kmguru
Staff member
The following article was published in Infoworld. Link is at the end. Enjoy
DURING THE VIETNAM WAR, hundreds of thousands marched on Washington. A few years ago, Louis Farrakhan organized the Million Man March. I fantasize about holding National Boycott Stupidity Day and getting the same kind of turnout -- throngs of citizens tired of popular culture's celebration of idiocy and ignorance as greater virtues than logical analysis and knowledgeable discourse.
I don't want to blow this out of proportion. I enjoyed Luke Skywalker's decision to trust The Force as much as anyone. But Luke's decision was trusting his own coordination over that of a computer, not "trusting his instincts" instead of logic to make a decision. Popular culture has it that our brains should defer to our guts, despite conclusive anatomical evidence that guts digest food whereas brains digest information, and the success of the scientific method demonstrating that facts and logic are superior to instinct.
This week we wrap up our series on decision-makers. So far we've shot at lawyers, marks, zealots, and politicians. This week we'll conclude with scientists and card players.
Given science's inarguable success, you might think scientific decision-making is the way to go. There's a lot to be said for it. For example, Occam's razor -- the axiom that among all possible explanations of known facts, you should always prefer the least complicated explanation as the one most likely to be true -- is smart advice. So is the corollary that there's always room for doubt, no matter how carefully you've tested a theory.
But scientists can become as paralyzed as lawyers by the need for more and more data. Although they understand that absolute proof is impossible, they are remarkably adept at envisioning what additional evidence might be gathered to reduce doubt even further.
Good card players avoid this paralysis. Consider bridge, where much of the deck is hidden. Whereas bidding, the dummy, your own hand, and statistical probability all provide evidence of where the hidden cards lie, your information is always limited. But you still have to play the hand.
It's a good metaphor for the manager's job: to make decisions despite imperfect information, while taking into account every card being played (i.e., new information) to adjust tactics accordingly.
The important point is this: Certainty is impossible, but you have to make decisions anyway. And those who figure that uncertainty is the time to listen to their guts are wrong.
Uncertainty demands the use of your brain. When your gastrointestinal tract talks, it just means it's lunchtime.
http://iwsun4.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/01/07/16/010716opsurvival.xml
DURING THE VIETNAM WAR, hundreds of thousands marched on Washington. A few years ago, Louis Farrakhan organized the Million Man March. I fantasize about holding National Boycott Stupidity Day and getting the same kind of turnout -- throngs of citizens tired of popular culture's celebration of idiocy and ignorance as greater virtues than logical analysis and knowledgeable discourse.
I don't want to blow this out of proportion. I enjoyed Luke Skywalker's decision to trust The Force as much as anyone. But Luke's decision was trusting his own coordination over that of a computer, not "trusting his instincts" instead of logic to make a decision. Popular culture has it that our brains should defer to our guts, despite conclusive anatomical evidence that guts digest food whereas brains digest information, and the success of the scientific method demonstrating that facts and logic are superior to instinct.
This week we wrap up our series on decision-makers. So far we've shot at lawyers, marks, zealots, and politicians. This week we'll conclude with scientists and card players.
Given science's inarguable success, you might think scientific decision-making is the way to go. There's a lot to be said for it. For example, Occam's razor -- the axiom that among all possible explanations of known facts, you should always prefer the least complicated explanation as the one most likely to be true -- is smart advice. So is the corollary that there's always room for doubt, no matter how carefully you've tested a theory.
But scientists can become as paralyzed as lawyers by the need for more and more data. Although they understand that absolute proof is impossible, they are remarkably adept at envisioning what additional evidence might be gathered to reduce doubt even further.
Good card players avoid this paralysis. Consider bridge, where much of the deck is hidden. Whereas bidding, the dummy, your own hand, and statistical probability all provide evidence of where the hidden cards lie, your information is always limited. But you still have to play the hand.
It's a good metaphor for the manager's job: to make decisions despite imperfect information, while taking into account every card being played (i.e., new information) to adjust tactics accordingly.
The important point is this: Certainty is impossible, but you have to make decisions anyway. And those who figure that uncertainty is the time to listen to their guts are wrong.
Uncertainty demands the use of your brain. When your gastrointestinal tract talks, it just means it's lunchtime.
http://iwsun4.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/01/07/16/010716opsurvival.xml