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Rational vs. Irrational Decisions (MCAD Modeling Column)
1 Jun, 2008 By: IDSA ,Mike HudspethUse rational thinking in your job; the rewards are much greater.
Let me lay out a very common but always-dreaded scenario: You have a problem. You know you need some direction, but the only place you can go is to your pointy-haired boss. You know he's going to say or do something you're not going to like.
You knock on the door and enter his lair. After you've obtained the dubious honor of his attention, you explain your problem in as few words as possible so as not to confuse him. You finish. He opens his mouth to speak. You cringe. You try to give him the benefit of the doubt, but you just know you're not going to like what comes out of his mouth. He speaks. You can tell from the combination of buzzwords and trite phrases that he has no clue about what you just said. Did he even listen?
He makes a decision. You were right all along. It has no basis in actual fact. It's based on something he read once on the Internet or heard from some other executive. You are tempted to argue, but experience has taught you the futility of that. You leave his office worse off than when you entered.
That scenario might be somewhat pessimistic, but everyone has felt that way at one point or another. So how do you make rational decisions? Where do they come from?
Let's do a little defining, shall we? The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines rational as having reason or understanding; relating to, based on, or agreeable to reason — reasonable. It goes on to define irrational as not rational; not endowed with reason or understanding; lacking usual or normal mental clarity or coherence; not governed by or according to reason (for example, irrational fears). Psychology teaches us that rational thinking — thinking that is consistent with known facts — is helpful to us over the long haul. Irrational thinking ultimately hinders us and has nothing to do with (or is unsupported by) known facts.
What Does This Have to Do with Me?
You may be wondering where I am going with this rant. I see and hear a lot in my job that makes me wonder whether people are the intelligent and rational creatures we give them credit for being. For example, I noticed a strange phenomenon at one company. Every 18 months or so, new executives would take over and they always asked the same questions. Why were we using a high-end 3D solid modeling program that cost tens of thousands of dollars per seat when a low-cost program might suffice? The question was never meant to harm anyone. It was most often just an attempt at furthering their career or agenda by eliminating — very publicly — a major expense that their predecessor had not. As a result, we who were much farther down the totem pole had to justify our decision to stay with the more expensive software.
This justification was not always easy. What was once a mid-range program soon had what only the high-end programs boasted. (Note that high-end programs are struggling to keep ahead of the pack, but they're getting their toes nipped. And in some cases, they are losing business.) We would have to stop our productive work and spend the next few days creating PowerPoint presentations and cost analyses.
Why do these new executives ask these expensive-to-answer questions? Interestingly enough, the whole exercise isn't really about the best way to work.
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