“I Won't Back Down?” Complexity and Courage in Government Executive Decision Making

Abstract

Senior government executives make many difficult decisions, but research suggests that individual cognitive limitations and the pathologies of “groupthink” impede their ability to make value‐maximizing choices. From this literature has emerged a normative model that Irving Janis calls “vigilant problem solving,” a process intended for the most complex decisions. To explore its use by senior public officials, the authors interviewed 20 heads of subcabinet‐level organizations in the U.S. federal government, asking how they made their most difficult decisions. The initial focus was on whether they employed a vigilant approach to making decisions that were informationally, technically, or politically complex. Most executives identified their single most‐difficult decision as one that required courage; they often made such courageous decisions after personal reflection and/or consultation with a small number of trusted advisors rather in ways that could be described as vigilant. The different approaches for making complex decisions, compared with those involving courage, are discussed and a contingency model of effective executive decision making is proposed that requires leaders (and their advisors) to be “ambidextrous” in their approach.

Behavioral Public Administration ad fontes: A Synthesis of Research on Bounded Rationality, Cognitive Biases, and Nudging in Public Organizations

“…Taking action on public policy means public managers must overcome not only these complexities in their environment but also their own cognitive limitations and moral impasses. Understanding how supposedly irrelevant factors of choice architecture may alter public decision making in predictable ways (Thaler ; Thaler and Sunstein ) is an increasingly germane topic for further research (Gordon, Kornberger, and Klegg ; Kelman, Sanders, and Pandit ; Moynihan, Herd, and Harvey ; Vlaev et al ). Influencing public managers' decision processes from a more informed assessment of cognitive biases and libertarian paternalism has the potential to improve effectiveness through strategic choices that shape goal attainment.…”

“…Decisions in the public sector are often shaped by a complex array of forces. This is especially true in the fluid environment of the information age, when public managers are inundated with countless challenges (e.g., Kelman, Sanders, and Pandit ). Ready access to data, adaptable technology, and an ever‐combative political environment contribute to the complexity of decision making in the public sector.…”

Amplifying the Voices of Practitioners in PAR

“…We also encourage scholars and practitioners to consider co‐authorship as a means for co‐producing relevant, timely, and quality research. In the last year, about 10 percent of our articles were co‐authored by practitioners, among them Kelman, Sanders, and Pandit () and Orr and Bennett (). The level of recent co‐authorship by practitioners is the highest in decades, which I take as a very promising sign of what we can attain in the future.…”

Exploring the Frontiers of Administrative Behavior

“…They must increasingly anticipate how people will react to choices and how the choice architecture can be used to manipulate choices to improve outcomes, achieve agency goals, and fulfill organization missions. Understanding how supposedly irrelevant factors of choice architecture may alter public decision‐making in predictable ways (Thaler and Sunstein ; Thaler , ) is an increasingly germane topic for further research (Gordon, Kornberger, and Clegg ; Kelman, Sanders, and Pandit ; Moynihan, Herd, and Harvey ; Vlaev et al ). Influencing public managers' decision processes from a more informed assessment of cognitive biases and libertarian paternalism has the potential to improve effectiveness through strategic choices that shape goal attainment (Battaglio, Belardinelli, Bellé, and Cantarelli Battaglio Jr et al ).…”