Conscious and Unconscious Decision-making

Influence of Consciousness in Decision Making
srinivas, Lecturer, India, Member
I agree that the consciousness has a key role in making a decision. It is recorded in ancient wisdom if one is conscious of 23 factors like sleep, hunger, reflection, will etc of human beings then the decisions that are taken lead to success.

The 80/20 of Decision Making
Nancy Apat Comedoy, Manager, United Arab Emirates, Member
Decision making by and large is a mix of 80% cognitive process and 20% affective process whether or not the decision is about organizational change, job change, or any personal related issues.
It is important that the person making the decision feels good about the decision made, and is ready to face the consequences if the decision made does not turnout favorable.
I think the quality of a decision made also reflects the individual's level of maturity, both mentally and emotionally.

Expectations and Hunches in Decision-making
Arif ur Rehman, Professor, Pakistan, Member
As a senior professor I have come ‘to see’ that my best lessons are delivered when I keep in mind the culture, the attributes, the needs, the demands and expectations of my students, and then align my delivery accordingly. This is fundamentally effective decision making.
Prediction may often be needed for tomorrow’s unexpected demands. Virtually some 80% decisions to meet such situations by top management are based on ‘hunches.’ and 90% of these hunches are correct!

Conscious and Unconscious Decision-making
Zeb O. WATURUOCHA, Management Consultant, India, Member
Decision making is choosing between alternatives and one requires presence of mind to do this. The process opens all the possible choices and consciousnes and/or unconsciousness enables the choice making. Attributions and excuses become the denial tools rather than one admitting that he/she has consciously or unconsciously made a wong decision. Alternatives are clear, it is the state of mind that guides the choice.

The Role of Experience in Conscious and Unconscious Decisions
Wulf-Dieter Krueger, Teacher, Thailand, Member
I agree with John here, however, decisions are also made on the basis of experience 'learnt' from previous decisions that worked and those that failed - they might be made instinctively or consciously.

From Rationality to Contingency to Doability
Arif ur Rehman, Professor, Pakistan, Member
Normally we talk of rational decision making – based on objective evaluation of available options and their consequences, leading to a choice that is made on evaluation alone.
But March holds “…management requires tolerance of the idea that the meaning of yesterday’s action will be discovered in the experiences and interpretations of today…” but rationality demands doing what is appropriate rather than what is rational. Sometimes the decisions are contingent on factors that have nothing to do with the decision itself. To get out of the fix, March provides a formula:
1. Presenting and justifying their viewpoints to their peers.
2. Distributing credit or blame for what has occurred.
3. Reaffirming loyalties and friendships
4. Socialising!

Conscious and Unconscious Decisions
John Troughton, Sustainable Business Management, Australia, Member
@Wulf-Dieter Krueger: Wulf, I agree as the model, not possible to show here, has a feedback loop which is the fact that people do judge their own actions (as well as other people) and this feeds back into the memory and decision making process. This feedback loop is important.
@Arif: I agree that the outcome of a decision in our model is an "action" which is observable and can be subject to evaluation. Management is basically action management.

The Decision Making Process is Essentially an Evolutionary Process
srinivas, Lecturer, India, Member
It's a proven fact that decisions are governed by the subconscious mind. Even if one is able to come out of the grip of ones own subconscious mind, then it is still an evolutionary process where there is a need to consciously respect the factors that are influencing the decisions, such as: awareness, hunger, intelligence, reflection etc of self and others involved in the decision making process.
Thereby we can say that decision making process is essentially an evolutionary process where we constantly learn new ways of approaches. And by applying them we unlearn some of the non-essential things.

Conscious and Unconscious Decisions
Adonis, Business Consultant, France, Member
The acceptance of this kind of categorization "conscious / unconscious" implicates the ability to have tools you can trust for fast evaluation of what is an unconscious source of decision elements.
It's why we select in a first methodological step every rational data. When the decision is collective, the case is more complex. It's not right to talk about decision making when you collect just feelings and you merge with data.
This rate of non-evaluated unconscious elements is more acceptable for fashion domain or art, and when participants in the decision have a long experience in change and tenders.
Otherwise, when you have to justify the decision or re-use-it in the future, you need to interpret and model or formalise any feeling or unconscious believe which pushes you to opt for a certain option.

Individual and Group Decisions and Consciousness / Unconsciousness
Wulf-Dieter Krueger, Teacher, Thailand, Member
Through somewhat dated simulations (desert survival/tashi/moon landing) we know anyway that group decisions are to be preferred over individual decisions.
Individual decisions at times lean more towards unconscious. Through brainstorming and Mind Mapping in a team lots of unconscious decisions become conscious as the individual is required to rationale his/her decision/idea.
The end-product - the group's decision - eventually is a conscious decision arrived at.

Decisions - Conscious and Unconscious
Arif ur Rehman, Professor, Pakistan, Member
@Adon, is: I'd like to comment on your view '... formalize any feeling or unconscious believe ...' that these cannot be formalized, for feelings and believes are intangible and therefore can't be modeled.

Approach the Study of Unconscious Decisions Through Complexity
Adonis, Business Consultant, France, Member
@Arif ur Rehman: I recognise this difficulty which is intrinsic to unidentifiable elements. In some areas we started to produce small models of unconscious behavior. However, unconscious decisions are faster and there are obvious benefit to count with. Just I mean that there is difference between complex and unidentifiable feelings and complexity may be approached.

Decision Making is Complex So Requires Complex Models
John Troughton, Sustainable Business Management, Australia, Member
Decision making is exceedingly complex, even for the individual, and even more so with the cyber brain which now increases the dimensions of decision making because of the trillions of additional inputs/information available.
But equally the capacity, speed, reliability and integrity of robotic knowledge systems available in real time to any site no matter where the individual is ensures that it is potentially "manageable" for conscious decision making.
Anywhere, anytime sensor, information and knowledge input is critical to help individuals making the right decision, in the right time frame and right first and every time.
This does not guarantee decisions are right, watch any top sports match.

Experience & Decision Making
Arif ur Rehman, Professor, Pakistan, Member
There was a dialogue between a young, junior level manager and the CEO.
‘And Sir, how do you make right decisions in these turbulent times?’ asked the young cadre.
‘Easy! With experience! I make the right decision,’ came the immediate response.
‘And if it’s the wrong decision, then?’
‘Easy!’ replied the CEO. ’Experience again! I then make an even better decision!’
Experience counts!

Experience and Decision Making
John Troughton, Sustainable Business Management, Australia, Member
@Arif ur Rehman: Hi Arif, great comment. I am not sure if all decisions/actions are all right (with degrees from 0-100% right) or all wrong (with degrees of 0-100% wrong) but experience counts for sure.
The brain codes all decisions, but recodes them as a result of an action or new knowledge. This (experience) provides the "frame" for the next decision/action, which will be closer to 100% right, but provides yet another "experience" to learn from and reframe or recode. All very obvious really.