So I had secured the need, budget, authority and timing, the all important NBAT, but still the sale stalled. The customer loved our solution as it addressed the lack of executive alignment that he was facing, he had plenty of budget, and he didn’t need anyone else to “sign off” on the purchase. So what was the problem?  I was baffled for months on end until I can across Sharon Drew Morgen and her book Dirty Little Secrets, Why Buyers Can’t Buy and Sellers Can’t Sell and What You Can Do About it http://dirtylittlesecretsbook.com/. 

What I failed to realize was that the decision that the buyer was making involved much more than the NBAT.  There were other objectives at play for the buyer that I was not aware of.  In addition to getting an executive alignment solution at a good price, the buyer also had to sort out the tangled web of people, policies and politics that impacted this purchase decision.  There was a whole system inside the company that I wasn’t privy to and until it is addressed, this sale would never happen. 

I must say that as the CEO of a decision making company that prides itself on helping people make decisions in large part by helping our customers to expose the range of objectives involved in a decision, that I was a bit embarrassed by my oversight on this sale. Even more embarrassing was that I didn’t know how to fix the problem and bring the customer around on the sale.  It wasn’t until I learned to start listening for the “system” instead of the “need” that I began to crack the case and lead the customer through the buying process and ultimate closure of the sale.  Check out http://dirtylittlesecretsbook.com/ to learn how to start thinking about the purchase decision as a system and how to facilitate your clients, partners, colleagues through the purchase process. 

Good outcomes are the result of three factors: Quality of the decision, quality of the execution, and chance.    Quality of a decision comes down to a correct assessment of the ability to execute and the element of chance (which includes risk).  Quality of execution similarly is strongly related to chance, as executing without regard to risk is foolish.

Over the past decade or two the world’s business leaders have been obsessed with execution.  Here is a typical list from Amazon that shows a strong focus on execution as strategy. A similar list of books on risk is telling.  The focus here is more tactical and technical.  Risk apparently is the domain of geeks, not general managers.

And who was focusing on decision making?  Again a simplistic list from an Amazon search is revealing: almost all the books are on the psychology of individual decision making.  Few titles on collaborative decision making, or improving businesses to make better decisions. Put simply: why has there been so little focus on decision making that marries execution and chance for better business outcomes.

The current economic crisis is immensely complex and flip summaries will not resolve it.  However, it is clear that decision making in business, government oversight, and personal behavior has been found wanting.

- A finely tuned system that executes well, when all is well, will not do in dire times — our banking system is Exhibit A.
- Risk models that model economic times when there was little risk, will not tell us about the dangers the future inevitably holds– our housing and mortgage industries are Exhibit B.
- Business leaders whose rewards are reaped in the short term, will not make good decisions for shareholders and households that plan to reap their rewards in the long-term– our current stock markets are Exhibit C.
- Government that aims to regulate the interest of all market participants while clearly sitting in the pocket of some stakeholders earns the trust of no one– our crisis of confidence now is Exhibit D.
- People who have become only consumers, and whose life-style is borrowed with abandon, one day will have to return to the values of that People–we are almost all, unfortunately, Exhibit E.

Decisions.  We all face decisions.  Hopefully next time they will be better–decisions that acknowledge the importance of risk, and decisions that take into account our ability to execute.

From turning down the Beatles to failing to recognize Microsoft’s potential, there have been some seriously bad decisions made in the business world. Neatorama has reprinted The Stupidest Business Decisions in History.

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Some people made decisions that led to the world best discoveries while others thought we couldn’t “drill into the ground to find oil”. “Bad Quotes for Famous People” (courtesy of The Univerisity of Western Ontario) demonstrates how ingrained biases can lead to a failure to recognize potential.

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People make decisions and very often second guess themselves. Here is an article from The Huffington Post on “How To Be Satified With Your Decisions“.

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“When you have to make a choice and don’t make it, that is in itself a choice.”  ~William James

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“The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn.”  ~David Russell

The function that is the title of this post represents the possibility of a wicked infinite regression in American politics: Bush I was in the White House for 12 years (8 as VP). Clinton for 8 years. Bush II has a year left in his 8. Now the cards may well hold a Clinton vs. Bush election. With Mrs. Clinton as a candidate vs. Governor Jeb Bush of Florida as a popular hypothetical choice for vice presidential candidate for the GOP.

So, after 28 years of a Bush or a Clinton in the White House, we may well be in store for an election that will guarantee that number to move to 32. To put that into perspective, think that no one entering the workforce since 1998 (when people born in 1980 turned 18) has ever experienced IN THEIR LIFE a White House without a Clinton or Bush — and that this may be true until 2012 — a span of 14 years.

Ignoring the particular people involved, it seems intuitively obvious that during this time there were other people equally or better qualified in the USA to fill these jobs, whose names were not Clinton or Bush. So how did it happen that the collective judgment of 300 million people resulted in these choices?

In addition to the tragically poor process for selecting the candidates in the first place (see: How not to Choose A Presidential Candidate), there are some psychological biases that helped America along. The first is the mere exposure effect. Basically, it has been shown that we are more likely to like job candidates that we have had prior exposure to — even if that exposure had nothing to do with the person’s fitness for the job.

A second bias is the anchoring effect. Basically, by suggesting a particular answer we can influence all subsequent answers to cluster around this initial anchor — having a last name that simply is the same as a name we hear often in the media can thus make someone more likely to win — absolutely regardless of the merits.

There are a number of other biases that can be seen to enhance the likelihood of candidates getting elected whose primary claim to fame is a last name. A more complete list can be found at: List of cognitive biases.

So the question looms large: is the choice of the American president stuck in a wicked infinite regression — will young people today live and die in a country where there is always a president/vice president who is a Bush or a Clinton?

If an evil scientist sat down to come up with the worst possible way to select the two major-party candidates for president, he or she would have to consider the current selection process a strong candidate.  Here are some of the more glaring flaws:

1. The initial set of potential candidates is totally haphazard.   There was no process whatsoever for coming up with qualified candidates.  Basically a few people with outsized egos and friends with money float the idea that they’d be “really good at being the president.” 

2. The issues (ie., the selection criteria) that we keep hearing about in the popular press are marginally important at best.  Gun control, abortion, gay marriage, and even terrorism are focal points because of their incendiary nature.  However, real issues like foreign affairs, the strategic position of the US military, globalization, who to nominate to the Supreme Court, and the environment are given short shrift as they don’t fit into television micro-news.

3. The selection process is anchored in the choices of otherwise irrelevant states.  Iowa and New Hampshire (population: tiny) have more impact on foreign affairs than the combined 300 million rest of us.  By the time New Hampshire was over the democrats had 2 viable candidates, the republicans 2 1/2.

4. There is no emergency brake, no time for second guessing.  After 6 years of a presidency, there is about 12 months of wrangling without any process to get people in — then the whole selection among these candidates of convenience is completed by fewer than 500.000 to a choice among two. 

5. For more than a 100 years there has been a duopoly on the supply of even these candidates. 

6. To vote in most primaries you have to be willing/able to take off from work on Tuesday.  TUESDAY!! What genius came up with the idea of voting on Tuesday.   Definitely not the guy who wanted people to participate.

How about run-offs?  Even instant run-offs?  How about rotating the states that have early primaries?  How about the major parties using nominating committees that received input from across the country to get a decent set of candidates going?  How about money?  Is it sensible that we choose the person who can most compromise themselves to be the president? 

How about asking the candidates to sketch out what they plan to do once they get into the White House?  Can you imagine hiring someone as CEO, senior partner, even congressman without having some sense of how they might prioritize the tasks they have before them–and would you hire someone whose story shifted depending on what time-zone they were in? 

Surprisingly, it’s always been like this.  A more learned man than I wrote a more learned thesis on this topic some 120 years ago.  Read this excerpt from James Bryce’s Why Are Great Men Not Chosen President?