Decision making and Problem solving

Strategies
APTER 1-YOUR MIND AT
WORK
There is a vital distinction between brain and mind. Take a computer as an analogy. Your brain is what you see if you open up
the back of the computer – all those chips and circuits – whereas the mind is what appears dynamically on the screen.

The main functions of the mind

ANALYZING-The word ‘analyze’ comes from a Greek verb meaning ‘to loosen’, and it means
separating a whole into its constituent parts. Analyzing, the first function, tends to be highly
developed by western education. It is the mental ability to take things – material and non-material
– to bits, to separate them into their component parts. It is related, but not identical, to logical or
step by step thinking.

SYNTHESISING- is the reverse process of putting things together to form a whole. When
the resultant whole is formed from parts previously thought to be unconnected, when it looks
new and has real value, then synthesizing has become creative.

VALUING-, the third main function in purposive thinking, is self-explanatory. Even in the
strictest schools of science or logic, it is impossible to exclude value. We are all valuing creatures;
our actual values are largely shaped by our cultural experience. Of course, by helping us to escape
out of the cultural box of our particular lives we encounter more universal values: goodness, truth
and beauty.
These functions – analyzing, synthesizing and valuing – can do their work at the unconscious
level I have called the depth mind. Indeed, where complex decisions have to be made, problems
solved or truly creative products involved, the depth mind is a vital dimension in the effective use
of your mind.
CHAPTER 2- THE ART OF EFFECTIVE
DECISION MAKING
In decision making there is a classic five-step approach that you should find extremely helpful.
That does not mean you should follow it blindly in all situations. It is a fairly natural sequence of
thought, however, and so even without the formal framework you would tend to follow this
mental path.
 Define the objective
Do you know what you are trying to achieve? You do need to be clear – or as clear as possible –
about where you want to get to. Otherwise the whole process of decision making is obscured in a
cloud. As the proverb says, if you do not know what port you are heading for, any wind is the
right wind. If you are in doubt about your aim, try writing it down. Leave it for a day or two, if
time allows, and then look at it again. You may be able to see at once how it can be sharpened or

Collect relevant information

focused.

The next skill is concerned with collecting and sifting relevant information. Some of it will be
immediately apparent, but other data may be missing. It is a good principle not to make decisions
in the absence of critically important information that is not immediately to hand, provided that a
planned delay is acceptable.

*Remember the distinction between available

and relevant information.
 Generate feasible options
• For generating feasible options, lets have a look on lobster pot model! You should be able to
move systematically from a host of possibilities – some of them may be the results of imaginative
thinking – to a diminishing set of feasible options, the courses of action that are actually
practicable given the resources available.
 MAKE THE DECISION
• In making the decision your chosen success criteria (the product of the valuing function of the
mind) come into play. It is useful to grade these yardsticks into the criteria that the proposed
course of action MUST, SHOULD and MIGHT meet. You will also need to assess the risks
involved: what are the manifest and the possible latent consequences of the decision in view.

Remember that you can make a decision by:

• listing the advantages and disadvantages;
• examining the consequences of each course;
• testing the proposed course against the yardstick of your aim or
objective;
• weighing the risks against the expected gains.
 Implementing and evaluating the decision
Implementing and evaluating the decision should be seen as part of the overall process. You may
hardly notice the actual point of decision, just as passengers on a ship may be asleep when their
ship crosses the equator line. The ‘cut off’ point, be it conscious or unconscious, is when thinking
ends – your mind is made up – and you move into the action or implementation phase. But you
are still evaluating the decision, and up to the Point of No Return (PNR), you can always turn
back if the early signs dictate.

If you have all the required information, the mind goes through the point of decision effortlessly –
indeed, do you really have to take a decision? Thus it has been said that ‘a decision is the action
an executive must take when he or she has information so incomplete that the answer does not
suggest itself’.
 CHAPTER 3-SHARING DECISIONS WITH
OTHERS

• Thinking is both solitary and social. We need to think for ourselves – and make time to do so.
But we also need to talk with and listen to others, for stimulus and encouragement, fresh
perspectives and new ideas. Conversation at its best is a form of mutual thinking.
• The role of a leader is defined by the three circles of need – task, team and individual – and the
responding set of functions. Communication and decision making are complementary
dimensions. A key issue for all leaders is how far they should share decisions with their team or
colleagues.
• The more you share decisions the higher the quality of the decision is likely to be. Moreover,
the more that people share decisions which directly affect their working life, the more they tend
to be motivated to implement them. Yet the exigency of the situation – shortage of time and the
crisis factor – sometimes restricts the scope for sharing. And you also have to remember that
the more you share a decision the less control you have over the resulting decision’s quality
and direction. So you need judgment here.
• When the decision-making process is over, you still have to take the decision.
• Outside the confines of the making of a particular decision you should always be open to the
ideas, suggestions and information that people offer you. The more you show interest, the more
that people will tell you. Ten per cent of their ideas are lined with gold.
 Chapter 4-Key problem solving strategies
• Problems come in two main forms: problems that are really obstacles that appear across your chosen
path, and systems problems.
The broad approach to both families of problems and to decision making is the same. It can be compared
to building a bridge across a river on three pillars:
• Defining the problem
• Generating feasible options
• Choosing the optimum course/solution

• A key thinking skill for an effective problem-solver is asking the right questions – to oneself initially
but also to others. Questions are the spanners that unlock the problem in the mind, or at least the gates
that bar entry to it. ‘To act is easy,’ said Goethe, ‘to think is hard.
• Systems problems are best approached by regarding them as deviations from an expected norm.
Diagnosis includes identifying and establishing the exact nature of that deviation and what caused it.
The solution – if one is possible – is to remove the cause of the problem. A secondary strategy for a
problem solver where ‘cure’ isn’t possible is to mitigate the effects of the problem on the performance
of the system as a whole.
• People who are good with hammers see every problem as a nail.
Chapter 5- How to generate ideas
• Being creative involves the use of the imagination or original ideas in order to create
something. Creative thinking is that part of it which produces the new ideas.

• ‘It is the function of creative people,’ writes the poet William Ploner, ‘to perceive the relations
between thoughts, or things, or forms of expression that may seem utterly different, and to be
able to combine them into some new forms – the power to connect the seemingly unconnected.’

• Brainstorming is a useful technique, for generating ideas, whether you practice it on your own
or in a team context. The essence of it is to make a temporary wall in the mind between the
analyzing/synthesizing functions on the one side, and the (critical) valuing function on the
other side.
• Ideas rarely arrive in this world fully-formed and giftwrapped. With a little practice you can
learn to build on ideas, to take the germs of success in someone else’s half baked idea and to
develop it towards fruition. By the same warrant, allow others to build on your ideas for the
common good. Only God owns the intellectual property rights to truth.
 CHAPTER 6-Thinking outside the box
• One of the most valuable principles for improving your creative approach to work and life is to
learn to think outside the box. Essentially that means be willing to challenge the assumptions –
often unconscious – that put an invisible cage around the bird of thought.

• There is a danger in formalizing any aspect of the creative process – it is a delicate balance
between following a conscious process or framework and being guided by the mind’s natural
inclinations. But it is worth bearing in mind the commonsense sequence:
1. Preparation
2. Incubation
3. Insight
4. Validation
 CHAPTER 7-DEVELOPING YOUR THINKING
SKILLS
• Knowledge is only a rumor until it is in the muscle, says a Papua New Guinea proverb. Think
of your mind as a muscle – or a set of muscles. This book tells you in an introductory way how
to develop those muscles, but it is you who have to put in the effort. Are you keen to do so?
• Don’t think of thinking as being hard, painful or laborious– if you do that you certainly won’t
apply yourself to shaping and sharpening your thinking skills. Thinking is fun, even when – or
especially when – we are faced with apparently insurmountable difficulties.
• You are more likely to be effective as a practical thinker if you succeed in finding your
vocation, your right niche in the world of work. The guide here is to choose a function and field
or work that is optimum for your interests, aptitudes and temperament.
• Practical wisdom should be your aim as a thinker, especially in the applied domain of decision
making. Practical wisdom is a mixture of intelligence, experience and goodness.
KEY FACTORS IN CHOOSING YOUR FIELD OF WORK