Markovic - 

I think experience can teach, but as you may have indicated, it doesn't always.  I like to say that "Experience does not count if you aren't paying attention."  

A mentor in the late 70s, when I was young, was an older man, but I heard him once ask another older person why he did something a certain way. That person's response was "That's the way we've always done it!  I've had 20 years of experience."  To that my mentor replied "No you haven't. You've had one year of experience, twenty times." 

Jim 

Good points, Lewis.  I am going to try to refrain from responding myself further, and see what everyone else has to say, but I will say here that I think you well understand my "question."  Thank you. 

I will note that in my opinion, many CEO's may still be as clueless as those that did not listen to Deming.  Some may ruin one company after another.  But that is just an impression.  Perhaps others have "anecdotes," which may carry more weight, though still not a scientific study. 

By "regulation," I suppose you mean the management's excessive control.  However, CEO's seem to generally chaff at government regulation for the common good.   As an example, after the Great Depression, financial rules were put in place, to try to prevent that from reoccurring.  But financial managers found their way around this, and gave us the recession of 2008. In the US we call this conservative policy. Those who want these regulations are called liberals, but the rest of the world appears to use the word "liberal" for what US folks call "conservative" - just trying to make the semantics clear.  

Thank you - Jim 

Decision is an important act we humans do to achieve what we want in an optimal way to the best results we anticipate.  Decisions that are based on sound information,  knowledge and critical thinking are more profound to impact goals than decisions made otherwise.    

Responsible decision making is therefore a necessity for responsible leaders and managers that need their companies or organizations to perform to the best of the abilities of its employees,  unlike organizations who hide or suppress the abilities of employees and hoodwink the performance of the organization.

It is a good character  people expect from their leaders and managers. In the contrary, a place where decision is done without  responsibility is a place of outlaws and failures which no one wants to work there. 

All of us have made good decisions and poor decisions.  To make a good decision, I need to be a good listener.  I need to make a sound judgment using whatever analytical skills and integration skills I have.  I need to visualize the effect of the decision on certain people who would be affected by the decision.  And being able to make some good decisions doesn't mean that I have arrived.  Are we efficient listeners?  Please have a look at this link.

'Various studies stress the importance of listening as a communication skill. A typical study points out that many of us spend 70 to 80 percent of our waking hours in some form of communication. Of that time, we spend about 9 percent writing, 16 percent reading, 30 percent speaking, and 45 percent listening. Studies also confirm that most of us are poor and inefficient listeners.

Why?  Several reasons are likely.....'

http://extension.missouri.edu/p/CM150

DEAR JAMES,

GREETINGS. IT IS ONE OF THE BEST SUBJECT, WHICH COINCIDENTALLY THOUGHT BY ME YESTERDAY. YES, YOU ARE PERFECTLY ON THE DOT. IN MANY OF THE ORGANIZATIONS, THE BEST PERFORMERS TO A GREATER EXTENT ARE NOT IN THE DECISION MAKING ROLES AND THE ONES WHO MAKE DECISIONS ARE EITHER COPYING HIS SUB ORDINATE'S IDEAS OR PARTIALLY IMPLEMENT THE IDEAS OF SUB ORDINATES OR WORK AGAINST THE SUB ORDINATE'S IDEAS.

YES, YOU ARE RIGHT AND IT'S A GLOBAL PHENOMENON IN MANY OF THE ORGANIZATIONS. IN MY HUMBLE VIEWS, RESPONSIBLE DECISION MAKING COMES FROM INDIVIDUALS IN ORGANIZATIONS DUE TO THE FOLLOWING FACTORS:-

1. EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND AND EXPERIENCE PROFILE OF THE EXECUTIVES.

2. FAMILY BACKGROUND AND SOCIO - ECONOMIC FACTORS INFLUENCING THE EXECUTIVES.

3. SPIRITUAL AND ETHICAL VALUES OF THE INDIVIDUALS.

4. ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE.

5. ORGANIZATIONAL LEADERSHIP (OWNERS OF THE COMPANY) AND THEIR VISION / MISSION.

6. CORE VALUES OF THE COMPANY.

7. SOCIAL / POLITICAL CLIMATE IN WHICH THE BUSINESS AND THE EXECUTIVES OPERATE.

I STRONGLY FEEL, RESPONSIBLE DECISION MAKING SHOULD START FROM THE FUNDAMENTALS (EVEN TO THE EXTENT FROM THE SCHOOL DAYS ONWARDS). 

STRONG FUNDAMENTALS WILL ALWAYS LEAD TO RESPONSIBLE ACTIONS IRRESPECTIVE OF DECISION MAKING AND OR EXECUTION OF THE DECISIONS.

BEST REGARDS.

SEKAR GOPAL.

On Decision Making, available at http://www.adb.org/publications/decision-making, makes the point that decision making is a stream of inquiry, not an event. Decision-driven organizations design and manage it as such: they match decision-making styles to appropriate techniques and, wherever possible, encourage parties to play roles rife with dissent and debate; decision rights are part of the design. This would be a far cry from autocratic decision making by a select few who, more often than not, are not sufficiently informed to best deliver that function. "It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong," Thomas Sowell has reasoned.

Corporate governance codes encourage companies to strive for gender equality on their boards, by making use of peer pressure within organisations and of the influence from stakeholders and media. EU in March 2011, encouraged publicly listed companies to sign the ‘Women on the Board Pledge for Europe’ and to develop self regulatory initiatives to get more women into top jobs, with a view to reaching the target of 30% of women in boardrooms of listed companies by 2015 and 40% by 2020 - ‘it would encourage other women to lead a professional career’

http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_376_en.pdf

Great question, I must say.

Reaching the positions of management (with given authorities) is usually sought after by many individuals using various means including deceit, affiliations, and connections to influential politicians or aristocrats. If some person becomes a "boss" by a devious method only, very low expectations will be envisaged if s/he is left alone to administer.

The incompetent manager is usually the first to know about his/her incapability, so assistants are appointed to help. However, if these aides are appointed by the same deceitful way then the organization will be in real trouble.

To cure the problem from its roots, any appointment for a boss ought to be ideally based on merits only. However, since such cases are real & not ideal then the smart efficient persons within the organization (even if they are few) will have an extra duty which ought to work on 2 fronts: one is remedial and consists of trying to change the environment from the bottom to the top with an eventual target of converting the management into apt leadership. The other one is revolutionary and consists of trying to remove the imposed boss by peaceful means without confrontation & relying upon logical visible evidences.

Dear James,

Dear All,

The implementation of reliable decision making is essential or should be essential. Unfortunately, it is often not the case. The reliability in decision making is a logical and elementary demand. How is it that even the contrary is characteristic in organisational and political decisions? The answer may be in the very different interests and that the antidemocratic mechanisms have got traditions even in democracies. Distribution and implementation of reliable decision making could very quickly and easily change the world and we would have much fewer subjects to discuss.

I have a simple answer: Decision making can be improved if we start using the data we already have in our possession.  Many organizations still rely on their 'gut feeling' to make decisions and that costs them in the long-run.  

I think the main element that might encourage responsible decision making is performance; and performance is, somehow, related to perseverance in a hostile context. Make the relevant decision and create favorable conditions where employees feel that they are involved in decision making and they benefit for freedom to put the decision made in action by their own way. That is what would guarantee performance achievement.

For taking responsible and better decision making:

1. One has to understand internal and external environment

2. One has to understand the implications of the decision taken

Thank you for sending me this question James.  This is not my field, but I cannot escape from the described circumstances. To avoid the authoritative people with power not bearing responsibilities, some regulations should be developed for restricting the performance of the power.  In the popular words in China, the power should be put into a cage of regulations. 

It is a better option to ensure good target oriented decisions.  In such circumstances, more responsible and well-planned decisions will be made by the efficient decision makers. For not so brilliant managers, it will prompt to enquire wide discussions on issues before taking a decision.

But, it may also generate  insecure feeling among the people concerned.

 Meritocracy is a great solution; it's at the basis of organizational effectiveness and economic development; unfortunately, political factors and lobbying disturb the applying of this principle. When one works with an incapable boss, without having a real authority, he will face three choices, leave the organization, lay low and wait, or use power and influence (anyone can have power and influence without having institutional authority) to make positive change around him. He should struggle, resist and expand progressively the positive change. He will eventually win.

Dear Wei-Sheng,

Generally, there are good theoretical regulations. The troubles are that in corrupt circumstances the fine regulations do not work. This the catch of 22 and this rule is universal.

Mainz, Germany

Dear Knaub,

A classical answer to this kind of question is a system of division of powers and of checks and balances. This will not eliminate the possibility of irresponsible decision making, but it does tend to limit and confine it.

Opposition to such systems typically calls on the need of "effectiveness" of the governing system --which aims to concentrate power and decision making. In consequence, the issues involved will often come down to an evaluation of the competency of more centralized systems. There can be little doubt that they are popular in particular circles and situations. They are often popular among higher level subordinates who seek to rise through the ranks and who may constitute organized support for incompetent or abusive leadership.

Kausal wrote:

Happy and healthy workers need some degrees of freedom. Excess regulations can make us automated and unhappy, the more regulations and control, the more we become someone like Chaplin in Modern Times.

---end quotation

In a way it is the problem of "control freaks." In-fighting and control of subordinates is one kind of "talent" or perspective and orientation to an organization, while function in accordance with the overt objectives of the organization, and its legitimate goals requires a different organizational perspective and approach. As suggested here, the difference shows up in poor treatment of people lower on the organizational ladder.  In one way or another, those people need to organize themselves to deal with this kind of problem. They require particular sorts of solidarity among themselves in order to deal with this kind of problem.

H.G. Callaway

Thanks James for this interesting question, and I want to contribute and add to the other answers that we can encourage the responsible decision making with one important thing: ethics. The leadership and the responsible decision making have to be confronted with solid basis of ethics, humanity and honesty. Sadly you can see that in nations and worldwide organizations (like FIFA now) what you called “human condition” is something common. If the leadership have this failure from the higher levels (i.e. corruption scandals in governments of many countries) will give the guideline that the rest will be conducted in a wrong way like it seems, that the good leadership is the exception of the rule.  But there’s another ingredient in the recipe, from my point of view, and is the reaction of the subalterns that let the things to pass and don't react against the negative leadership, sometimes by fear, other by direct or indirect threats, etc. Is imperative that we back to see at ethics in home and school and the next generations of leaders could be more positive than now, putting in practice what they learned, eradicating corruption, egoistical positions, etc.

I can summarize that lack of ethics, the ambition of money and power are the obstacles, remembering me the phrase of Lord Acton: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Best regards.

Dear Callaway et all, 

I really apreciate :

 Kausal wrote: Happy and healthy workers need some degrees of freedom. Excess regulations can make us automated and unhappy, the more regulations and control, the more we become someone like Chaplin in Modern Times."

Just having  freedom we can grow without fear as humans, show the best of ourselves, dream and fly with science.

Good Leaders should be people who concern themselves with others and they had intelligence to move forward.

I think most of the leaders, due to excess power and the qualifications below the desired, must have in any company a psychiatrist to accompany them in order to help them in their track and prevent them from harming others members group, essentially the most skilled.

Helena

Dear James et all, 

Your question is related with this one in RG:

"Helena Pestana asked a question in Power:

What is the difference between this crime and domestic violence?As researchers, what you would do if knew that some expert fellows in a given subject,  were not only required to teach in the wrong way but were also diverted to teaching materials other than dominate?

What would you think about the "quality" of these people who run the hierarchy? What steps should be taken?

Would you be silent? Empathy is not a duty of all human beings?

Violence does not exist precisely because we turned our face to the problems ... because we settle ... Are we not guilty of  existing injustices ? Are we not to blame for delay in science if we let incompetence dominate when it is associated with power?

If the very psychology that demonstrates the power decreases the intellectual capabilities of themselves, because they fail to listen to others?

We do not want everyone to be worthy of respect? for that we do not have to respect and help respect all human beings?

How many collegues are persecuted because they are competent and creative?

History does not show that the great scientists always have been surrounded by difficulties, obstacles due to incompetence of power?

We should continue as in the Middle Ages? What is the difference? The way we dress? Only that?

Helena

 [more]

52 answers added · Last answer added 1 day ago

Helena

https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_the_difference_between_this_crime_and_domestic_violence

https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_the_difference_between_this_crime_and_domestic_violence

Thank you...

I am trying not to interject too much, and just see what everyone else has to say on this topic, but I have to note the following from Helena:  "... some expert fellows in a given subject,  were not only required to teach in the wrong way but were also diverted to [other] teaching materials..."  This sounds to me like a good example of irresponsible decision making. I think her question and this one definitely 'cross paths' on this point. 

Helena also notes this: "If the very psychology that demonstrates the power decreases the intellectual capabilities of themselves, because they fail to listen to others?"  -  That appears all too prevalent and timeless to me. 

Further, I see this also as pertaining to the question at hand: "History does not show that the great scientists [and others]  always have been surrounded by difficulties, obstacles due to incompetence of power?"

Thank you, Helena.  

Mainz, Germany

Dear Prestana,

Many thanks for your kind reply.

Your wrote:

Just having freedom we can grow without fear as humans, show the best of ourselves, dream and fly with science.

---end quotation

It seems perhaps important to emphasize that freedom comes in degrees, and it is always to some extent an empirical (and a philosophical) question how much freedom we actually have at any given time. (Think of the Aristotelian ideal here, of cultivating the moral and intellectual virtues. Human virtue is a humane power.)

Moreover, by better understanding the circumstances, it is possible to expand the sphere of freedom--to come to be able to do things that we could not do before. From that perspective, if we come to know that those who abuse power typically fail to listen to others, then that is an important bit of information of possible use in difficult situations; and that is only a first example.  

H.G. Callaway 

You ask how to promote responsible decision making and then you explain that poor decision making is a problem of incompetent management. The question is how do we promote good management? There is no such thing as good management. Stop managing and start leading. Managing is administration. Leading is getting the job done. Management is for those whose only attribute for doing the job is wanting to be in charge.

The world has become increasingly bureaucratic. A bureaucrat has no responsibility, so decision making has no meaning. The easiest decision for a bureaucrat is to say no. A bureaucratic no takes many forms, but it is still no.

Running a government requires bureaucrats to enforce rules and regulations. The role of government is to provide communal services. Why do governmental services become enforcing rules and regulations? Some of the services are maintaining order, so rules and regulations are expected. Government is out of control when all services become only rules and regulations.

Businesses and scientific establishments do not succeed by following the example of governmental services. Bureaucracy detracts from a smoothly functioning and well-integrated system. When an establishment fractures into bureaucratic entities it has become too large to manage. This is the point that leadership becomes management. Managers beget managers and the organizational purpose is to survive as an organization to support its managers. You cannot expect leadership and good decisions from managers. Leadership and good decisions is not their job. They are not interested in the product. They are interested in being in charge.

The secret to obtaining leadership and good decisions is to hire people who want to get the job done. Anyone indicating a desire for management must be summarily rejected.

Joseph -

I agree. 

I only want to note that in the US, CEO's often want to avoid - and do seem to find ways to get around - Government regulations, and want to fight having any such regulations, so that they can make self-serving 'decisions.'  There is a big right-wing movement in the US against reasonable regulation, and against science in general.  Such a desire for arbitrary decision-making seems universal. 

Regarding this, there is a Nobel winning economist, Paul Krugman, who writes for the New York Times, who has a great deal of common sense in his articles.

Of course, this is my opinion. But it seems strange that people still question science and evidence 'off-hand.'

- Jim 

Sometimes management can be a smart choice, and we can consciously make decisions in consultation with others our selection

Mainz, Germany

Dear Knaub,

You wrote:

I only want to note that in the US, CEO's often want to avoid - and do seem to find ways to get around - Government regulations, and want to fight having any such regulations, so that they can make self-serving 'decisions.' There is a big right-wing movement in the US against reasonable regulation, and against science in general. Such a desire for arbitrary decision-making seems universal.

---end quotation

I take note of your qualifier "often," above, but this statement still seems rather one sided. (Actually, I don't much like the term "CEO," and prefer the older designation of "President," or "Director," etc.) There is always the question of the better and worse of anything. There are surely better and worse CEO's and business decision makers, too. Again, the degree and kinds of regulations needed in any given case can become pretty political --in the sense of the attempt of politicians to provide goodies to their firm constituencies and supporters. This may be done by removing existing regulations or law, or resisting the new, but it can also be done my means of new regulations and law. So, I do not see self-serving decisions as purely a matter of resisting regulation. The better question is more a matter of what to count as reasonable.

I have no doubt that we can find cases of CEO's or others resisting reasonable regulation. But we might as easily find cases of people favoring unreasonable regulation which is detrimental to their economic or social or political competitors. This matter cuts both ways, or that is how I see it, in any case. Part of the problem is that debates on reasonable regulation are afflicted with political partisanship.

Need I add that many in the U.S. are sick and tired of the excessive partisanship and dysfunctional political divisiveness?

H.G. Callaway

 I really liked what Prof . Joseph Alvarez has wisely stated "The world has become increasingly bureaucratic. A bureaucrat has no responsibility, so decision making has no meaning. The easiest decision for a bureaucrat is to say no. A bureaucratic no takes many forms, but it is still no.".

The statement deals with existing realities.As an example: A senior old lecturer wrote tens of messages to a younger university manager (and not a leader). For all these messages, the reply was always " Please tell him that it is NOT accepted". Why the old man kept writing while he expected negative answers from Mr. No (!) ? It is because, one has to be determined in the pursuit of justice or fairness otherwise the organization will undergo internal corrosion & will collapse. We have seen many "big" organizations falling down, and in many cases, those responsible were the managements.

Dear Nizar Matar,

Bureaucracy is, prominently, the baby of government sector where decisions are based on strict rules and slow.

But private sector is less affected by bureaucratic procedures, so, decisions are fast, based on realities, and based on pragmatism.

Decisions are less effective when we consult only the rule book for taking decisions.

I agree with your statements about bureaucracy in general. But this behaviour has also good sides. The formale checking of rights and procedures is not a priori bad, it can protect the people´s rigths and protect their interests. Bureaucracy must be dammed if it is abused especially from political sides to squelsh opponing interests.

And Subhash is really right, if he states "no bureaucracy in private life".

Dear Hanno,

Private life is also affected a little by bureaucracy as bureaucracy comes first and pragmatism next. But private life/sector believes more in pragmatism. So, decisions are fast, reality based, and effective.

The question is not easy to answer because in all the life aspects, the most difficult task is to make decisions. Decisions have to be made in management, politic, economic, familiar, and why not in the religious world. In all these cases the success of a decision depends on the level of knowledge the governing board of a company have about the issue to be decided, not only the CEO. In industrial companies, the decisions are generally made based on the net income after the application of a manufacturing process. In my opinion, these decisions are the most difficult to made.

Countries differ in these decisions because rich countries are expected to have professionals with high levels of economic training in contrast with poor countries where the industrial and commercial net-incoming is confounded with high arithmetic numbers. In ninety percent of the countries, the population working in the industrial and commercial companies does not know how to estimate the components of the production cost. And many CEOs do not heard yet about the law of the minimum from Carl Sprengel's -- Carl Philipp Sprengel (March 29, 1787 – April 19, 1859) – the father of the "Theorem of minimum" (known as Law of the Minimum) popularized by Justus Freiherr von Liebig (12 May 1803 – 18 April 1873). This law is broadly applied to plant fertilization, but I have adopted the same procedure in my classroom to teach management of seed production companies, fields of crop production, or the introduction new crops or animals into systems of agriculture production. The law mimics a barrel where the lateral planks are leaking water at several levels. When one leaking plank is replaced by a new one, other one became part of the minimum and has to be identified by members of the company. Sometimes the shortest plank is not yet related in the company adversities. See tsunami and earthquake near atomic power plants, for example.

Otherwise, the decision is made “when the financial arithmetic number is higher, the net gain is assumed to be increased and the company figure out that it had success in that period.” This method of thinking is part of economic systems in some countries where the word “economic growth” has always been the usual expression while the expression “economic development” should be the expression highlighted every day by the media. Thus, all the member of companies in high position levels must have control of the costs on a week basis, at least.

I figure out that the case William Edwards Deming (October 14, 1900 – December 20, 1993) was the first issue of pioneering against the most powerful force in humanity existence: the paradigm (pattern, example). Scholars have difficulties in facing the changing of some paradigm. Changing the paradigm of the economic growth instead of the economic development has been different from the paradigm of global economy whose introduction was a disaster soon after its use by politicians and investors. The expression “globalized world” disappeared from the national media years ago, despite hardly ever we have heard it. One paradigm we have also been facing from politicians is about “the needs of infrastructures”. This expression is very usual in places where the political corruption is still prosperous. Finally we have the paradigm of the GDP (Gross Domestic Product). All of these paradigms are biased to satisfy part of some social class in most of the countries. In contrast, the GNH (Gross national happiness) is applied in only one country; admired by many others, but it is far way for changing in places where greed is prosperous, socialism or communism is the political system, or all of them, but unthinkable where the capitalism dominates the economy.

Around all the segments listed above we have the human beings with the aim to step forward into the CEO position in most of the commodities companies. In English I notice the word that defines very well the human performance in face of paradigms: followers. Well, what have making humans to be followers? I notice that a long period is necessary before a CEO to show that his/her new idea is a success, a financial success. Why financial success is important for humans? The answer seems to be straightforward: because we are humans, a mammalian that lives under social life. The social life needs power for satisfactory gene transmission to the offsprings. The male is looking for a female that needs a counterpart strong enough to put her offsprings in the highest scale of the social life. For what? Just to transmission of genes. Otherwise, the genes will disappear. This idea sounds a little bit wild, but I cannot see it in other terms because of my Degree in Agronomy and studies in Biological Sciences. There has been difficult for humans to figure out that the planet Earth, our home, is a live thing.

However, I discovered during my life experience that we do not need to be the CEO to have influence in the destination of a large organization. I believe that the place where the leadership has to stay is in the governing board, and not necessarily this leadership has to highlights the best salary, but she/he has to highlight the foremost values (moral values) to attend the needs of the company clients, employees, citizens in general and so on. The player of this game has to be identified and introduced into the company by the governing board. The main needs of the majority of the human population have been to achieve life quality based on food and health care, not necessarily high salaries, despite the money deficit usually does not allowed good health care. The human greed may forecast a good present but a dark future.

Finally, I believe that teaching and studying some issues not necessarily related to our expertise can open our mind for other issues that will help us to make our best decision.

Walter

I'm trying not to comment too much myself, but a friend sent me the link below. What do you think of the 'decision-making' process - or lack of one - described in this article? 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/11/miami-drowning-climate-change-deniers-sea-levels-rising

In my opinion, Miami is under the paradigm of the "economic growth". After investiments for decades, no current company is ready to face the sea level raising. The current builders are sure that in 2100 all of them will not be here to take responsibility for their acts.  As part of the local solution a significant number of these assets has been transfered to investors from other countries, and some of them are used to live with rainfall floods in their countries. This film is repeated every year in Brazil, and São Paulo is about 100 km off shore. Thus I insist in the paradigm of the "economic growth" despite  study groups based on newspaper information has been formed to analyse the problem. How to deal with the paradigms? Walter

In Normative decision theory, decision-makers try to identify the options that offer the highest expected value. In other words, decision-makers should make choices that provide the best chance of an outcome meeting their goals. In the case of adaptation decisions, decision-makers must judge whether the adaptation they are considering using offers a better set of potential outcomes under an uncertain future climate than that offered by inaction, or some alternative action.

1. Utility-based criteria

• Deterministic benefit-cost. 
• Probabilistic benefit-cost.
• Cost effectiveness. 
• Bounded cost or regulatory-budget approach.
• Maximise multi-attribute utility. 

2. Rights-based criteria

• Zero-risk. 
• Bounded or constrained risk.
• Approval/compensation. 
• Approved process.  .

3. Technology-based criteria

• Best available technology
• BATNEEC (Best Available Technology Not Entailing Excessive Cost).

http://www.ukcip.org.uk/wordpress/wp-content/PDFs/UKCIP-Risk-framework.pdf

Decision making should be responsible since deciders should be accounted on their decisions. Irresponsible decision making is a criminal act as deciders have the obligation  to run people's and organization's future trend. A decision of today has tomorrow's effect & impacts.Each decision should be fully thought, analyzed and discussed before  making its running

Responsible decision making must be based on rationality and ethics.

Ethical principles are difficult to set up. it requires efforts for a long time. However they should be taken into consideration as appointment criteria of responsibles at the head of organizations.

Responsibility seems to be a problem at all levels.  My wife and I just retired and moved to a townhouse. The previous owner had had a great deal of work done, but it was superficial, cosmetic work.  The home inspector found shoddy work done, including bare electrical wire under the kitchen sink.  The more we have looked into it, the more professionals we have had out to look at the code violations, the more we have found out about the dangerous problems of various sorts that we are having to have fixed. 

The previous owner must have had a great deal of the work done by unqualified people - perhaps 'friends' as one professional tradesman put it, and they ignored or were ignorant of building codes, as well as common sense.  Because there was no fire, no one suffocated, or was electrocuted, the previous owner got away with this, some problems being a bit complicated to find, but at least the home inspector alerted us first.  But why was this done this way in the first place?  Money outweighed responsible decision making, apparently.  In the end, however, the problems do not go away on their own.  

Money corrupts any decision maker unless he has strong ethical values and an adequate income. That is why deciders in organization must be selected based on competencies and ethic and payed consequently.

The case of Enron in the US is an infamous example of inept as well as immoral decision making. (Consider, for example, the review of the documentary "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," found through the link below.) 

However, an example of a very well run office of motivated professionals, with good leadership, can now be found within the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), where they innovatively follow company transactions to work to prevent another case such as Enron from occurring. I know someone in that office at FERC - an electric power/statistician/SAS expert - who is very happy with the professionalism there, including the management.  Apparently creativity is encouraged, and the level of teamwork is high, and decision making is not in the hands of self-isolated managers, nor are they micro-managed. Their leader is respected, and competent to do her job, so everyone is happy to work very hard, from what I'm told by this fellow, who has referred to me as his mentor - so of course I believe him.   :-) 

So, decision making can be done well, when those making the decisions understand and consider good advice from experts.  But in a science-oriented office, or any other, I suppose, long experience has shown consistent and easily anticipated problems, when the decision maker(s) does (do) not understand, and/or want to understand what she/he needs to know to be able to make good decisions. It may be argued that Enron was just greedy, but actually knew what they were doing, but I have often felt that "greed makes you stupid."  I suspect, especially after having worked for someone from Enron, and others like him, that people can truly talk themselves into thinking they will get "something for nothing," and make destructive decisions that may catch up with them later, while all the time patting themselves on the back, thinking of themselves as brilliant.

In the few examples I have seen where decisions were made in real life, just as "Picard" did in "Star Trek: TNG," i.e., experts are consulted to arrive at reasonable decisions, and people work in cooperation to accomplish goals, the results have been astounding in comparison to the usual problems one sees virtually everywhere.  

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/enron-the-smartest-guys-in-the-room-2005

An empirical study has shown the following results: (Fred. luthans, Successful vs. effective real manager)

The successful managers are those who focus on networking activities. The effective managers are those who focus on Communication and Human Resource Management activities. The effective and successful managers are those who manage fairly and in balanced way, the four main manager activities: Communication, Traditional Management ( Planning, decision making, controlling) , Human Resource Management, and Networking.

So, managers should combine management and leadership qualities to be effective in the benefit of the organization, and successful for their own benefit. These managers represent only 10% of the sample.

The first key in understanding how to make great decisions ---- is learning how to synthesize the overwhelming amount incoming information leaders must deal with on a daily basis, ---- while making the best decisions possible in a timely fashion.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikemyatt/2012/03/28/6-tips-for-making-better-decisions/

HR professionals consider and protect the rights of individuals, especially in the acquisition and dissemination of information while ensuring truthful communications and facilitating informed decision-making.

https://www.shrm.org/about/pages/code-of-ethics.aspx