{"id":506,"date":"2011-09-14T00:10:50","date_gmt":"2011-09-14T00:10:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/systemsthink.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=506"},"modified":"2025-06-23T22:38:05","modified_gmt":"2025-06-23T22:38:05","slug":"time-to-make-a-decision-redux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/systemsthink.co.uk\/wordpress\/time-to-make-a-decision-redux\/","title":{"rendered":"Time To Make A Decision Redux"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It is always difficult to determine in advance what things that we say (or don\u2019t say), what things we do (or don\u2019t do) will have the most effect \u2013 and that is leaving aside the fact that a significant number of effects we will never be aware of at all.\u00a0 I have written a lot of things in notes, emails, letters and it is sometimes surprising how they come back later to surprise me!<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->I remember one time giving a paper at a conference which had a \u2013 very brief \u2013 section at the end which illustrated one of the many points I was making during the paper.\u00a0 It was, almost, a \u2018throwaway\u2019 to show practical applicability of a relatively theoretical paper.\u00a0 It was a real surprise when it came to question time that almost all of the questions were related to trying to get more detail about this throwaway example.\u00a0 (so much so that the following year I came back to the conference with a paper built entirely round that single point)<\/p>\n<p>Equally surprising was the impact of a three page technical note I produced almost twenty years ago which was seen as a very important step forward in the research that we were doing then.\u00a0 The title of the note was \u201cTime to Make a Decision\u201d (which itself was a play on words as we were progressing through the research without necessarily making progress!) and the theme was that there are differing ways of dealing with decision making depending on how much time is available to make that decision.<\/p>\n<p>Last week on LinkedIn there was a discussion started on \u201cWhat times characterise human systems?\u201d.\u00a0 It was said that<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>\u2026it became clear sometimes there is little time for too much system thinking because the external system is moving too quickly<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Now this I would disagree with \u2013 but perhaps only if we take the sentence literally \u2013 there is probably no instances of \u201ctoo much\u201d systems thinking \u2013 except in that sometimes there isn\u2019t enough time to do enough and when you are out of time I guess you have done too much.<\/p>\n<p>In the original paper I posited four time frames which were characterised by the way in which decisions were made.\u00a0 They were<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Instinctive<\/li>\n<li>Reactive<\/li>\n<li>Tactical<\/li>\n<li>Strategic<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If I were to make a commentary on that today I would stress that these are not mutually exclusive and nor is it possible to draw a hard and fast line between them.\u00a0 Equally, I would stress that separating them into \u2018four\u2019 is not the only way to do it.\u00a0 It is, however, what I did at the time.<\/p>\n<p>So, what characterises the time frames?<\/p>\n<p>In the\u00a0<strong>Instinctive\u00a0<\/strong>mode everything is done and decisions are made automatically.\u00a0 There is no time to reflect on the process or consider options (although, of course, later you may wish to reflect on your chosen courses of action to see whether your instincts can be trusted).\u00a0 Decisions must be made immediately because although there are quick decisions that are right and quick decisions that are wrong \u2013 all slow decisions will be wrong.\u00a0 The decision maker will have pre-programmed responses to situations and must rely on his training\/experience to have honed his instincts.<\/p>\n<p>In the\u00a0<strong>Reactive\u00a0<\/strong>mode the decision maker does have some time available.\u00a0 However, the time pressures are still such that the number of options to be considered must be small and relevant to the context.\u00a0 Often there will exist a number of predefined series of actions to be carried out based on the decision made.\u00a0 Unlike the instinctive mode, reactive must continue to monitor the effects on the context that these actions are having because there may still be time to change the nature of the response.<\/p>\n<p>In the\u00a0<strong>Tactical\u00a0<\/strong>mode the decision maker has sufficient time to make a considered evaluation of the options and to arrive at a more balanced judgement of how to maximise the effectiveness of the response.<\/p>\n<p>The difference in the\u00a0<strong>Strategic\u00a0<\/strong>mode (to my mind) is that now the decision make has stopped \u2018just\u2019 responding and has the opportunity to try to control events.<\/p>\n<p>Now, returning to the LinkedIn discussion, the only way there is \u201ctoo much\u201d systems thinking is when it cannot be done within the \u201ctime to make a decision\u201d.\u00a0 I would certainly not go along with the idea that \u2013 even in the instinctive mode \u2013 there is no systems thinking.\u00a0 Unless you have a good grasp of the situation and the likely effects of your actions you will not be able to respond instinctively \u2013 so the systems thinking is embodied in your training and your experience \u2013 not necessarily in the moment of the decision making.<\/p>\n<p>One of the underlying tenets of systems thinking is an understanding that you need to have a real grasp not only of \u201chow the world is\u201d but also \u201chow the world will be after the intervention\u201d.\u00a0 Whatever you do\u00a0<strong>WILL\u00a0<\/strong>change the world in some way and any action resulting from a decision will have to play out in the context of the changed world \u2013 not how the world is now.\u00a0 For this reason it is essential that systems thinking (although not too much!!) is embedded \u2013 regardless of how quickly the external system is moving \u2013 in fact because the external system is moving.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, as we move away from instantaneous, instinctive responses and give ourselves more time and scope for the decision so we require more understanding of the changes in the \u2018external system\u2019.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because the amount of uncertainty involved in visualising the world into which the intervention will be made will have hugely increased.\u00a0 This can be simply illustrated.<\/p>\n<p>We all have a fascination for the weather and there is no doubt that weather forecasting has improved enormously as technology has become available to assist the forecaster.\u00a0 However, regardless of the sophistication of the technology, it is impossible to be 100% accurate with forecasts.<\/p>\n<p>I look out of the window now and I can see that it is dry and cloudy \u2013 if I walk across to the canteen the Instinctive decision is to not bother with a jacket.\u00a0 However, the reactive decision has to be based on whether I believe that it will still be dry when I walk back!\u00a0 I\u00a0<strong>CANNOT\u00a0<\/strong>know that for certain, although based on what I can see and the likely time frame of the visit I can make an informed decision \u2013 albeit with some uncertainty.<\/p>\n<p>At a tactical level, my decision may be whether to go now or in half an hour \u2013 will the weather be better\/worse\/the same in that time frame?\u00a0 Strategically \u2013 perhaps I plan my whole day around when the weather forecast is for drier conditions so that my coffee doesn\u2019t get too soggy on the return journey!!<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Weather\" src=\"https:\/\/systemsthink.co.uk\/jimages\/weather.png\" alt=\"weather maps\" \/><\/p>\n<p>From this fairly typical nine day forecast we can see the problems facing weather forecasters.\u00a0 Each of the models have different strengths and weaknesses, different assumptions and constraints, different ways of \u2018guessing\u2019 what comes next as far as the weather is concerned.\u00a0 I use guessing rather than forecasting because as can be seen from the \u2018spaghetti\u2019 on the ninth day there is a huge amount of uncertainty,<\/p>\n<p>(would you believe it \u2013 its now raining!!)<\/p>\n<p>So it is likely that any intervention at the strategic level will have to take into account a level of uncertainty about the \u2018state\u2019 of the world when the intervention takes place that is considerably higher than is the case at the instinctive level, the reactive level or the tactical level.\u00a0 Perhaps that indicates that more systems thinking is required when you have more time \u2013 which fits neatly with the fact that you need more time to do the systems thinking.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps we have the time to do the right amount of systems thinking \u2013 regardless of how much time that is.\u00a0 Although I am sure that we will always feel that we should have done more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is always difficult to determine in advance what things that we say (or don\u2019t say), what things we do (or don\u2019t do) will have the most effect \u2013 and that is leaving aside the fact that a significant number of effects we will never be aware of at all.\u00a0 I have written a lot &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/systemsthink.co.uk\/wordpress\/time-to-make-a-decision-redux\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Time To Make A Decision Redux&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[81,110],"class_list":["post-506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ignorance","tag-decision-making","tag-systems-thinking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/systemsthink.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/systemsthink.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/systemsthink.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systemsthink.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systemsthink.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/systemsthink.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2921,"href":"https:\/\/systemsthink.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506\/revisions\/2921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/systemsthink.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systemsthink.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systemsthink.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}