Decisioning or Rush to Judgment?

Hiring Decisions

As many as four out of five hiring decisions are made within the first 10 minutes of an interview, according to some studies. Those decisions can be based on little more than the applicant's clothing or hairstyle, a subconscious stereotype or a preconceived notion about a particular candidate or type of candidate…in other words, a rush to judgment.

Indeed, the whole hiring process can be driven by a hiring manager's first impressions of candidates in the initial interview. A candidate who makes a favorable impression on first glance is expected to give better answers and is usually perceived as doing so, but answers from a candidate who disappoints on entry can be received much less favorably than if the candidate had been expected to make a better impression.

Lois Lindauer, president of Lois L. Lindauer Searches in Boston, says, "Once an impression is formed and the potential candidate has been accepted or rejected, additional information that goes against the impression carries less weight in evaluating a candidate's ability to do the job."

Advice: Don’t rush to judgment…Take the longer, more careful and diligent approach.

For full article and credits: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3495/is_1_49/ai_112799820/

Management Decisions

NEW STUDY FINDS:
Half of Business Decisions Fail Because of Management Blunders
(Rushing to Judgment), Columbus, Ohio

With the rash of recent corporate scandals, investors and others wonder if company managers are able to make sound decisions. The answer will not soothe your nerves. About half of all business decisions end in failure, according to a new book that summarizes a multi-decade study of real-life organizational decisions.

"Vast sums of money are spent to make decisions that realize no ultimate value for the organization," said Paul Nutt, professor of management sciences at Ohio State University's Fisher College of Business, "and managers make the same mistakes over and over again as they formulate the decisions."

Nutt said his research found that failed decisions share three common blunders. Managers rush to judgment, misuse their resources, and repeatedly use failure-prone tactics to make decisions.

Nutt's research also shows that managers who make any of these three blunders find themselves caught in one and sometime several, traps. The managers got ensnared by traps that arise from: (full article/credits) http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/decfail.htm

Nutt said many managers make bad tactical choices because they believe following modeled and recommended decision-making practices would take too much time and demand excessive cash outlays…so the pressure can cause a rush to judgment.

"Following good decision-making practices actually costs very little, especially when you compare it to the painful costs of dealing with the consequences of a bad decision."

Personal Decisions

To further this decisioning dilemma, a personal rush to judgment is perhaps one that can inflict the heaviest toll. Many today have new labels for premature decisions such as a “paradigm shift.” This story quickly explains this issue:

Man on the train with his kids seemingly out of control, loud and very disruptive…fellow passenger finally has enough…goes to the dad and complains about his lack of supervision…father (somewhat dazed) responds with “I’m sorry that these kids seem uncontrollable, and I’m not sure what to do, but we’ve just come from their mother’s funeral, and they probably do not understand how they should act?” (Judgment shift?)

A rush to judgment, paradigm shift or any other label we want to assign…the end product is a premature and mistaken decision. Political figures, Hollywood stars, friends, relatives and even spouses can become the victims. The key here is to wait, get the facts, weigh the emotions and then calculate your response.

ZDT Author’s Comments:

These are but a few categories on this subject. If you data mine this predicament, you will find millions of results. This issue could not be hotter. Sitting and ex- Presidents, Juan Williams, Sara Palin, Rush…and on and on…have all been objects. We see paraphrases everyday as headliners intended to accuse, label or prematurely convict someone over what they said or did. And today, at the speed of digital, the subject can go viral never to be retrieved.

Point is, the subject of decisioning has many facets and responsibilities. One of them is taking the time to make a true assessment and decision before rushing to judgment and crucifixion.

Please remember that in our standard MODELTM System the first and most vital step is due diligence, with the greatest time allotment allowed for that initial step.