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“Information technology experts didn’t cause the current economic downturn, but they certainly made it worse” states David Moschella in CSCs Leading Edge Forum, as complex economic models where implemented and followed blindly as a decision tool.

Big multinational companies use performance reviews with scoring system supported by IT as an “objective” measurement to scale employees performance through a year in an effort to “motivate” and “find improvement  areas”.

Consultant secure their advices based on “trustworthy” sources of information like Gartner or Forrester reports, academic research or previous experience. “You won’t get fired if you choose IBM” is a well defined saying.

All these cases have one thing in common: a quest to objectify decision making and thus remove responsibility from decision makers (cover their backs in the name of objectivity). My question is this: what happened to subjectivity, good leaders and on-the-spot decision making?

Norwegian special forces on the ground on Afghanistan have a clear Rules of Engagement in Combat. The ROE tells them what and when they can and cannot attack. However, when it comes to a tactical decision on the ground the operators decision is law, meaning the operator can reject orders if his view of the decision tells him to. This system is in place because of the belief that an operator on the spot has better tactical awareness of the situation than any distant commander.

When a line manager is enforced to do performance reviews with an employee, he/she must set aside their personal emotions and intuition in the name of objectivity and put their sole trust on a system created in a lab. Together with the employee they give a score based on the work that has been completed through the year. However, if the line manager has a perception, an intuitive feeling that this objective performance review isn’t covering the whole picture it’s likely to be disregarded.

Stock brokers and financial decision makers are bound to optimize their decision process, putting their faith in a system that apparently, in the aftermath, prooves to be flawed. It helps them little to say “we just followed the model… it’s not my fault!”.

Thing is, what matters here is the end result. Getting there depends on a series of decisions. As seducing as the thought may be, models will never cover the whole picture - a model is a simplification of the world. Trust models to be a handy tool if applied correctly but don’t use models as a decision maker.

History shows that the best decision makers are good leaders who can assess the situation and make a decision based on their internal - subjective - value system. Making a subjective decision is also something that generates buy-in and commitment from the leader, thus more likely to be followed through. Objective decisions will never replace this psychologic motivational power.

Don’t be afraid to apply own judgement to decisions. If the decision is not clear or forming it’s most likely because of lack of situational awareness. However, in many cases (for instance with time constraints) you may not be able to get the full situational picture, but a decision must nevertheless be made. This is where intuition comes in and helps leaders to form a bigger picture than what they instantly see. An objective model fed with too few parameters will not compute a trustworthy result.
Any succesfull organization is better of by motivating their leaders followed by faith and trust in their abilities as decision makers, rather than a silly quest for the objective decision-making model.