to improve.
In “Improving Decision Making,” Chapter 12 of Judgment in Managerial Decision Making, Bazerman and Moore discuss seven general strategies for helping people to become better decision makers: (1) using decision-analysis tools, especially linear models; (2) acquiring expertise in the process of making decisions; (3) debiasing judgment (presumably by making people more aware of the ways in which their judgments are subject to error); (4) reasoning analogically; (5) taking an outsider’s view; (6) understanding biases in others, and (7) taking steps to “nudge” better and more ethically appropriate decisions (see pp. 208-228). It is clear from Bazerman and Moore’s treatment of each strategy that none alone is likely to be sufficient for improving decision making in any substantial way. It is also clear that a combination of all seven will not lead to uniformly good decisions. The combination, however, should contribute to a higher frequency of good decisions in the long run than other approaches that decision makers frequently adopt. Recognizing that those interested in improving their decision making probably could not work with all seven strategies at the same time, if you were to suggest a chronological order in which it would be best to take up development of skill in the use of these strategies as part of, say, a training program or workshop, what would the order be? Why? More specifically, on what grounds are you assuming that the recommended order would yield better results than any other order?
