What would be most useful in planning an expedition to the summit, a map of the mountain or a preliminary visit - Essay Example

Note that the word used was “statement” and not “problem”, because using the latter might invite elaborate problem-solving activities, which may not be necessary for making the best decision. This was the contention of Starbuck (1983) that organizations should be problem solvers. Having this kind of perspective, one will perceive the above statement to be a problem that justifies the problem-solving model. It is not yet in the action-generating mode, because the expedition is still in the planning stage, but nevertheless could also be taken as an action-generating trigger.

While this perspective is pervasive among organizations who would justify their relevance by interpreting events (such as the question posed) as a problem that needs to be solved or acted upon, this mindset is problematic. This model of Starbuck will murk the issue of merely identifying the most useful in planning an expedition, because Starbuck’s model of problem-solving may lead to busy work whereby exercises are performed for the sake of solving the perceived problem. This is no different from the actors in an organization who bloat events into a problem to justify their existence; they create bureaucracy after bureaucracy to satisfy the need to act or to solve any event that is interpreted as a problem and thus is not an ideal model for responding to the statement.

Equally problematic to the approach of Starbuck is Weick’s dependency to technology in solving any given proposition. Data provided in their cryptic representations were taken as if they were absolute truths when they themselves are imperfect and incomplete. Weick elaborated that these data are flawed for two reasons; first, these data does not have the sensory information such as “feelings, intuitions, and context” (52), all of which are critical in accurate assessment of a situation. Second, data provided by machines cannot speak in qualitative terms such as “metaphors, corporate culture, archetypes, myths, history”(52).

Without these inputs in the information that we are going to factor in our decision making, we are rendered handicapped because it would be impossible for us accurately diagnose and address any issue that we will confront (1985). In the statement that this paper is trying to resolve whether “what would be most useful in planning an expedition to the summit?” Relying on information provided by machine as enunciated in the paper of Weick will render us incapacitated to make a sound decision because there is no way that a computer could relate the sensory nuances of climbing the summit that would make us a better judge which of the two options presented would be more appropriate.

Bazerman and Moore’s article about “Bounded Awareness” provided an interesting perspective on how our filtering reflexes can lead to an erroneous interpretation of an issue, thus making an incorrect decision. Due to excessive information available about a certain issue or event, we tend to ignore some information which could have been equally important. We make assumptions to fit problems into our defined space during our decision-making process, and these assumptions are our prejudices, biases, and preconceived notions that could impair the result of the decision (Starbuck, 1983).

Yet, even as Bazerman and Moore defined how the filtering of bounded awareness limits good decision-making, the study still did not provide