Influence and Strategy
Introduction:
Making decisions forms an essential part of our
daily lives. Our decisions can range from the
more trivial, selecting the news story to read
through to the more ‘wicked decisions’
surrounding the complexity of life. Decision-
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ANUSHA CLOASGUOLUAT 10
surrounding the complexity of life. Decisionmaking
involves choice. These choices may be
carried out quickly, or in a more studied way
according to the individual’s mood, degree of
stress, or level of mental load/overload.
Decisions are made collaboratively through
group process or forged individually through
competitive in!uence. Our decisions are
generally made tacitly, below the conscious and
without our awareness using our feelings or
experiences with similar environments.
Our subconscious processes can sometimes
lead to errors of judgement and poor decisions.
For example, learned experience may cause us
to disregard the importance of an issue or event
so that we are surprised when the things are
changed. We drive a car often oblivious to the
events outside the unchanging scenery, until
something intrudes, and we are forced to act on
the changed situation.
Narrowness of perception or tunnel vision can
cause us to assign more weight to certain
events/information or to pay greater attention
to other’s arguments in our forming judgements
and making decisions. Such processes can lead
to blind spots in decision making and prevent a
balanced weighing of interests. Practically every
organisation and level of management have
blind spots.
Decisions can be better balanced when
information on potential risks, uncertainties and
possible options are accessible to the decision
maker, when enough time is available to
consider possible tunnel vision and biasing and
consider possible tunnel vision and biasing and
error e”ects on judgement formation are
understood and acted on. High quality decision
making requires di”erent viewpoints to be
explored, varying options to be considered,
potential outcomes discussed, and central
issues questioned thoroughly so that decisions
can be made in a balanced way.
Dii”errenccess iin Decciissiionss
It can be useful to di”erentiate between the
di”erent types of decisions we are involved with
on an everyday basis. The below matrix can help
identify di”erences between decisions
according to the degree of control held over
those decisions and criteria of decision
performance.
Adapted from Rozenwig, P. (2013). What Makes
Strategic Decisions Di”erent. Harvard Business
Review. November Issue.
Review. November Issue.
Compettiittiivve decciissiionss: May be made based
on a zero-sum approach, or I win, and you lose,
while I compete with you to gain advantage in
the transaction. Decisions may be based on
di”erent power stances or based on advantage
gained through resource availability but seek to
gain competitive advantage.
Decciissiionss tthatt iin!uencce Outtccomess:
Strategic level decisions typically fall into this
category as they carry a greater potential over
operational decisions for in!uence over others’
behavior. In!uence may load on changes to
people or to events, but results are in the
direction of change, intended or unintended.
Decisions are a function of high control and
often low performance
Makkiing jjudgementtss: The making of
judgements is often based on established
perceptions with the decisions !owing from
these judgements typically in the direction of
the mindsets of those forming the judgements.
Judgement making can be related to
interpretation of information and form a
substantial limitation to innovative decision
making as we tend to be bound by our
experiences, thereby limiting our judgements,
and in turn, our low performance in much of
our decision making.
Strategic decisions fall into the fourth #eld. This
eld, Managing for Strategic Success might
include strategic level decisions such as entering
a new market, creating a strategic alliance, or
producing and release a new product line.
Decision making in this #eld requires skills in
information analytics allowing the decision
maker to push beyond established boundaries
by moving into the ‘what if realm’ and will be the
focus of the following discussion.
Sttrrattegiicc Decciissiion Makkiing
Strategic decisions are often framed and
implemented in a top down process by the
business leader or senior management team.
Strategic decision making, generally refers to
longer term decisions made by the business
leader or senior managers and are based on a
scanning, sensemaking and interpretation of
environmental issues. Deliberations and
decisions made by the strategic team articulate
the challenges confronting the enterprise and
develop strategies to overcome these
challenges that are aligned with the
organisations’ workforce and processes.
A strategic decision once made, is often di$cult
to reverse after human and #nancial resources
have been committed. The full range of factors
relevant to strategic decision making is seldom
fully known, at least to any individual or
manager in the organisation as the strategic
decision-making process is created
collaboratively by being explored and discussed
with others.
Strategic decisions can be far reaching, carry
high level consequences for the organization,
typically involve the commitment of vast
resources, have longer time frames and
resources, have longer time frames and
potentially signi#cant opportunity costs.
Strategic decisions should be made within the
context of a long-term view or vision of both the
desired end-state and undesired end states
brought about by the planned course of action.
Strategic decisions are often made under
conditions of uncertainty, particularly where the
organisation faces a dynamic and volatile
strategic environment. Initial assumptions about
the environment and other players may often
be incorrect or indeed, incomplete.
The acronym often used for strategic decisionmaking
is VUCA. This term helps describe the
di”erent environmental issue and qualities
included in the forming of strategic decisions.
V – VOLATILITY
U – UNCERTAINTY
C – COMPLEXITY
A – AMBIGUITY
Strategic decisions share the following VUCA like
characteristics:
Drawn from analysis of highly variable
environments
Are largely intuitive and therefore can be
di$cult to de#ne precisely
Rarely have one best solution, but often a
series of possible solutions
Bene#ts are di$cult to assess as they lack
a clear end against which e”ectiveness
can be judged
Solution states contain high levels of
Solution states contain high levels of
ambiguity and uncertainty
Are formed by competing interests
between key players who can use political
pressure to ensure choices align with
their preferences.
The strategic decision-making process to be
successful, should ensure stakeholders’
competing views are listened to and priorities
considered. Importantly, the process must
ensure reasonable levels of agreement or
consensus are reached on the intended endgoals
and commitments made on established
courses of action. Without widespread
acceptance of goals there can be little hope of
success in implementing strategic decisions
e”ectively.
Strategic analysis allows the enterprise to assess
their internal and external environments,
identify factors undergoing change and use that
information to intuit the likely future impact of
change on the enterprise. Strategic decisions to
be e”ective need to be based on a sound
understanding of the likely outcomes stemming
from anticipated changes to the environment.
Sttrrattegiicc decciissiion–makkiing prroccessssess
Adapted from Nutt, PC, & Wilson, DC (eds) 2010,
Handbook of Decision Making.
Essential Resources:
Caldwell. L. (2018). Introducing
System 3: How we use our
Imagination to Make Choices.
GreenBook Blog. Retrieved from
https://greenbookblog.org/2018/04/24/introducingsystem-
3-how-we-use-our-imagination-tomake-
choices/
In recent years, we’ve become used to
thinking about decisions as “system 1” or
“system 2”. System 1 choices are
automatic decisions, made without
thinking, based on an immediate
emotional or sensory reaction. System 2 is
used to stop and rationally calculate the
consequences of our choices and
determine the best cost-bene#t trade-o”.
However, these two processes do not
capture every decision. Indeed, they might
only encompass a minority of our daily
choices and we need a System 3.
AFM. (2007). Balanced Decision
Making: Dealing with Blind
Spots. A study with
Management Boards of Small and
Medium Sized Banks
Decision-making is in!uenced by
subconscious processes that can lead to
errors of judgement in the decisionmaking
process. For example, previous
experience with an issue may cause one
to regard this issue more positively or
negatively. Alternatively, tunnel vision can
occur causing one to assign more weight
to certain arguments than others. Such
processes lead to blind spots in the
decision-making and prevent a balanced
weighing of interests. Practically every
organisation and management board
have their own blind spots.
Fernandes, T (2008). Strategic
Leadership and Decision Making
1, Global Media, Delhi. Available
from: ProQuest eBook Central. Copyright
© 2008. Global Media. All rights reserved.
Strategic decisions are far-reaching and
consequential for the organization and
typically involve the commitment of vast
resources. They play out over long periods
and have signi#cant opportunity costs.
Strategic decisions should be made within
the context of a long-term view or vision,
of both the desired end-state and
potentially undesired end-states brought
about by the contemplated course of
action.
Nutt, PC, & Wilson, DC. (2010).
Handbook of Decision Making,
John Wiley & Sons,
Incorporated, Hoboken. Available from:
ProQuest eBook Central. Chapter One.
Strategic decisions can be considered
large, expensive, and precedent setting
producing ambiguity about how to #nd a
solution and uncertainty in the solution’s
outcomes. Once implemented, a strategic
decision stipulates premises that guide
operational decisions that follow. A
strategic decision is often di$cult to
reverse once human and #nancial
resources have been committed to their
cause.
University of Maryland
(2017).What is strategic decision
making? Master of Professional
Studies in Technology Entrepreneurship.
YouTube. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=GXa2Lr10P8c
The video cites the rational decision
process as being common to all decision
making and goes on to talk about the
cognitive components of strategic
decisions. The case covered in the video is
decisions. The case covered in the video is
the Amazon organization.
Blumentritt, T. (2015). Strategic
Decision Making. YouTube.
Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=quQuZy6mh_8
Outlines the role of individuals or small
groups of people in the shaping of
strategic decisions. The impact of the few
on the many can be quite enormous as
strategic decision making can shape the
future of organisations and nation states.
Learning Activities
Learning activities are not part of
summative/graded assessment; however, they
are designed to prepare you for incremental
graded assessment and expand your learning.
These activities encourage a community
learning experience between peers, and provide
opportunities for facilitators to o”er formative
feedback, throughout a module, to the student
cohort. Students should spend 1-2 hours per
module on learning activities.
LLearrniing Exxerrcciisse 5..3
Decciissiion Makkiing
Review the resources above.
- Describe a major decision you have
made over the past month. - What processes and tools did you
use to make the decision? - Did you identify any invisible
in!uences, bias or blind spots? How
did you deal with those? - Describe a situation at work where
your decision making has been
shaped by another person. How
were you guided or in!uenced by
them?
Record your responses in Discussion
Forum 5.3.
To participate in the Discussion
Forum, click here to scroll to the
bottom of this page then click on the
“Moodduullee 55 — Diissccuussssiioonn FFoorruum” link.
LLearrniing Exxerrcciisse 5..4::
Sttrrattegiicc Decciissiion Makkiing
Review the resources above. - What are the essential steps in the
strategic decision-making process? - What are di”erences between
strategic and operational decisions? - Once strategic planning is
completed and implemented, how
reversible might the strategic
decision process be? - How might strategic decisions deal
with competing vested interests? - What models or tools could you use
- What models or tools could you use
in your workplace for optimal
decision-making processes?
Record your responses in Discussion
forum 5.4.
To participate in the Discussion
Forum, click here to scroll to the
bottom of this page then click on the
“Moodduullee 55 — Diissccuussssiioonn FFoorruum” link.
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