4 th Annual ‘Back to School’ Day 1 Organizational Decision-Making Michael Sacks Associate Professor in the Practice of Organization and Management Welcome Back!!!

4 th Annual ‘Back to School’ Day 2 Agenda Individual vs. Organizational decision- making Two-part case analysis Common organizational traps Optimizing Organizational Decisions

4 th Annual ‘Back to School’ Day 3 Patterns in Individual Decision-Making Think about your colleagues, your boss, and most importantly yourself. What types of patterns (both good and bad) characterize individual decision- making? How are organizational decisions the same or different than individual decisions?

4 th Annual ‘Back to School’ Day 4 Xerox PARC & the Alto By mid-1970’s, Xerox’s Alto had Graphical user interface (GUI) operating system Coordinated suite of office application programs Mouse pointing device Disk storage device Ethernet local-area network with Object-oriented programming Laser printing/WYSIWYG Desktop publishing

4 th Annual ‘Back to School’ Day 5 A Discussion Question With such an enormous early advantage in technology, why did Xerox not become the dominant player in personal computing?

4 th Annual ‘Back to School’ Day 6 Strategic Inertia How many firms on the original Fortune 500 list are still on that list today? Sioled Thinking Merketing vs. dales in a down economy Perverse incentives P&L purely at the divisional level Common Organizational Decision-Making Errors

4 th Annual ‘Back to School’ Day 7 Define the Problem Decision Criterion Data Needs Collect the Data Analyze the Data “Context Analysis” Implement Decision A General Decision Making Framework Assess the Outcome Modify Decision if necessary

4 th Annual ‘Back to School’ Day 8 Opinions Data History Experience Judgment DecisionDecision Getting to a Decision

4 th Annual ‘Back to School’ Day 9 Decision-making Takeaways Implications of organizational decision-making: 1. One of the top impediments to effective organizational decision- making is failing to agree on the goal for the decision. 2. Insisting on holistic organizational decision-making can maximize each units contribution to the goals of the organization 3. Few decisions are perfect the first time; revisit the outcomes and be careful about their fit with your organizational culture