1 00:00:05,840 --> 00:00:07,043 Over the years, 2 00:00:07,043 --> 00:00:09,947 when teaching decision-making processes to students 3 00:00:09,947 --> 00:00:12,240 and executives at MIT and elsewhere, 4 00:00:12,440 --> 00:00:16,986 I often set up group exercises that let students practice 5 00:00:17,160 --> 00:00:21,560 this sort of debate and constructive conflict in teams, 6 00:00:21,880 --> 00:00:27,608 and it gives them firsthand experience on how these processes 7 00:00:27,609 --> 00:00:31,579 reliably deliver higher-quality decisions 8 00:00:31,720 --> 00:00:35,392 than decisions that didn't have this kind of design process. 9 00:00:35,400 --> 00:00:37,179 That's what I've talked about here. 10 00:00:38,474 --> 00:00:41,476 When I teach students and executives as well, 11 00:00:41,476 --> 00:00:43,066 I will oftentimes watch 12 00:00:44,000 --> 00:00:48,135 clips of a movie. It's a motion picture called 13 Days, 13 00:00:48,360 --> 00:00:50,813 which depicted the decision-making process 14 00:00:51,114 --> 00:00:54,343 that President Kennedy used during what's now called 15 00:00:54,343 --> 00:00:55,701 the Cuban Missile Crisis. 16 00:00:55,960 --> 00:00:58,896 This is probably one of the most consequential decisions 17 00:00:59,160 --> 00:01:01,920 that any president has ever made in history, 18 00:01:01,920 --> 00:01:06,000 because this was the closest time that the U.S. and Russia 19 00:01:06,000 --> 00:01:10,325 came to launching nuclear warheads on one another, 20 00:01:10,325 --> 00:01:12,880 essentially starting World War III. 21 00:01:13,160 --> 00:01:16,360 Here are some of my own highlights that play out in the movie. 22 00:01:16,360 --> 00:01:20,960 And as you'll see, many of these kind of core activities 23 00:01:20,960 --> 00:01:23,765 that Kennedy used in making this decision 24 00:01:23,916 --> 00:01:27,030 align with the four principles that I'm suggesting in our program. 25 00:01:27,080 --> 00:01:30,540 Number one, he was very clear about his goal, 26 00:01:30,920 --> 00:01:34,000 and his goal was to avoid nuclear war. 27 00:01:34,400 --> 00:01:37,691 Now, this is different than what tradition 28 00:01:37,691 --> 00:01:40,642 would have suggested for a U.S. president. 29 00:01:40,714 --> 00:01:45,044 Tradition would say the challenge or the goal 30 00:01:45,260 --> 00:01:49,410 is to overcome your adversary, to beat your adversary or to win. 31 00:01:49,720 --> 00:01:52,280 That's what traditional policy would have recommended, 32 00:01:52,280 --> 00:01:53,760 but he didn't take that route. 33 00:01:54,287 --> 00:01:58,174 The route that he took is he wants to avoid nuclear war. 34 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:02,572 And as you see in the movie, he had a lot of pressure 35 00:02:02,760 --> 00:02:07,859 to follow a more traditional decision process as commander in chief. 36 00:02:08,000 --> 00:02:12,240 So my first principle is to be very clear about the problem 37 00:02:12,600 --> 00:02:15,695 or the decision or the goal that you're trying to achieve 38 00:02:15,867 --> 00:02:17,706 with this decision process. 39 00:02:18,120 --> 00:02:20,782 The second is that you'll see 40 00:02:20,920 --> 00:02:23,631 that he actually owned the decision process 41 00:02:24,040 --> 00:02:26,747 from the very beginning as commander in chief. 42 00:02:27,000 --> 00:02:30,120 Now, he sought out lots of different perspectives 43 00:02:30,360 --> 00:02:34,969 that he knew and his advisers knew were important to the decision-making process. 44 00:02:35,240 --> 00:02:36,413 And as you'll see, 45 00:02:36,593 --> 00:02:42,329 he sought perspectives from people who dislike him and even distrusted him. 46 00:02:42,640 --> 00:02:45,960 But he knew those people had valuable expertise 47 00:02:45,960 --> 00:02:49,360 that could inform his understanding of the problem. 48 00:02:49,800 --> 00:02:54,360 My second recommendation in designing a decision process 49 00:02:54,600 --> 00:02:59,662 is to seek out multiple perspectives to understand the problem that you face. 50 00:03:00,080 --> 00:03:04,160 The third thing I want to point out is he utilized teams of advisors, 51 00:03:04,160 --> 00:03:08,215 several sets of advisers to come up with creative solutions 52 00:03:08,400 --> 00:03:12,263 and multiple solutions to this problem that he was facing. 53 00:03:13,680 --> 00:03:18,290 Those alternative solutions that he faced actually led to some of the decisions 54 00:03:18,320 --> 00:03:19,581 that he actually made, 55 00:03:19,581 --> 00:03:22,760 the solutions that he actually put in place. 56 00:03:23,120 --> 00:03:28,454 And these solutions creatively did avoid these two countries 57 00:03:28,454 --> 00:03:31,120 going to nuclear war with one another. 58 00:03:31,400 --> 00:03:34,322 So this was my third suggested principle. 59 00:03:34,322 --> 00:03:38,914 When you're trying to arrive at decisions, 60 00:03:39,208 --> 00:03:40,970 especially high-stakes decision, 61 00:03:41,040 --> 00:03:45,440 generate multiple alternatives and multiple solutions to consider. 62 00:03:45,880 --> 00:03:48,480 And then finally, the fourth thing I want to point out 63 00:03:48,480 --> 00:03:51,170 is that President Kennedy made the tough call. 64 00:03:52,000 --> 00:03:55,920 And everybody got behind him when he made those tough calls. 65 00:03:55,920 --> 00:03:58,152 And this is my fourth principle. 66 00:03:59,688 --> 00:04:01,000 When you make tough calls, 67 00:04:01,000 --> 00:04:04,126 make sure that now you're moving from decision-making 68 00:04:04,126 --> 00:04:07,200 to decision implementation or decision execution. 69 00:04:07,240 --> 00:04:10,080 So, again, I think that the movie provides 70 00:04:10,280 --> 00:04:13,240 an excellent illustration of some of the design principles 71 00:04:13,240 --> 00:04:16,640 for decision processes that I'm recommending in this program. 72 00:04:17,200 --> 00:04:20,017 More importantly, what the Cuban Missile Crisis shows 73 00:04:20,017 --> 00:04:22,961 is that if you have a high-quality decision process, 74 00:04:23,406 --> 00:04:26,394 you're going to produce higher quality decisions. 75 00:04:27,160 --> 00:04:28,450 So that's the big point. 76 00:04:29,698 --> 00:04:32,900 When you think of architecting a decision process, 77 00:04:33,120 --> 00:04:35,616 you can architect a high-quality process 78 00:04:35,760 --> 00:04:37,924 and then you'll have higher quality decisions. 79 00:04:38,000 --> 00:04:41,147 Research done by Ohio State professor Paul Nutt 80 00:04:41,521 --> 00:04:44,760 suggests that about 50% of managers' decisions 81 00:04:45,080 --> 00:04:47,954 fail to achieve their intended outcomes. 82 00:04:48,080 --> 00:04:49,080 So in general, 83 00:04:49,080 --> 00:04:53,631 you can rightly say that status quo decision processes in organizations 84 00:04:53,631 --> 00:04:57,199 earn about an F in terms of a grading scale. 85 00:04:58,895 --> 00:05:00,267 One of the big insights 86 00:05:00,267 --> 00:05:03,277 that came from his research of actual decisions 87 00:05:03,449 --> 00:05:05,517 and the consequences of those decisions 88 00:05:05,760 --> 00:05:08,966 is that managers used poor decision processes 89 00:05:09,240 --> 00:05:10,663 in making those decisions. 90 00:05:10,824 --> 00:05:12,320 As transformational leaders, 91 00:05:12,320 --> 00:05:14,175 you want to take some of the principles 92 00:05:14,175 --> 00:05:16,640 and some of the processes that we're describing here 93 00:05:17,560 --> 00:05:20,032 to help you make better decisions 94 00:05:20,032 --> 00:05:24,086 as you're looking at your organization holistically in terms of change 95 00:05:24,443 --> 00:05:25,449 and innovation. 96 00:05:25,640 --> 00:05:29,640 By having a better decision process, we hope that you'll have better outcomes 97 00:05:29,640 --> 00:05:33,000 and better consequences in those decisions that you make. 98 00:05:33,400 --> 00:05:35,353 Remember that the best decisions 99 00:05:36,160 --> 00:05:39,840 can become an outcome of the best quality processes. 100 00:05:40,080 --> 00:05:44,490 And now we're going to turn our attention to continue this logic of design thinking, 101 00:05:44,716 --> 00:05:48,480 but applying it specifically to approaches to innovation 102 00:05:48,685 --> 00:05:51,901 and we're going to apply it to how to design high-performing teams.