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Some lateral thinking - response to EJansen@nps.navy.mil

  • 1.  Some lateral thinking - response to EJansen@nps.navy.mil

    Posted 11-11-2003 19:13
    Hi, Erik

    I am afraid I cannot really respond to your erudite suggestions and comments
    except to suggest that you read my responses to others who seem to have come
    from a similar place as you.

    However, I am familiar with some of the views of Freud, Skinner and Weick,
    and the literature on Decision Traps and to me all of that is just as
    descriptive as most of the other materials in the current literature - neither these
    views nor the decision traps provide an integrated comprehensive, actionable
    system for making better decisions. Yes, remembering the decision traps can
    possibly help someone avoid them - but they do not provide guidelines on how to
    make high-quality decisions. Knowing what NOT do do (even someone who really
    remembers all of them) is not the same as learning what YES to do.

    I hope this helps to clarify - my perspective is on the responsibility of the
    management education establishment to provide learners with something they
    can learn, practice, and apply so they will be more competent as managers and
    leaders. Becoming steeped in the writings you mention goes only a short way
    toward that goal. Letting them take the translating step from theories to
    guidelines is not fair - it seems there is little in the literature that does that
    effectively and if we, the instructors and thinkers don't or can't do it, then
    how can we expect students to do it?

    I hope that helps to clarify what I have been saying.

    Regards,

    Cheers,

    Erwin (Rausch) didacticra@aol.com  and erausch@kean.edu