A632.6.3.RB_LeeDarrell - The High Cost of Conflict

Happy Thanksgiving week to you all! This week, we have shifted gears just a little and are beginning to discuss conflict and conflict resolution. When we are faced with conflict, we often look for ways to settle it – to come to an agreement. However, we shouldn’t want to just settle our conflicts. We should strive to resolve them. “Resolution is much better than settling! Resolution provides relief and completeness. The situation no longer gnaws at your gut” (Levine, 2009, p. 3). As a Soldier, an analogy that comes to mind is an armistice versus a true peace. We don’t want to just have a cease fire but we want the war to be over and to rebuild together through collaboration! With today being Black Friday, I can imagine that many of us are facing conflict today with our shopping experiences. We may settle and be willing to fight the Black Friday madness for the discounts but I have resolved that issue by shopping online. It’s a win-win. The stores get my money. I get the discounts without the crowds. That is the direction that I want to take my thinking about conflict – I don’t want to focus on how to settle conflict but rather on reaching true resolution.

Levine (2009) shows how we can take ten ways of thinking and change them to reach resolution. They are as follows (listed as old followed by new)(p. 49).:

1.      Scarcity – Believing in abundance

2.      Wasting of resources – Creating partnerships

3.      Problems, issues, emotions – Being creative

4.      Fostering conflict – Fostering sustainable collaboration

5.      Righteous bravado, posturing – Becoming open

6.      Short-term adversary – Forming long-term collaborations

7.      Logic – Relying on feelings and intuition

8.      Secrecy – Disclosing information and feelings

9.      Winning – Learning throughout the resolution process

10.  Deferring to professionals – Becoming ResponseAble

I am currently experiencing a major conflict at work and, to be honest, it seems like the way forward up to this point has been settling on minor issues as they arise. I feel comfortable disclosing this information in this blog even though there are a few senior leaders in my chain of command that do read this blog from time to time because they are aware of the facts of the situation. I currently have a member of my team that was transferred to me from another center because of personality conflicts on his last team. However, this is actually his 4^th center in two years and he has had issues with every team and center leader. Since we are in the Army, there are certain protections that are in place and someone cannot simply be “fired”. The benefit of the doubt is always given to the Solider and precise documentation must exist before punitive action can be taken and that wasn’t accomplished in the past but internal administrative actions such as transfers can be completed without negative documentation to protect the interests of all that were involved. Before this individual came to work in my center, we had an agreement that he would come to me with a clean slate and a fresh start. I did my best to honor that agreement but the personality conflict is so great that it only took about three months for the entire team to begin to deteriorate. The current fix action is for him to now be transferred out of the Company (all moves to this point have been within the Company) where he will serve the remainder of his contract as an “administrative assistant” and will be denied reenlistment but will separate from the Army with an honorable discharge. I am disappointed that we could not resolve the conflict without the situation coming to that. As his Center Leader (though I am the 4^th Center Leader where an unresolvable conflict has existed), it is my responsibility to work with people and incorporate them into the team.

There are a few old ways of thinking that really needed to change for a resolution to have been reached. First, it is obvious that this individual was fostering conflict. I don’t believe that he ever had a desire to truly foster sustainable collaboration. The fact that this is his 4^th center is evidence of that. Also, it appears to me that he had a winning mindset. Everything seemed to be about him getting his way instead of wanting to actually learn through the process. However, I think that is maybe where I also failed in this conflict. What I mean by that is not that I should have caved to his tantrums and desires. As a Center Leader, I still have a mission to complete and I am still in charge BUT I also have an obligation to every member of my team – even the difficult ones – to provide a positive environment. I perhaps focused too much on the actual problems, issues, and emotions and failed to always be creative in how to resolve the conflict.

If I had focused on all ten of the new ways of thinking, would the conflict have been resolved? Most likely not, honestly. It is clear where the issue is in this particular case. However, what if I could have encouraged him to change his ways of thinking? If we both had the new mindsets, perhaps he would continue to be not just on my team but on the Army team.

Levine, S. (2009). Getting to resolution: Turning conflict into collaboration. San Francisco, CA:

Berrett-Koehler. 

A632.5.5.RB_LeeDarrell - Protected Values in Decision Making

I have to start this blog with a big OOPS! Earlier this week when I posted my other blog, I believe that I misinterpreted the instructions for the assignment. This blog entry is supposed to piggyback on the last one so I may have to get a little creative to make it work. Fortunately, one thing that I LOVE about grad school versus undergrad is that the assignments are not just “check the box” but rather are designed to encourage critical and creative thinking. The most important thing is that we are enhancing our understanding of the concepts. The instructions for my last blog were “Reflect on three of your major protected values, support those values with at least three major beliefs and show the pros and cons of each belief in terms of trade-offs you are willing to make to support or not support that belief.” I thought that I did just that because I identified my three most powerful protected values and then supported those with my beliefs. However, this blog has me looking at the concept map that I made…but I didn’t make a concept map. Also, a lot of what I have been asked to discuss in this blog was actually discussed in my last blog. What’s ultimately important is that I always act within the spirit of the assignment. Again, that is what I love about grad school!

There’s an author and psychologist at Harvard named Dan Gilbert that has some powerful messages on decision making – namely on why we make poor decisions. The talk is a longer one for a TED Talk but I think that it is worth watching. (The link can be found in my references for this posting.) In his TED Talk (Gilbert, 2005), he first explains how our values change based on comparisons. One example that he uses that really sticks out in my mind is a lottery. Imagine that there are 10 tickets to a lottery. Most people would be willing to purchase a ticket (depending on the reward to be gained) because their chance is as good as any at winning. But what is you could purchase your ticket but the other nine tickets were all purchased by one other person (meaning the same other person)? Would you still buy the last ticket considering that the other person has a 90% change of winning? The odds of you winning hasn’t change but we now can compare our odds to someone else. The value that we now place on the game has changed. This is true of all of our values. Of course this doesn’t apply just to our odds of gain but rather when we compare our values to what we can see around us, the actual values often change. For example, I really value a clean apartment. I can’t stand clutter and dust but, like everybody, it gets away from me sometimes. (That actually just triggered me to look around the room. I guess I know how I will be spending the rest of the day!) However, have you ever been to someone’s apartment and it looked like a tornado ripped through there? When you get back home, you look around and think, “Hmmm, this isn’t too bad after all”. I was in another apartment the other week that made me think just that. I was so grateful to get back to my apartment which was messy at the time because it was clean in comparison. The actual value that I placed on cleaning my own apartment changed slightly at that point and it didn’t seem quite as important to me but my environment hadn’t changed at all.

Gilbert (2005) also discusses how we perceive value based on time. We are wired as humans to focus on instant gratification so the father into the future that something is the less we can see the relative value. To illustrate this, he uses an example of two men standing side by side. One is significantly taller than the other. As we zoom out, though, though their ratios never change, it becomes more difficult to see the difference between them as they near the vanishing point. The same concept is applied to the values that we hold. As we consider what we would be willing to compromise (the trade-off (Hoch, Kunreuther, & Gunther, 2001)), the value is harder to see the father in the future it is. For example, I am somewhat of a tree-hugger. I value recycling and I go to great lengths to separate and clean my recyclable items so that I can take them to the recycle room. However, I currently live on the 35^th floor so it takes a little bit of time to gather everything up, load it into the elevator, ride down to the lobby, move over to the service elevator, ride to the basement, then reverse the trip. Sometimes I am willing to accept the trade-off of not recycling to save the five or six minutes that it takes to do that. However, the father into the future that the decision is, the value of those five or six minutes seems less relevant to me but so, too, does the value of that single instance of recycling in the grand scheme of things. The value of the action has not changed nor has the value of the time. The trade-off is the same. It is just harder to see what difference the decision will make.

Let me apply this to my own protected values. As a refresher from my last post, my three most protected values are the right to free speech, being anti-abortion, and being anti-death penalty for prisoners. My beliefs that support those values are based on my religious beliefs, the belief that we all have a purpose (a contribution to make), and the belief that life is just exciting (exploration). Considering the thoughts of Dan Gilbert, is there anything that may sway my protected values and cause me to be willing to accept a trade-off? The only one of my protected values that I can see having a trade-off based on immediate or past comparison would actually be the freedom of speech. I know that this may sound a little shocking coming from a Soldier that has actually fought for this right for others but when you compare this value with the value of the safety of others, I would possibly be willing to accept a trade-off for this value. I have been to many nations where the general population does not have the right to free speech. Would it be great if they did have it? Absolutely. But is it worth silencing the people if it means preserving an entire society? Perhaps. (Notice that I did not say “yes” but only “perhaps”.) The trade-off would have to be something extreme, though, like preventing a tyrannical ruler from performing genocide. Remember that this very thing happened with Saddam Hussein as he punished the Kurds when they pushed back against his power. However, even as I sit here and write this, I would rather face death than even be forced to be silenced. I believe it is best to not delete that portion of the paragraph, though, because my blogs are my flowing thoughts about the subject.

Dan Gilbert said that if we cease to exist, it will be “because we underestimated the odds of our pain, and overestimated the value of our present pleasures” (2005). I don’t think that any of my protected values deal with pleasure. They deal with fundamental human rights that absolutely cannot be violated. I am talking about the right to life itself and to growing to our potential. Even viewing the value of these rights in the future, I cannot imagine any trade-off that I would ever be willing to accept. However, as I said in my last blog, I do understand that there are people with very valid beliefs that contradict my own on some of these values (particularly the abortion and death penalty issues). I will civilly try to convince them otherwise but I know that this will be a debate that will continue until we are no longer here. But ultimately, the decisions that I make will never betray my own protected values. I would be willing to trade my life to protect them.

Gilbert, D. (2005, July). Dan Gilbert: Why we make bad decisions [Video file]. Retrieved from             http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_researches_happiness

Hoch, S. J., Kunreuther, H., & Gunther, R. E. (2001). Wharton on making decisions. New York: Wiley.

A632.5.4.RB_LeeDarrell - How Protected are Your Protected Values

This particular blog is extremely personal in nature. We have been discussing the incorporation of values in the decision making process this week. Since every person is unique, we all have a slightly different set of values. When we consider values in our decisions, we often are willing to compromise those values based on certain trade-offs (Hoch, Kunreuther, & Gunther, 2001). Though we can see this in economic decisions such as trading off quality for quantity, this also applies to our personal values. For example, perhaps you value supporting “mom and pop” local businesses but you are willing to make a trade-off in order to celebrate a friend’s birthday party at a chain restaurant. However, “people often draw a line in the sand to create values that are protected from trade-offs. These protected values (PVs) are considered absolute and inviolable” (p. 251). For this particular blog, I have been asked to discuss three of my protected values and support those with my beliefs. I could just make up something common and easy but, in the spirit of learning, I will be honest with my answers. I do not expect you as my audience to share in my views but neither do I make any apology for them.

My three most protected values ever are all somewhat interrelated. The first is the absolute freedom of speech. The second is being “pro life” (anti-abortion). The third and perhaps most perplexing and controversial is the right to life of prisoners. This may actually surprise a lot of people as a fairly far right leaning and conservative man on the political spectrum but I am stanchly against the death penalty for prisoners. I am sure you can see now what I mean by these protected values all being interrelated. But what beliefs lead me to protecting these values? There are three major beliefs that lead me to protect these values.

First (and probably foremost), I believe that only God has the authority to create and take life. My father was a Southern Baptist minister for 24 years. I was born into a Christian home. However, I believe what I believe not because my parents believed it but because I chose to believe it. Believe me, I had a lot of doubt for many years. However, I studied the Bible for several years and did a lot of research and am now sure of what I believe. Though the evidence is not always tangible, it is overwhelming to support the accuracy and authenticity of the Bible. As previously stated, my purpose is not to convince you to believe as I do but I will never again be swayed from this belief. As you are most likely aware, the Bible is very clear that we are all known by God in the womb. I therefore believe that life begins at the moment of conception. I also know that we are commanded to not murder and I believe that is what the death penalty is. It is man exacting punishment on man. This is not the same as combat where we are defending ourselves or others. In the case of prisoners, there is no longer a threat. And, of course, I believe that God created our minds to be wonderful things and our thoughts should never be stifled. Second, I believe that we all have a great purpose. This probably stems from my religious beliefs but it goes a step beyond that in that we cannot fulfill our purpose if our lives are extinguished or if we are prevented from the free and open exchange of ideas with others. That is how we grow and, without growth and personal expansion, we can never reach our fullest potential. Finally, I believe that life is just really exciting.

The pros and cons can be extremely difficult to weigh with these beliefs. When it comes to my religious beliefs, Christianity teaches us to love one another, to treat everybody with dignity and respect, and to be benevolent. However, there are some “rules” about certain lifestyle choices that Christianity does not support. This causes a lot of dissonance between Christians and those that have other belief systems. Another downslide to religious beliefs is that there are other religious systems in the world that people also believe to be true that contradict the Christian belief system. This can cause a lot of conflict that can, ironically, lead to the taking of life that we hold to be so precious. (Often, people may also believe that the consequences of violating the “rules” of Christianity leads to judgement and punishment by God. I do not personally believe this, though. I believe that once we are saved, we cannot lose that salvation and am prepared to defend that belief but that is a posting for a different blog.) The second belief that I said was that every life has a purpose. The pros to this are easy enough to see, I think. We all have the potential to do something great and we all should be given the opportunity to contribute. However, there is a downside to this, believe it or not. If we all have a purpose but we do not fulfill that purpose, others are left to carry our weight. We actually have the potential to be a drain on society. And the last belief is that life is just exciting. It is so fun to be alive! There is an entire world of opportunity to explore! So what could be the downside to that? Other than just not taking the time to enjoy it, I honestly don’t know.

When it comes to trade-offs to my protected values, there really is only one trade-off that I am willing to make and that actually deals with quantity. If there is a choice between a life or two lives, I must protect the two. If silencing one person means that more may speak freely, that is a price that must be paid. Other than that, these are not values that I just manufactured for an assignment. These are values that have been protected by me for as long as I can remember. As I stated previously, I don’t owe an explanation nor do I hope to sway anybody else. However, there is a huge takeaway from this. As you can see, I am very passionate about my beliefs. I am sure that you have beliefs about which you are also very passionate. So what happens when opposites meet? What happens when someone that is pro-life is forced to work with someone that is pro-choice? What happens when someone that is pro-gun has to work with someone that is a pacifist? Is it right for me to say that those people don’t have a right to their beliefs or values? How am I to say that I am any more right than they are? If I can’t be swayed in my beliefs, how can I expect someone else to be swayed in theirs? I honestly don’t have the answer to what we are supposed to do in those cases but I think that understanding is a good starting point.

Hoch, S. J., Kunreuther, H., & Gunther, R. E. (2001). Wharton on making decisions. New York: Wiley.

A632.4.4RB_LeeDarrell - Deception in Negotiations

I would imagine that most of us dislike being deceived. I would also imagine that most of us would claim to not intentionally seeking out to deceive others. However, the truth is that all of us have done it and continue to do it on a regular basis. Bear in mind that there are ways that you can deceive others without lying. The truth can sometimes be twisted and turned and presented in such a way as to elicit a certain response that may be in our best interest but not in the best interest of others. That aside, there are times when we still intentionally deceive others. Is it moral or ethical? Earlier today I was playing with my dog and I had his favorite squeaky toy. I would squeak it and hide it under a pillow so he couldn’t see it but would run around looking for it. I was intentionally deceptive and there was nothing morally or ethically wrong with what I was doing. But what about when it comes to professional negotiations? That is something that we all have to do in life and business contracts are surely a little more consequential than teasing your dog.

There is no defense for blatantly lying. However, it is not truly possible to set a professional adhere to a standard of being perfectly and fully truthful (without any omission) (Hoch, Kunreuther, & Gunther, 2001). “Negotiators who honestly represent their bottom line or correct every mistaken impression their counterparts have, are likely to find themselves seriously disadvantaged” (p. 198). So on one hand we have morality and ethics that prevent us from lying yet full honesty is most likely not an option, either. Think of the sell of a vehicle. That is something that most of us have experienced and we can probably all relate to it. He (or she) may be aware that a competitor has a model better suited to your needs or perhaps receives a higher commission by selling one model over another. The salesman may highlight or even exaggerate features to appeal to you. Suppose you have expressed a need for efficient fuel consumption. Model A may receive 22.6 MPG and Model B is 23.4 MPG but the salesman will receive a higher commission for Model A. He may say, “Well, Model A gets nearly 25 MPG but model B only is rated and 23 MPG”. This is not a lie. 22.6 is almost 25 and 23.4 does round down to 23.

When we enter into a negotiation, we need to evaluate the information such as claims and terms to ensure that we are not being deceived. There are people that specialize in lie detection through methods such as spotting body language and eye movement but this is the information age. Not all terms are negotiated in face to face contact anymore. Even in face to face interactions, though, what if you misread body language? We are not psychoanalysts so let’s focus on some areas that we can control.

I was researching some negotiation methods and came across an article in the American Journal of Trial Advocay that was about methods that trial attorneys can use to successfully detect deception during the Voir dire process (DeWitt, 2015). In some ways, the Voir dire is much like selling a product and the attorney is similar to a salesman so the attorney must be keen on spotting deception. “The most vexing problem for any trial attorney is knowing whether the jurors are being honest when disclosing the answer about their attitudes, biases, and life experiences” (p. 29). One of the regular readers of this blog is a trial attorney so can probably attest to this. Prospective jurors often want to be selected for a case and will say just about anything to make it happen. The article begins with one such example where a juror is watching the process happen over and over all day. He is interviewed much later in the day and has learned that certain prejudices are discovered in the way that people are answering so answers the questions in a neutral manner. Even though the idea is to train attorneys to spot deception, the juror in the article also learned how to spot deception by observing the process in others over and over. When we enter into any negotiation, that is probably the first thing that we should do, too. We need to be like the deceptive juror and observe how others have handled the same process. By paying attention to what we see and hear, we will be able to notice trends in the process and avoid making the same mistakes as others.

Often, deception is unintentional. Perhaps something is vague or not explained well. Whether deception is intentional or unintentional, one way to identify it is to be direct. In the same article, DeWitt (2015) admonishes attorneys to “identify problems with a juror’s attitude using proper

questions, qualify them with specific questions about their beliefs and dispositions” (p. 31). Direct and specific questions should result in direct and specific answers. This was a technique also suggested in our assigned reading for the week. “One study found that subjects were significantly less likely to lie when asked a direct question” (Hoch, Kenreuther, & Gunther, 2001, p. 197). Using the citation in the text, I tried to search for the study which is referenced. Unfortunately, with as amazing as our library is, it is not all-encompassing and I was unable to review the study but the data is still documented showing that when direct and specific questions were asked, lies by omission dropped from 75% to 0%. In the negotiation process, if you are not sure about any aspect of it at all, just ask. If someone is intentionally deceiving you, they may still lie through commission but this method at least alleviates omission of needed information.

Another method that we must employ to detect deception is context analysis. I used to live in the Biloxi, MS area and we had 18 casinos down there. When we would go to the casinos, there were an awful lot of people that were toting around tanks of pure oxygen with them to breathe as they played their slots. When I lived there, I completed my SCUBA training and received my Advanced Open Water certification. It’s a little interesting to think that if I took that same tank of oxygen that the casino patrons had and dove down to about 20’ that it would kill me within just a couple of minutes. You see, what is true in one case may not hold the same truth or value in another case so we have to be able to properly analyze context. “Negotiations always exist in a specific context, and understanding that context is essential to understanding the fundamental nature of that negotiation” (Crump, 2015, p. 139). As negotiators, we have to seek clarity about both the general and specific context of terms and conditions. For example, suppose you are entering a negotiation about an international trade. In order to understand the terms, you would have to understand the context in which they are being used. If you do not understand Foreign Trade Zones, international business policies, tax policies, etc, the terms of the deal would be irrelevant to your understanding so spotting deception would be highly unlikely.

The fourth method that I discovered is essential to detecting deception in a negotiation is time management. “Time pressures increase a negotiator’s perception of risk in two ways: by speeding the process and forcing a decision” (Druckman, 2009, p. 439). Clearly we cannot always control the time table for a negotiation but what we can do is manage the time that we do have. If the process is moving too quickly, we don’t have the time necessary to analyze the situation. Though it may not be possible to slow the process, at least having the awareness of the pressures can be beneficial. If things are moving too quickly, perhaps you can ask to adjust the timeline or, if that is not a possibility, at least understand the difficulties of the time constraints and prioritize how you spend your time clarifying and evaluating the negotiation. This is a technique that we utilize within my job. I am proud to say that we, as Army recruiters, are heavily vetted and hold a position of public trust and are therefore held to an extremely high moral and ethical standard. That was not always the case in the past, as you may have heard, but we cannot lie to our applicants and we have an obligation to fully disclose all relevant information. We therefore must rely on methods other than direct deception to entire our applicants to sign contracts with us. By rushing the process, we are able to energize and excite our applicants and we do pressure them to sign a contract before that initial excitement wears off. We understand that there is a lot to know about a career in the Army but if we can get the applicant to sign a contract and ship within a month, there is minimal risk that the applicant will fail to ship. My goal is to process applicants within two weeks of their commitment to join the Army and have them ship to Basic Training within two months. Is this deceptive on our parts? Perhaps a little because we know that they perhaps didn’t have the time to explore all other options. (However, I do believe that the Army is the best choice for most of the people that walk through our door.) However, it is neither immoral nor unethical. That is about as far as I would be willing to engage in any form of deception in this position.

Before I close for the week, I want to highlight an instance where I was deceived. I have been debating on whether or not to put this in my blog as I don’t want to further damage a good organization but it is also important to highlight that deception can happen on a large scale as well. In the recent past, I have donated a significant amount of money to the Wounded Warrior Project as it is something that is very personal to me. You are probably well aware of the scandal that surrounded some of the top executives in the company. The thing is that they indirectly disclosed how little of the money donated was going to the actual cause of benefiting wounded warriors but, at the same time, they went to great lengths to conceal the information (or at least make it difficult to find). Being deceived like that is an emotional experience to say the least. I am grateful, however, that the scandal was brought to light and the organization is restructured and is doing wonderful work again.

Crump, L. (2015). Analyzing complex negotiations. Negotiation Journal, 31(2), 131-153.

doi:10.1111/nejo.12086

DeWitt, A. L. (2015). Detecting deception during voir dire. American Journal of Trial Advocacy,

39(1), 25.

Druckman, D. (2009). Intuition or counterintuition? The science behind the art of negotiation.

Negotiation Journal, 25(4), 431-448. doi:10.1111/j.1571-9979.2009.00237.x

Hoch, S. J., Kunreuther, H., & Gunther, R. E. (2001). Wharton on making decisions. New York: Wiley.

A632.3.4.RB_LeeDarrell - Reflections on Decision Making

We have been focusing this week on frames (of mind). “The frames we use to view the world determine what we see, locking us into certain ideas and shutting out new possibilities. We need to actively manager our frames to make better decisions” (Hoch, Kunreuther, & Gunther, 2001, p. 131). Basically, any opinion that you have or objective that you make is viewed through a certain frame of mind (think “point of view”). The problem is that sometimes we are unable to either achieve our objectives because of our frame of mind. That doesn’t necessarily even mean that our frame is incorrect but sometimes we need to be able to shift our frame to achieve our objectives. Fortunately, just as we can control our attitude, we can also control our frames of mind. As you can imagine, sometimes this requires quite an effort. It can be difficult to consider a situation through a perspective that isn’t necessarily your natural one but, with time and practice, it can become more natural. It is like the saying goes, sometimes you have to fake it until you make it.

The purpose of this blog to discuss the three major traps that we face with frames. The first trap is often the hardest to detect. Frame blindness is “setting out to solve the wrong problem because you have created a mental framework for your decision, with little thought, that causes you to overlook the best options or lose sight of important objectives” (Klein, 1991, p. 75). The worst part about frame blindness is ignorance to its existence (Hoch, Kunreuther, & Gunther, 2001). That isn’t to say that leaders don’t know that frame blindness can exist but rather the trap is that we may be unaware of it in ourselves. We may actually believe that we are solving the right problem and that we have considered all the possibilities when in reality we have not. Several years ago – probably 16 or 17 years ago – I went and I bought myself a motorcycle. I will never forget that piece of junk bike. It was an old beat up 1982 Kawasaki KZ750. You see, I just knew that having that bike in my life was the most important thing to me. When I was on my bike riding around the vast open roads of East New Mexico with my friends, I sure felt complete. Everything spare dime that I had and all of my free time went into making that bike better. As time went on, though, my biker friends all stopped riding for one reason or another. Now we weren’t a gang or a crew or anything. We were just a bunch of young men that liked riding together. One of my friends got orders to Georgia so he moved away. Another one got married and his wife didn’t really want him riding anymore. Another was involved in a serious accident so couldn’t physically ride anymore. So here I was riding this piece of junk bike by myself. I remember riding up into the foothills of the Sandia Mountains one day and it suddenly hit me – I hated riding this bike. I took no joy in it whatsoever. The joy didn’t come from riding with my friends. It came from the personal bonds that we shared amongst us. I was miserable and lonely without my friends. Also, I was really cold because I rode up into the mountains in November without a jacket but that’s beside the point. I was suffering from frame blindness and I was completely ignorant to it. I thought that my objective was that bike when it was actually the friendships that I had. Imagine if I had just realized that from the beginning. Fortunately, the only thing that I lost was my investment in that bike. (I did eventually get back into biking a few years later for the “right” reasons but have since given it up.)

The second major framing trap is overconfidence. We tend to overvalue our own frames while undervaluing the frames of others (Hoch, Kunreuther, & Gunther, 2001). The true danger with overconfidence is underperformance and failure to reach our objective (Moore & Healy, 2008). Last year, I was the Assistant Center Leader for my office. (I have since promoted to the position of Center Leader.)  My boss at the time and I had pretty similar personalities and work ethics. We are both very meticulous and well-seasoned in the recruiting business. We had a new command policy directing us to capture a larger percentage of the high school senior market. He and I being well versed in doctrine and regulations and being proficient at system data interpretation came up with an achievable objective and methodology for implementation. A few of our counterparts at other centers, however, came up with slightly less “aggressive” plans and goals. We tried to encourage them to raise their standard to what we were presenting to the commander but they said that we just weren’t going to be as successful as we thought. Unfortunately, they were right. We were so sure that we had the best team and the resources that we needed and we just knew that we were going to achieve our goals and we fell flat on our faces. How embarrassing!

The final major framing trap is the illusion of completeness. Leaders and managers may often feel like they have the full picture and all of the information to plan for their objectives. Though it is still possible that leaders and decision makers are acting in the optimal frame, “no frame is complete; each one highlights and hides different aspects of the situation at hand” (Hoch, Kunreuther, & Gunther, 2001, p. 140.).  I grew up in a very politically conservative home. When I got out on my own, I was very set in my ways. I thought that I had the full picture with how I viewed the political state of our nation. I just didn’t see how anybody could ever vote anything but Republican. I remember how anti-Obama I was in the 2008 election. But you know what? All of the terrible things that I believed would happen didn’t happen. I mean some of them did but I realized after a few years of him being in office that he wasn’t some evil man out to destroy the country. Now, I live in New York City which is by far one of the most liberal cities in the nation. My eyes are opened to other points of view nearly daily now! We are about to face another presidential election next week. I see people digging in all around me and the political debates rage and tempers flare. I have seen friendships and families torn apart over differences in the political frames of people. The sad part is that nobody has the complete story! The Democrats are not wrong. The Republicans are not wrong. One party is not better than the other. (I might argue, actually, that they are both equally as vile, though!) Wouldn’t it be great and everybody would admit for a moment that there may be more than one way of solving our problems and that maybe both parties have their benefits? If we could all accept that then we could salvage our relationships and start working together to make a better future!

Relating this all to the blog that I wrote right before this about complex decision making, it is really interesting how this all ties together. We are bombarded with data that we must interpret, face systemic variances, and have multiple stakeholders to consider when forming our frames but then we have to understand that the frames under which we are operating are never complete and may never be optimal. What is the ultimate solution, then? How are we to set our goals and make decisions? The answer is that we just have to do the best that we can. We have to swallow our pride and admit that we don’t have all of the answers. We are going to make wrong decisions along the way. That is okay. What is important is that we are able to continue to evaluate our environment and work together to find better solutions. That is why I am no longer affiliated with any political party and I have been known to “flip flop” on issues.

Hoch, S. J., Kunreuther, H., & Gunther, R. E. (2001). Wharton on making decisions. New York:

Wiley.

Klein, G. A. (1991, January 01). Decision Traps: Ten Barriers to Brilliant Decision-Making and

how to Overcome Them. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 4(1), 75-76. doi:10.1002/bdm.3960040106

Moore, D. A., & Healy, P. J. (2008). The trouble with overconfidence. Psychological Review,

115(2), 502-517. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.115.2.502

A632.3.3.RB_LeeDarrell - Framing Complex Decisions

I am less than two years from retirement from the Army right now. I have had an amazing career full of excitement, adventure, and camaraderie but I am ready to move on. Now is about the time that I need to start networking for my next career. (In fact, that is why I am working so hard to finish this particular degree as soon as possible. I need this for my resume as soon as possible but, more important, I need the information that I am learning to ensure my success in the future.) I am very fortunate to live where I do at this point in my career because it has allowed me to become a full member of the New York Athletic Club (NYAC) at the military rate which is an incredible deal. The NYAC is so much more than just a gym. It is more of a social club that happens to have a gym in it and being a member has given me access to some amazing networking opportunities. Most of what we have been studying lately ties right in to the stories that my friends at the NYAC tell me which excites me because it validates my decision to pursue this particular degree (Masters in Leadership). It allows me to see how this information is truly applicable to my future career.

Right now, we are studying decision making in complex environments. When I first dove into the assigned reading material for the week, it was a little hazy to me but I think I have better grasp of the concepts now. I didn’t understand what was meant by a “complex environment” at first but some examples helped me frame the picture. A complex environment in this case doesn’t mean working with a diverse group or working in austere conditions but rather it means environments that are having to rapidly change due to rapid globalization. Some examples used were catastrophic insurance and utility providers. “The environment of business has become a maze of information and Internet-driven change. This change is intertwined with the globalization of economic activity, the attendant growth in the size of companies and markets, the increasing importance of knowledge-intensive processes in business activities, and the natural evolution of systemic stress on organizations facing increased competition resulting from these forces” (Hoch, Kunreuther, & Gunther, 2001, p. 118). Essentially, complex environments are caused by the “shrinking world”. There are three different factors/methodologies to consider: navigating data, navigating systemic complexity, and navigating multistakeholder and environmental complexity.

The first methodology is navigating data. With the information revolution, managers now have to also become researchers (Hoch, Kunreuther, & Gunther, 2001). The book that we use for this class was published in 2001. If that was true 15 years ago when this was written, imagine how much more true it is today. Today, we all have access to all of the data imaginable right in the palm of our hands wherever we go. Case in point – I have my iPhone right here and I just received an alert telling me that rain is expected for the afternoon commute. In her TED Talk, Susan Etlinger (2014) discusses how data is everywhere. However, data are just bits of information that are made by people and therefore require context. She gives a great example of data on smoking. We can look at statistics and tell that people that smoke may face different health risks, have different qualities of lives, work in different fields, come from certain socioeconomic backgrounds, etc. However, without the true context, interpretation of this data becomes impossible. Where you may think that you are interpreting data and making informed decisions based on people that smoke cigarettes, what if I told you that the context was people that enjoy smoking barbequed meats? Context is critical. My friend, Chris, is a hedge fund manager. Before he did that, he was a trader on the floor at the NYSE. He was trying to convince me to try working for his company in the future but to be prepared for long hours. I know that he works about 80 hours a week trying to analyze data to decide when and where to buy and sell. The proper interpretation of data in the proper context can make or break anybody in that industry.

The second methodology is navigating systemic complexity. This complexity is created by the interactions between the organization and everybody else (Hoch, Kunreuther, & Gunther, 2001). This is also an effect of the shrinking world. There is very little room for organizational isolation anymore. The best analogy for this that I can think of is the butterfly effect (2014). You may recall hearing about this in different films in pop culture but it is a real theory developed by meteorologist Edward Lorenz to describe how something as minor as a butterfly flapping its wings can cause minor variations in the air around it and those variations cause a ripple effect until entire weather patterns are changed. As organizational leaders, we have to be able to see variances not just in our own markets but also in unrelated fields because that ripple may eventually affect our own dealings. I was running with my friend, Thomas, last night. His family owns a ski resort in the Catskills. He was saying something to me about his family hiring additional seasonal staff because of the subways here in the city. Basically, with the opening of a new line on the Upper East Side and the pending closure of the L line between Brooklyn and Manhattan, they are expecting a heavy migration of young professionals to the Upper East Side which has direct access to the Metro North Railroad which will in turn create more of a demand for weekend getaways. This may not be a perfect example but imagine organizations operating like that based on data collected from interconnected networks.

The final methodology is navigating multistakeholder and environmental complexity. These stakeholders include “competitors, regulators, and public interest groups. These mutual dependencies and the necessity for agreed-upon rules have been described as ‘co-opetition’ (cooperation combined with competition)” (Hoch, Kunreuther, & Gunther, 2001, p. 125). I would imagine that this may be the most difficult methodology for some because of the temptation to beat out the competition. In fact, this is pretty much why we have white-collar crimes such as insider trading. Decisions are being made to bypass regulators and co-opetition. Ultimately, though, “the key is to ling this external stakeholder mapping process to company strategy” (p. 127). Recently, I read a book about the deregulation of the airline industry and the robber barons involved called Hard Landing (Petzinger, 1995). The book is chock full of examples of co-opetition. On example that sticks out in my mind in particular was a conversation between Bob Crandall, then in a marketing position at American Airlines, and Howard Putnam, marketing chief at United Airlines. Due to the “adult” nature of the conversation, it isn’t really fitting to re-write here on my blog but the bottom line was that Crandall told Putnam that both airlines should raise their prices as both would be profitable from the ordeal if they cooperated and moved together. Now this is a very famous conversation that was actually recorded and used as part of an antitrust suit but it does highlight the need to consider all stakeholders in the decision making process.

Considering these three methodologies - navigating data, navigating systemic complexity, and navigating multistakeholder and environmental complexity –we have to remember is that the approaches to decision making within complex environments has changed. “The decision maker is preparing to make correct choices in the future rather than on nailing down the decision in advance” (Hoch, Kunreuther, & Gunther, 2001, p. 128).

Butterfly effect. (2014). In C. Cleveland & C. Morris (Eds.), Dictionary of energy. Oxford,

United Kingdom: Elsevier Science & Technology. Retrieved from

http://ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/login?url=http://search.credoreference.com/content/e

ntry/este/butterfly_effect/0

Etlinger, S. (2014, September). Susan Etlinger: What do we do with all this big data? [Video

            file]. Retrieved from

http://www.ted.com/talks/susan_etlinger_what_do_we_do_with_all_this_big_data#t-320282

Hoch, S. J., Kunreuther, H., & Gunther, R. E. (2001). Wharton on making decisions. New York: Wiley.

Petzinger, T. (1995). Hard landing: The epic contest for power and profits that plunged the

airlines into chaos. New York: Times Business.