WEBVTT 00:00:05.840 --> 00:00:07.043 Over the years, 00:00:07.043 --> 00:00:09.947 when teaching decision-making processes to students 00:00:09.947 --> 00:00:12.240 and executives at MIT and elsewhere, 00:00:12.440 --> 00:00:16.986 I often set up group exercises that let students practice 00:00:17.160 --> 00:00:21.560 this sort of debate and constructive conflict in teams, 00:00:21.880 --> 00:00:27.608 and it gives them firsthand experience on how these processes 00:00:27.609 --> 00:00:31.579 reliably deliver higher-quality decisions 00:00:31.720 --> 00:00:35.392 than decisions that didn't have this kind of design process. 00:00:35.400 --> 00:00:37.179 That's what I've talked about here. 00:00:38.474 --> 00:00:41.476 When I teach students and executives as well, 00:00:41.476 --> 00:00:43.066 I will oftentimes watch 00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:48.135 clips of a movie. It's a motion picture called 13 Days, 00:00:48.360 --> 00:00:50.813 which depicted the decision-making process 00:00:51.114 --> 00:00:54.343 that President Kennedy used during what's now called 00:00:54.343 --> 00:00:55.701 the Cuban Missile Crisis. 00:00:55.960 --> 00:00:58.896 This is probably one of the most consequential decisions 00:00:59.160 --> 00:01:01.920 that any president has ever made in history, 00:01:01.920 --> 00:01:06.000 because this was the closest time that the U.S. and Russia 00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:10.325 came to launching nuclear warheads on one another, 00:01:10.325 --> 00:01:12.880 essentially starting World War III. 00:01:13.160 --> 00:01:16.360 Here are some of my own highlights that play out in the movie. 00:01:16.360 --> 00:01:20.960 And as you'll see, many of these kind of core activities 00:01:20.960 --> 00:01:23.765 that Kennedy used in making this decision 00:01:23.916 --> 00:01:27.030 align with the four principles that I'm suggesting in our program. 00:01:27.080 --> 00:01:30.540 Number one, he was very clear about his goal, 00:01:30.920 --> 00:01:34.000 and his goal was to avoid nuclear war. 00:01:34.400 --> 00:01:37.691 Now, this is different than what tradition 00:01:37.691 --> 00:01:40.642 would have suggested for a U.S. president. 00:01:40.714 --> 00:01:45.044 Tradition would say the challenge or the goal 00:01:45.260 --> 00:01:49.410 is to overcome your adversary, to beat your adversary or to win. 00:01:49.720 --> 00:01:52.280 That's what traditional policy would have recommended, 00:01:52.280 --> 00:01:53.760 but he didn't take that route. 00:01:54.287 --> 00:01:58.174 The route that he took is he wants to avoid nuclear war. 00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:02.572 And as you see in the movie, he had a lot of pressure 00:02:02.760 --> 00:02:07.859 to follow a more traditional decision process as commander in chief. 00:02:08.000 --> 00:02:12.240 So my first principle is to be very clear about the problem 00:02:12.600 --> 00:02:15.695 or the decision or the goal that you're trying to achieve 00:02:15.867 --> 00:02:17.706 with this decision process. 00:02:18.120 --> 00:02:20.782 The second is that you'll see 00:02:20.920 --> 00:02:23.631 that he actually owned the decision process 00:02:24.040 --> 00:02:26.747 from the very beginning as commander in chief. 00:02:27.000 --> 00:02:30.120 Now, he sought out lots of different perspectives 00:02:30.360 --> 00:02:34.969 that he knew and his advisers knew were important to the decision-making process. 00:02:35.240 --> 00:02:36.413 And as you'll see, 00:02:36.593 --> 00:02:42.329 he sought perspectives from people who dislike him and even distrusted him. 00:02:42.640 --> 00:02:45.960 But he knew those people had valuable expertise 00:02:45.960 --> 00:02:49.360 that could inform his understanding of the problem. 00:02:49.800 --> 00:02:54.360 My second recommendation in designing a decision process 00:02:54.600 --> 00:02:59.662 is to seek out multiple perspectives to understand the problem that you face. 00:03:00.080 --> 00:03:04.160 The third thing I want to point out is he utilized teams of advisors, 00:03:04.160 --> 00:03:08.215 several sets of advisers to come up with creative solutions 00:03:08.400 --> 00:03:12.263 and multiple solutions to this problem that he was facing. 00:03:13.680 --> 00:03:18.290 Those alternative solutions that he faced actually led to some of the decisions 00:03:18.320 --> 00:03:19.581 that he actually made, 00:03:19.581 --> 00:03:22.760 the solutions that he actually put in place. 00:03:23.120 --> 00:03:28.454 And these solutions creatively did avoid these two countries 00:03:28.454 --> 00:03:31.120 going to nuclear war with one another. 00:03:31.400 --> 00:03:34.322 So this was my third suggested principle. 00:03:34.322 --> 00:03:38.914 When you're trying to arrive at decisions, 00:03:39.208 --> 00:03:40.970 especially high-stakes decision, 00:03:41.040 --> 00:03:45.440 generate multiple alternatives and multiple solutions to consider. 00:03:45.880 --> 00:03:48.480 And then finally, the fourth thing I want to point out 00:03:48.480 --> 00:03:51.170 is that President Kennedy made the tough call. 00:03:52.000 --> 00:03:55.920 And everybody got behind him when he made those tough calls. 00:03:55.920 --> 00:03:58.152 And this is my fourth principle. 00:03:59.688 --> 00:04:01.000 When you make tough calls, 00:04:01.000 --> 00:04:04.126 make sure that now you're moving from decision-making 00:04:04.126 --> 00:04:07.200 to decision implementation or decision execution. 00:04:07.240 --> 00:04:10.080 So, again, I think that the movie provides 00:04:10.280 --> 00:04:13.240 an excellent illustration of some of the design principles 00:04:13.240 --> 00:04:16.640 for decision processes that I'm recommending in this program. 00:04:17.200 --> 00:04:20.017 More importantly, what the Cuban Missile Crisis shows 00:04:20.017 --> 00:04:22.961 is that if you have a high-quality decision process, 00:04:23.406 --> 00:04:26.394 you're going to produce higher quality decisions. 00:04:27.160 --> 00:04:28.450 So that's the big point. 00:04:29.698 --> 00:04:32.900 When you think of architecting a decision process, 00:04:33.120 --> 00:04:35.616 you can architect a high-quality process 00:04:35.760 --> 00:04:37.924 and then you'll have higher quality decisions. 00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:41.147 Research done by Ohio State professor Paul Nutt 00:04:41.521 --> 00:04:44.760 suggests that about 50% of managers' decisions 00:04:45.080 --> 00:04:47.954 fail to achieve their intended outcomes. 00:04:48.080 --> 00:04:49.080 So in general, 00:04:49.080 --> 00:04:53.631 you can rightly say that status quo decision processes in organizations 00:04:53.631 --> 00:04:57.199 earn about an F in terms of a grading scale. 00:04:58.895 --> 00:05:00.267 One of the big insights 00:05:00.267 --> 00:05:03.277 that came from his research of actual decisions 00:05:03.449 --> 00:05:05.517 and the consequences of those decisions 00:05:05.760 --> 00:05:08.966 is that managers used poor decision processes 00:05:09.240 --> 00:05:10.663 in making those decisions. 00:05:10.824 --> 00:05:12.320 As transformational leaders, 00:05:12.320 --> 00:05:14.175 you want to take some of the principles 00:05:14.175 --> 00:05:16.640 and some of the processes that we're describing here 00:05:17.560 --> 00:05:20.032 to help you make better decisions 00:05:20.032 --> 00:05:24.086 as you're looking at your organization holistically in terms of change 00:05:24.443 --> 00:05:25.449 and innovation. 00:05:25.640 --> 00:05:29.640 By having a better decision process, we hope that you'll have better outcomes 00:05:29.640 --> 00:05:33.000 and better consequences in those decisions that you make. 00:05:33.400 --> 00:05:35.353 Remember that the best decisions 00:05:36.160 --> 00:05:39.840 can become an outcome of the best quality processes. 00:05:40.080 --> 00:05:44.490 And now we're going to turn our attention to continue this logic of design thinking, 00:05:44.716 --> 00:05:48.480 but applying it specifically to approaches to innovation 00:05:48.685 --> 00:05:51.901 and we're going to apply it to how to design high-performing teams.