… and right after the McKinsey survey, HBR has an article by Andrew Campbell, Jo Whitehead (Ashridge) and Sydney Finkelstein (Dartmouth) on neuroscience revelations about how leaders’ judgment gets distorted. It seems we have systematic biases, then land on initial conclusions we are reluctant to change, and the article offers a ‘red flag’ process for guarding against the dangers.
McKinsey asked senior managers in companies that made good and bad decisions about their decision-making processes: who was involved, what drove the decisions, the analysis done, role of politics etc. Good to hear that hard benefits – like profits! – featured in successful decision-making disciplines. Article. More support for evidence-based management I guess.
I realise I’ve focused on what McKinsey has had to say on the downturn, and especially on the failure to warn of the subprime nonsense, so thought I should check out the other big consulting firms. Not so easy, as they mostly don’t publish their own views quite so firmly or accessibly as happens with the McK Quarterly.
Why am I banging on about this? If those advisors had been urging caution when it was obvious trouble could be building, and their clients had listened and acted, then much of the over-commitment that made the boom-to-bust so serious would never have occurred. What, for example, would have happened had these firms all blown the whistle on the subprime bubble early in 2006? The world might have been a very different and happier place than it now is. So what did the consultants have to say on this and the impending downturn generally?
Central to the principles of strategy dynamics is knowing how quickly resources are being won and lost. This is easy enough for most – you know when you close capacity, hire or lose staff, or discontinue products – but can be surprisingly tricky with customers. You would imagine that banks or telecoms firms, for example, know exactly when a customer is lost because that’s when they close their account – not so! Continue reading »
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I’ve blogged on Starbucks before, but just seen their results for y/e Sep08, with sales up $9.4>10.4bn but profits down $1.1>0.5bn. A pity, but what are they doing about it? Continue reading »
