On Decision Making

Here I go after a year!

It may be argued that leadership at any level includes a fair amount of decision-making and that all the data required making an informed choice may not be available or human beings are subject to “bounded rationality” (Simon, Herbert) due to the limitations in the information they can process and the cost associated with them.
What comes to mind is the paradox that anyone who makes a decision grapples with consciously or subconsciously. Henry Mintzberg summed it beautifully, “Take your pick, in some sense, between "paralysis by analysis" and "extinction by instinct"! Any decision has with in an inherent risk, as the outcome may not be what is intended and in some instances an outcome that was not anticipated or thought to be probable may present itself a “risk”.
Ashwat Damodran quotes Knight (1921) who defined “only quantifiable uncertainty to be risk” so it may be seen as different from uncertainty. Having seen that decision-making is something we do routinely though the nature of decisions can range from simple to complex, the inherent risk will also vary in magnitude and impact. Additionally as decision-making is one thing that cannot be automated though experts in “artificial intelligence” (an oxymoron) may argue otherwise, it is relevant to the study of human behavior.
So what drives decision making … Watch this space…