According to a survey conducted in 2015, even though almost 80% of Americans consider themselves patient, a vast majority of them behave in ways that display incredible impatience. For example, 96% of Americans will consume food/drink that they know is hot enough to burn them rather than wait for it to cool. Additionally, 71% frequently exceed the speed limit and more than 50% won’t wait on hold for more than one minute.
words
Oxymoron
An oxymoron is a contradiction in terms, such as “cruel kindness”. For Americans, “a decision making process” is in many ways an oxymoron.
Processes can offer structure, consistency, overview, monitoring. At best they can support the creation of decision options. In the end, decisions are people-driven. Drawing on personal and professional experience, intuition and judgement, a person or a group of persons makes the decision.
Americans are skeptical of decision making processes, especially when they attempt to substitute them for people. Processes have neither experience, nor intuition nor judgement.
People Driven
Americans are skeptical of business processes that attempt to replace human judgment. They believe that decision-making is inherently human. Drawing on personal and professional experience, intuition and judgment, a person or a group of persons makes the decision. Processes have neither experience, nor intuition nor judgment.
Analysis defines the situation, the options, their respective risks and benefits. Experience informs about how the situation could/should be dealt with. And intuition influences the decision.
Decision: A conclusion or resolution reached after consideration; the action or process of deciding something or of resolving a question; a formal judgment; the ability or tendency to make decisions quickly; decisiveness. From Latin decidere “determine”.
Analysis: Detailed examination of the elements or structure of something, typically as a basis for discussion or interpretation; the process of separating something into its constituent elements; the identification and measurement of the chemical constituents of a substance or specimen.
Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism was an American philosophical movement that began in the early 19th century. Transcendentalists emphasized individualism, self-reliance, and avoiding conformity.
Many of the transcendentalists’ suggestions for how to live life were based on the assumption of readily-available resources, and especially on the idea that one shouldn’t be too careful about wasting resources, because often good things come out of failure.
“Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”
“Hitch your wagon to a star.”
“It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, ‘Always do what you are afraid to do.’”
“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
Henry David Thoreau:
“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.”
“Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.”
“This world is but a canvas to our imagination.”
Amos Bronson Alcott:
“We climb to heaven most often on the ruins of our cherished plans, finding our failures were successes.”
WBS
WBS stands for work breakdown structure. Wikipedia defines it as: „A hierarchical and incremental decomposition of the project into phases, deliverables and work packages. It is a tree structure, which shows a subdivision of effort required to achieve an objective; for example a program, project, and contract.
In a project, the WBS is developed by starting with the end objective and successively subdividing it into manageable components in terms of size, duration, and responsibility (e.g., systems, subsystems, components, tasks, subtasks, and work packages) which include all steps necessary to achieve the objective.“
Wikipedia goes on to claim that WBS was developed by the United States Department of Defense and was introduced by the U.S. Navy in 1957 to support the development of the Polaris missile program.
Breaking down complexity into its component parts in order to focus on what is truly critical is hardly a development of any human organization of the 20th Century. Surely it is has been fundamental to human thinking for quite some time.
“philosophical“
philosophical: of, relating to, or based on philosophy; having a calm attitude toward a difficult or unpleasant situation; characterized by the attitude of a philosopher; calm or unflinching in the face of trouble, defeat, or loss.
„They got into a philosophical debate about what it means for something to be natural.“ And „He’s trying to be philosophical about their decision since he knows he can’t change it.“ First known use 14th century.
Synonyms: abstract, logical, metaphysical, profound, rational, thoughtful. Also: calm, composed, deep, learned, resigned, stoic, serene, temperate. (MerriamWebster)
Being philosophical in the American context if often considered to be detached, abstract, impractical, unpragmatic, even arrogant.
Mentor
Mentor: A trusted counselor or guide; tutor, coach; from Greek Mentōr. First known use 1616. Mentoring has become popular within American, and other, companies. It asks an experienced senior-level colleague to provide advice to a less experienced, junior-level colleague. American managers will seek advice wherever they can find it, as long as it is sound, helpful, and most importantly discreet.
Insubordination
Discipline: Punishment; a field of study; training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character; control gained by enforcing bedience or order; orderly or prescribed conduct or pattern of behavior; a rule or system of rules governing conduct or activity. From Latin disciplina teaching, learning, from discipulus pupil. First known use 13th century.
Cohesion: The act or state of sticking together tightly; union between similar plant parts or organs; molecular attraction by which the particles of a body are united throughout the mass; Latin cohaesus, past participle of cohaerēre. First known use 1660.
Subordination: Subordination: Placed in or occupying a lower class, rank, or position, inferior; submissive to or controlled by authority. Middle English subordinat, from Medieval Latin subordinatus, from Latin sub- + ordinare to order. First known use 15th century.
Insubordination: Disobedient to authority. First known use 1828.
Insurrection: An act or instance of revolting against civil authority or an established government; Middle English insureccion, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin insurrection-, insurrectio, from insurgere. First knownuse 15th century.
Rebellion: Opposition to one in authority or dominance; open, armed, and usually unsuccessful defiance of or resistance to an established government; an instance of such defiance or resistance. First known use 14th century.
Mutiny: Forcible or passive resistance to lawful authority; concerted revolt against discipline or a superior officer. From Latin movēre to move. First known use 1540.
Analysis and Intuition
Good decision making in the American context means a healthy balance between objective analysis and intuition.
Intuition: The ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning; a thing that one knows or considers likely from instinctive feeling rather than conscious reasoning. Late Middle English denoting spiritual insight or immediate spiritual communication. Latin intueri, to consider.
Empiricism. Observation. For Americans, intuition is experience-based knowledge, called on immediately. Intuition is more than a spontaneous thought, a “gut reaction”, a hunch. Americans trust the judgement of the experienced, the wise, of those “who have been there”.
But not to the exclusion of objective analysis. Americans are constantly coming up with new ways to quantify what is deeply human, what in its essence cannot be quantified. It’s a question of balance. When to go with the objective analysis, when with intuition? Can they be combined?
Star Trek. A brilliant television series. Late 1960s. Deeply human, created with little frills, eye-candy, special effects. Instead it tapped into the human imagination, the greatest source of special effects. Kirk is intuition. Spock is reason. Tension between the two. But it worked.
“Lead, don‘t moderate“
Consensus: General agreement, unanimity, judgment arrived at by most of those concerned; group solidarity in sentiment and belief. From Latin consentire, cōnsēnsus agreement, from cōnsentiō meaning literally feel together.
For Americans, businesses, and therefore the teams within them, are not democracies. American team leads do not feel obligated to reach consensus within their leadership group in order to set strategy or to make a decision. Both sides of the relationship – leaders and led – are in agreement that the lead is paid to set strategy, make decisions, not to be a moderator.
Team members, as specialist in their areas, want and expect to be listened to. They want their input to have impact on the decision to be made, the strategy to be set. But they will and can not insist, without possibly damaging their working relationship with the team lead.
Decisive: having the power or quality of deciding; resolute, determined; unmistakable, unquestionable. Synonyms: firm, intent, purposeful, resolved, set, single-minded, do-or-die, hell-bent.