A632.9.3.RB - Role of Emotion in Decision Making

 A632.9.3.RB _Manglona, Matthew-Napu_Role of Emotion in Decision Making

Professor Baba Shiv described that confidence does matter when it comes to making decisions for a group. When he discussed the military commander’s confidence in his mission planning in a combat zone that plays an important factor when those who are under your supervision have to carry that order. (Shiv, 2011). A situation in which I was extremely confident was when I was deployed in Afghanistan in 2013. We had a mission that required the escort of the regional area’s General Officer from Canada. We had to take this officer around a camp and have him and his team inspect the operations of hospital that our Afghan counterparts were conducting. When it came to the mission planning, I had covered all angles of what could go wrong and placed mitigations of safety in place to ensure that no harm comes our way. When I gave the brief to the General Officer I had the best confidence in the world because I knew if Plan A didn’t work I would have Plan B to rely on if that did not work we would go through Plan C. So when I gave the brief, my soldiers, and the General Officer and his staff were impressed because of the confidence I had giving my brief. I ensured that we are all coming back to base in a safe manner and we will execute our plan(s) to the “Tee.”

The General Officer fed off that confidence and was impressed that a young Lieutenant had the cool, calm, and collected expressions with high motivation when he was receiving his brief.  Hoch, Kunreuther, & Gunther, (2001) discussed that there is evidence in that emotions play high importance when a decision presents uncertain outcomes.” (p. 2854) Just like my mission, we didn’t know what would or could happen especially if the enemy was to find out we had the regional commander in our convoy. When it came to this particular event, the emotions I experienced was passion, calmness, and excitement. These three were the pillars for my confidence for this particular mission. I was passionate about my job and the high visibility it presented because this was me and my platoon’s time to shine in front of not just our leadership but those above them as well. Calmness, I was able to remain calm showing to my soldiers despite our dangerous surroundings, there was no need to panic and freak out when conducting our mission. Then finally, excitement which was the most important, if I did not show excitement let alone passion we would not have been able to pull off this mission.

Then there was a time where I did not feel confident with myself. When my boss was on vacation, there was a last minute brief I had to give to our Adjutant General in which I was unprepared for. My Adjutant General was already in a bad mood from what I was told and I did not want to make him more angry. When it was my turn to brief and because it was so last minute I was literally sweating, heart beating at 100mph, and mumbling when giving my introduction. Hoch, Kunreuther, & Gunther, (2001) discussed that fear is a powerful emotion factor. (p. 2868) Bottom line, fear played an important factor as to why I felt the way did. I was so nervous that the Adjutant General saw it and notified me I did not have to go any further because it was not my job to know all the answers that my boss would have known. The three emotions I felt was fear, nervousness, and failure. I was fearful because I did not know if I could provide the answers the General wanted to hear, I was nervous as to what he and his staff would think of me when I was giving my brief, and finally failure, I thought I was going to fail and possibly be reassigned or at the worst lose my job.

References:

Baba, Shiv (2011) Brain Research at Stanford: Decision Making. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRKfl4owWKc

Hoch, S., Kunreuther, H., & Gunther, R. (2001). Wharton on Making Decisions (1^st edition). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

A632.8.3.RB - Reflections on the Cynefin Framework

A632.8.3.RB_Manglona, Matthew-Napu_ Reflections on the Cynefin Framework

The Cynefin Framework is a tool that any leader or decision maker can add to their arsenal simply because it provides a guideline to what (if they did not know already) an understanding of how to approach certain situations and brings awareness on whether to seek assistance or not. Decision-making in multiple contexts provides the leader a breakdown of what is expected and the danger signals that come with each context within the Cynefin Frame work. An example would be with the Simple context, the word “Routine” would present itself in this case.

When I was a Platoon Leader in Afghanistan I was used to everything being doctrine and understood the policies in place for all of us to follow. I would sense, analyze, and respond (Snowden, 2007) and ensure all routine decisions were made in a timely manner. We had to create manifests daily and prepare one week out to ensure we have accurate passenger numbers, names, etc. So in this particular situation, we received our weekly report on where we were supposed to go, who we were going to take, and the time we will spend at a destination. Because everything had a “known knowns” feel, everything was routine.

There was one particular mission day where last minute requests for additional passengers were added without my knowledge. So the vehicles prepared simply were not enough, and the manpower scheduled for the escort of these individuals were less that what it should’ve been. The remedy to this was to simply notify the additional passengers they will not be going on the mission and would have to wait the next day at the latest. (Desire to make complex or complicated issues simple) However, there was a General Officer within the last minute request and this presented a complex situation for myself and my team. How do we accommodate the General and his staff? Snowden & Boone (2007) discuss that through the Simple Framework a leader will hit the autopilot button and because the “Known Knowns” are present there is no need to put any logic to a decision, because of that, the multiple context may become present. Meaning that a complex or complicated framework will be present and a simple frame work type decision will be made, which will lead to even more issues. So a Complex frame came to life and what I simply had done was explain there will be a delay until we figure out a solution. I gave the passengers (to include the General) a suspense of ten minutes to figure it out. I notified my commander and through deliberate discussion, we were able to spin up another team that was coming in from a previous mission to assist.

Another example would be when my staff and I recently purchased a new Cell Brite operating system, which is a device that can extract cell phone data. However, it had developed an issue, and no one can figure out what's causing it. I had a number of issues, I had to help my staff figure out this issue because its an expensive piece of equipment, our customers who rely on us to assist in their cases with high priority are now going to have be delayed on taking any action, and I had to provide awareness to my boss.  I see this as a "complicated," I had to use what Snowden & Boone (2007) discussed as using the Sense, Analyze, and Respond approach. Within the analyzing process, a specific case that labeled high precedence ended up going to court the next day. A sense of panic arose (Chaotic) because our device would assist in presenting a reasonable case in the evidence it could provide. This was bad for our image as a program, my staff was in a panic. What I essentially did was provide them an outdated device (which simply did the same thing, just outdated) and let the issue unfold itself. There was really nothing I could do but wait until we got our device fixed. The agency got what they needed from the cell phone and I was able to have our device serviced that same day. Which provided me some intellect into preparing for situations like this and being more prepared. To our defense it was a new system device and measures could have been in place, but we had to do with what we currently had.

Five ways that the Cynefin frame work can improve the context of my decision making is that it will provide balance, understanding, analyze, patience, and finally vision. It will provide me balance because it makes me understand that rushing to a decision (action) and waiting for a decision to present itself is what is needed to apply any domain within the framework. Understanding, it will allow me to understand what to classify my situations in. Understanding the situation and being able to plug it into the frame work it applies too. Analyze, which is needed for a couple of the framework domain such as complex and chaotic. Looking at old models of decision making, analyzing does not seem to play a factor into decisions. There seems to be no analytical decisions made in some of the old models and it was never to complexity that some issues may present itself.  Patience, it provides patience in the areas of complex and chaotic for example. We have to understand that sometimes we have to let things emerge before we come up with a decision. Then there is vision, the framework will allow for a vision to be in place because of the knowledge that if certain issues present itself I will be able to understand each issue and ensure that my vision requirements are met.

Reference:

Snowden, D. J., & Boone, M. E. (2007). A Leader's Framework for Decision Making. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2007/11/a-leaders-framework-for-decision-making

A632.8.4.RB - Cynefin Framework Reflection

A632.8.4.RB_Manglona, Matthew-Napu_ Cynefin Framework Reflection

The Cynefin Framework can provide me a systematic approach to my decision making. Within the Simple Framework, Snowden & Boone (2007) discuss that within a simple framework one must sense, categorize, and respond. Using this method will provide insight on the already “known knowns” of a situation. I have a soldier who has a different work shift that most of our team, the biggest concern I have is that he has to Physical Training (PT) on his own. I will not micromanage his PT program, I do however expect that he does it. We as a staff know that there are standards that need to be met and maintained. If he fails however, that is a reflection on me more importantly himself and puts his livelihood in jeopardy. In simple framework of (sense), my soldier is kind of not the best shape in the world and his work schedule prevents me from monitoring. Then to categorize, trusting that he will make the right decisions to PT on own. Finally respond, if he was to fail his PT test then I will have to make the decision of counseling him and giving his warning of potentially being let go.

In the complicated framework I can use is sense, analyze, and respond. If a certain situation came about where I would need additional outside help then I will analyze that requirement. If I was to run into that personnel issue of my soldier failing his PT test with red tape all over the matter (i.e. chances at a retake, physical profile, etc.)  I will have to seek more guidance from my personnel officer and human resource department on what I can and cannot do as a disciplinary decision not to exclude the recommendations by others who have been in my position before. Snowden & Boone (2007) stated “a leader must listen to the experts while simultaneously welcoming novel thoughts and solutions from others.” This can facilitate my decision making by understanding the

The Complex framework is probe, sense, and respond. Within this framework it easily will make a difficult conflict understood while looking for an answer moving forward. We know there is one answer, but it will be quite difficult to find all at once. This will framework as stated by Snowden (2010) the “reaction to a crisis is to get lots of different people together from lots of different backgrounds in a desperate hope that somebody will come up with the right solution.” Such as me just coming from my conference in D.C. where all my counterparts who play the same role as me from the other 53 states and territories can provide insight to a question about my program that no one (to include myself) can figure out at my level. It helps bring different insights or ideas on how certain situations can be handled based off their backgrounds and experience.

The chaotic framework is to act, sense, and respond. This framework can tie into the complacency of a simple framework into what Snowden (2010) stated as a “cliff” or symbolic “wave.” Where we start to believe that everything is simple and fail to realize value and limitations of good practice will definitely fall into the pit of a chaotic framework. This would provide an understanding that I have to act and respond to a situation where what works is best (at that moment in time) rather than finding the right answers. If a leader was to experience a chaotic framework with the constant practice of simple framework decisions, it will lead to even bigger issues moving forward.

References:

Snowden, D. J., (2010). The Cynefin Framework. YouTube. Accessed 2017 February 28. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7oz366X0

Snowden, D. J., & Boone, M. E. (2007). A Leader's Framework for Decision Making. (cover story). Harvard Business Review, 85(11), 68-76.