Guarding the Mind for Better Business Strategy

Strategic decision making is not easy and comes with a number of fallacies that blind us to the actuality of the world around us. Executives should be aware of their bias and how this impacts their strategic decision-making. Using a few critical thinking tools helps to guard the mind from bias and ensure that decisions are more likely to be successful and have the largest impact.

Executives are faced with all types of different types of pressures that range from investors to employees. Each person comes with their own influence and opinion. At times a presiding opinion forms and this puts pressure on everyone else to accept the premises of those opinions without providing critical thought. When you are at the top and your decisions impact a large group of people you don't have the luxury of making momentous mistakes. 

The mind is seen as a manufacturing unit that results in the product of thoughts. These thoughts help us to reach conclusions about varying topics, beliefs, debates, and strategies. Like a factory your mind has inputs that come through the senses, previous understandings, and others opinions that make their way into the production process. 

Strategic decisions are well thought out and often tested conclusions about how a business should proceed. The best business decisions are something more than opinion and based upon a level of fact that reflects the environment in which the business succeeds. Executives are required to provide the rationale and then the supporting evidence to their decisions. 

From a philosophical vantage point few people can step outside themselves to formulate a true opinion based upon actual observation and fact. The same process applies in many ways to forming a strategic opinion without the bias of ones past. Nietzsche once said, 

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."
  
The mind is full of fallacies that we pick up from the world around us and social networks in which we exist. Our thoughts are constructed from previous thoughts and ideas based in our childhood experiences, parents beliefs, friends, family and social networks. We are embedded in our social world around us. 

Strategic decisions should free itself from these biases as much as possible. This is where the concept of guardians of the mind come into play. By using a few tips it is possible to help avoid disastrous mistakes that cost companies millions of dollars in poor decision making and strategy implementation. Before making an important decision try and consider the following guardians:

-Scientific Management: Use literature, science, and the scientific method to help make your decisions. Look at what has been discovered and what other studies have concluded before finalizing your decision. Basing your decision on sound scientific findings helps to ensure a higher likelihood of success. 

-Listen to Your Stakeholders: To be successful a strategy will need a wide group of supporters. This means understanding stakeholders opinions will be important to ensuring that the strategy is designed in a way that is most likely to lead to a successful outcome. The more you listen the more you can create win-win situations. 

-Review Your Bias: It is important for the executive to understand the bias he/she has and ensure that those bias are not making their way into the decision-making process. Every person has some level bias based on their background and it is important to ensure the strategy isn't damaged by limited thinking. 

-Avoid Group Think: The worst decisions are often made from group think where people in the same social group reaffirm each others beliefs even though these beliefs are no longer rational. Step outside your social group and look for alternative opinions to make sure you are not simply just pleasing your friends and colleagues. 

-Rearrange the Data: Sound decisions are based upon data. However, people often take data and jam it together in a way that confirms their pr-existing beliefs. Rearrange the data to find alternative explanations and explore those explanations to ensure they are not more logical and sound.

-Create Feedback Loops: Once a strategy has been implemented it is important to have feedback loops to ensure it is fulfilling its objectives. Feedback loops will help adjust and change the strategy before major damage is sustained. Most strategies will need to be changed at some point.

What Military Leaders Can Teach Business Executives?

Leadership in tough situations requires one to dig deep to find values, meaning and strength at a more basic level. A paper by Jennings and Hannah discusses the concept of leadership identity formulation among those who experience some of the world’s most intense situations. They create a more concrete formulation of the idea of ethical leadership in the military even when the situation is tough and the right path is not easy to discern. The report focuses on the choice between moral versus legal aspirations.

The ultimate aim of any military is to project and employ force to defend their people, rights of their citizens, interests and very core values of their people. When stressful situations occur individuals within units have multiple competing interests. They may engage in self-preservation, protection of their unit, protecting civilians, engage their personal values, or engage the unit’s values. Each creates different avenues and opportunities for action. How someone chooses between these competing interests determines their ethical leadership stance.

According to Coker (2007) a soldier’s occupation may be fighting but his vocation is to combat the need for war. Thus, the soldier should develop character and virtue rather than simple behavioral compliance with societal norms. To think on this level requires the internalization of concepts such as honor, courage, sacrifice, and patriotism beyond simple social approval. Difficult situations test the very fabric of a person and their ability to draw on internal values versus external compliance.

The author describes military morality a little like Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments. At the lowest level is simple grammatical adherence in writing while a higher form of expression breaks all the rules to create an eloquent form of communication.  The professor may give an F on the paper but an A on their ability to think beyond simple substance.  Those who take those types of chances are often judged for breaking codes and standards but can also create new standards that push the envelope.

Essentially, rule following is an extrinsic motivation based in a negative feedback model that creates self-regulation (Bandura & Lock, 2003). Identity conferring constructs are an intrinsically motivated positive feed-forward model based within self-challenge and self-efficacy (Bandura & Locke, 2003). One focuses on social acceptance while the other focuses on complete self-development.

The authors use examples of Above the Call of Duty to highlight their point:

Example 1: The rule-following member does not act to value civilians because he views his life as more important and the rules do not explicitly require him to act to protect others.

Example 2: The identity-conferring member moves beyond the rules and risks his life to protect others because he is guided by his military ethic of what is good, beneficial, and honorable.

The two persons are fundamentally different. The first person is more interested in their life and ensuring that they have the social acceptance of others. The second person is less interested in immediate agreement and moves to take on higher ideals of value. To do so requires a whole different thinking about self in the context of events. He is not only the rule-following soldier only but also the authentic soldier-protector who finds higher value in what he does. He recognizes the value of following the rules but can move beyond them if there is a higher principle worth engaging.

The authors focused on informing and inspiring military conduct under extreme conditions. Previous research fails to develop beyond basic transactional ethics and into the realms of virtuous behavior in combat situations. Exemplary leadership should be seen in terms of transformational and authentic leadership that moves beyond defined standards. As the nature of warfare changes to high civilian interactions and insurgencies the ability to maintain certain ethical considerations in isolation becomes even more important. The author contends that militaries will need exemplary ethics and leadership now and in the future to be successful.

Comment: It can be beneficial to look at leadership in high stress situations where a large array of possible decisions can be made to help organizations formulate a greater understanding of leadership management. This report helps us understand that rule and norm maintenance is an external value system based in self-interest. In day-to-day operations, and standard situations, these rules provide structure and should be followed. Occasionally, it is necessary to think beyond the rules and into greater value systems when difficult situations call for it. Where trust has been broken with the public it is even more important to ensure corporations act in the betterment of society and foster those strengths within their executives so they may think for themselves beyond the social approval of their internal social structure. There are a few examples where business leadership has gone above and beyond the call of duty even when they have taken all the risks.

Bandural, A. & Locke, E. (2003). Negative self-efficacy and goals effects revisited. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88.

Cocker, C. (2007). Warrior ethos: Military culture and the war on terror. New York, NY: Routledge.

Jennings, P. & Hannah, S. (2011). The moralities of obligation and aspiration: towards a concept of exemplary military ethics and leadership. Military Psychology, 23.