Nothing is More Important

From: The Importance of and Need for Complete
Problem Solving and Decision Making

In Research Briefings (1986), Nobel Laureate Herbert Simon (father of Artificial Intelligence) stated:

“The work of managers, of scientists, of engineers, of lawyers…the work that steers the course of society and its economic and government organizations…is largely work of making decisions and solving problems…Nothing is more important.”

“It is the work of choosing issues that require attention, setting goals, finding or designing suitable courses of action, and evaluating and choosing among alternative actions. The first three of these activities (fixing agendas, setting goals, and designing actions) are usually called problem solving, the last, evaluating and choosing, is usually called decision making.

Nothing is more important for the well being of society than this work being performed effectively, that we address successfully the many problems requiring attention at the national level (the budget and trade deficits, AIDS, national security, the mitigation of earthquake damage), at the level of business organizations (product improvement, production efficiency, investment choices), and at the level of our individual lives (choosing a career or a school, buying a house).”

More on the Importance and the Need

In Complex Problem Solving (1991), Wagner states: “Mintzberg’s (1973) influential studies of what managers actually do, as opposed to what they are supposed to do, or what they say they do, provides unwelcome news to proponents of rational approaches to managerial problem solving.

Mintzberg found that even successful managers rarely, if ever, employed rational approaches. Rather than following a step-by-step sequence from problem definition to problem solution, managers typically groped along with only vague impressions about the nature of the problems they were dealing with, and with little idea of what the ultimate solution would be until they believed they found it (Mintzberg, Raisinghani, and Theorel, 1976).

Isenberg (1984) reached a similar conclusion in his analysis of how senior managers solve problems. The senior managers he studied did not follow the rational model of first defining problems, next assessing possible causes, and only then taking action to solve the problem. Instead they worked from general overriding concerns, and they worked simultaneously at a number of problems (fragmentation/confusion).”

ZDT Authors Note:

In all, these few paragraphs are an accurate reflection of an exhaustive study by Norman W. Edmund named Decision Making. This fellow was 91 at this publication and his discoveries were after a lifetime of study and research on the subject of decisioning. He further states that his research, grants and subsidies were backed by millions of dollars of investment.

Because his approach was so well funded, and his conclusions are so highly detailed, we will devote a couple of additional posts to his research and findings. His conclusions mirror our ZDT and MODELTM System very closely (with way less cost).