0:00:00.560,0:00:03.120
Over the[br]years when you sit when teaching decision

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making processes to students[br]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 experience[br]on how

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these processes reliably

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deliver higher quality decisions

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

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And so that's what I've talked about here.

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I also, in what I teach[br]students and executives

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as well, will oftentimes watch

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clips of a movie,[br]the motion picture called 13 Days,

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which depicted the decision making process[br]that President

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Kennedy used during what was what's now[br]called the Cuban Missile Crisis.

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

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that any president[br]has ever made in history,

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because this is the closest time[br]that the U.S.

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and Russia came[br]to launching nuclear warheads on one

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another, essentially starting World[br]War three, which would have undoubtedly

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killed millions of people[br]probably pretty quickly as well.

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Historians have also

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watched the movie and given it their[br]blessing that the way the dynamics

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are played out in[br]the movie are mostly correct and accurate.

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So this is one of the reasons[br]that I recommend it

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and I recommend it to you as well.

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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 are kind of core activities

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that Kennedy used in making this decision[br]align with the four principles

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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[br]would have had suggested for a U.S.

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president. And tradition would say.

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The the the challenge[br]or the goal is to overcome

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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 is[br]he wants to avoid nuclear war.

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

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to make to follow sort[br]of a more traditional decision process

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as commander in chief.

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

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or the decision

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or the goal that you're trying to achieve[br]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,[br]he sought perspective from people

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who disliked Dean and even distrusted him.

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But he knew those people had valuable[br]expertise

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

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This was 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

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

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

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And these solutions creatively[br]did avoid these

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two countries[br]going to nuclear war with one another.

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So this was my third suggested[br]principle, is to when you're

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trying to arrive at decisions,[br]especially on high stakes decision,

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generate multiple alternatives[br]or 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[br]Kennedy made the tough call.

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Right.

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

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And this is my fourth

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principle, is that, you know,[br]when you make tough calls,

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make sure that now you're

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moving from decision making to decision[br]implementation or decision execution.

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So at the end,[br]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, what I think the Cuban[br]Missile Crisis shows is that if you have

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a high quality decision process, you're[br]going to produce higher quality decisions.

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Right.

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So that's the big point of sort of

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

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you can architect a high quality process[br]and you'll have higher quality decisions.

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Research done by Ohio State[br]Professor Paul Nutt suggests

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that about 50% managers decisions

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fail to achieve their intended outcomes.

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So in general,[br]I think you could rightly say that

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status quo decision processes[br]in organizations earn about an F.

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In terms of a grading scale.

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And he one of the big insights[br]that that came

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from his research of actual decisions[br]and the consequences of those decisions

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is that managers used poor decision[br]processes in making those decisions.

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As transformational leaders, I think[br]you want to take 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[br]as you're

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looking at your organization[br]holistically in terms of change

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and innovation[br]by having a better decision process.

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We hope that you'll have better outcomes[br]and better consequences

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in those decisions that you make.

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Remember that the best decisions can or

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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 sort of continue this logic of design

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thinking, but applying it specifically[br]to ways approaches to innovation.

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