0:00:05.840,0:00:07.043
Over the years,

0:00:07.043,0:00:09.947
when teaching[br]decision-making processes to students

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and executives at MIT and elsewhere,

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I often set up group exercises[br]that let students practice

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this sort of debate[br]and constructive conflict in teams,

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and it gives them firsthand[br]experience on how these processes

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reliably deliver higher-quality decisions

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than decisions that didn't have[br]this kind of design process.

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That's what I've talked about here.

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When I teach students[br]and executives as well,

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I will oftentimes watch

0:00:44.000,0:00:48.135
clips of a movie.[br]It's a motion picture called <i>13 Days</i>,

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which depicted the decision-making process

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that President Kennedy used[br]during what's now called

0:00:54.343,0:00:55.701
the Cuban Missile Crisis.

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This is probably[br]one of the most consequential decisions

0:00:59.160,0:01:01.920
that any president[br]has ever made in history,

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because this was the closest time[br]that the U.S. and Russia

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came to launching[br]nuclear warheads on one another,

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essentially starting World War III.

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Here are some of my own highlights[br]that play out in the movie.

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And as you'll see,[br]many of these kind of core activities

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that Kennedy used in making this decision

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align with the four principles[br]that I'm suggesting in our program.

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Number one,[br]he was very clear about his goal,

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and his goal was to avoid nuclear war.

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Now, this is different than what tradition

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would have suggested for a U.S. president.

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Tradition would say[br]the challenge or the goal

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is to overcome your adversary,[br]to beat your adversary or to win.

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That's what traditional policy[br]would have recommended,

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but he didn't take that route.

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The route that he took[br]is he wants to avoid nuclear war.

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And as you see in the movie,[br]he had a lot of pressure

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to follow a more traditional[br]decision process as commander in chief.

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So my first principle[br]is to be very clear about the problem

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or the decision or the goal[br]that you're trying to achieve

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with this decision process.

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The second is that you'll see

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that he actually owned[br]the decision process

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from the very beginning[br]as commander in chief.

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Now, he sought out[br]lots of different perspectives

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that he knew and his advisers knew were[br]important to the decision-making process.

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And as you'll see,

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he sought perspectives from people[br]who dislike him and even distrusted him.

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But he knew those people[br]had valuable expertise

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that could inform[br]his understanding of the problem.

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My second recommendation[br]in designing a decision process

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is to seek out multiple perspectives[br]to understand the problem that you face.

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The third thing I want to point out[br]is he utilized teams of advisors,

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several sets of advisers[br]to come up with creative solutions

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and multiple solutions[br]to this problem that he was facing.

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Those alternative solutions that he faced[br]actually led to some of the decisions

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that he actually made,

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the solutions[br]that he actually put in place.

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And these solutions creatively[br]did avoid these two countries

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going to nuclear war with one another.

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So this was my third suggested principle.

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When you're trying to arrive at decisions,

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especially high-stakes decision,

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generate multiple alternatives[br]and multiple solutions to consider.

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And then finally,[br]the fourth thing I want to point out

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is that President Kennedy[br]made the tough call.

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And everybody got behind him[br]when he made those tough calls.

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And this is my fourth principle.

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When you make tough calls,

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make sure that now you're moving[br]from decision-making

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to decision implementation[br]or decision execution.

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So, again, I think that the movie provides

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an excellent illustration[br]of some of the design principles

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for decision processes[br]that I'm recommending in this program.

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More importantly,[br]what the Cuban Missile Crisis shows

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is that if you have[br]a high-quality decision process,

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you're going to produce[br]higher quality decisions.

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So that's the big point.

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When you think of architecting[br]a decision process,

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you can architect a high-quality process

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and then you'll have[br]higher quality decisions.

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Research done by[br]Ohio State professor Paul Nutt

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suggests that about[br]50% of managers' decisions

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fail to achieve their intended outcomes.

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So in general,

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you can rightly say that status quo[br]decision processes in organizations

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earn about an F[br]in terms of a grading scale.

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One of the big insights

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that came from his research[br]of actual decisions

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and the consequences of those decisions

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is that managers used[br]poor decision processes

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in making those decisions.

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As transformational leaders,

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you want to take[br]some of the principles

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and some of the processes[br]that we're describing here

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to help you make better decisions

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as you're looking at your organization [br]holistically in terms of change

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and innovation.

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By having a better decision process,[br]we hope that you'll have better outcomes

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and better consequences[br]in those decisions that you make.

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Remember that the best decisions

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can become an outcome[br]of the best quality processes.

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And now we're going to turn our attention[br]to continue this logic of design thinking,

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but applying it specifically[br]to approaches to innovation

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and we're going to apply it[br]to how to design high-performing teams.