Business decisions can be daunting; risk is a factor, stakes can be high, and analysis may integrate both quantitative and intangible dimensions. In the pursuit of more and better data, decision-makers should not neglect another essential element of the process: the evaluation of all possible outcomes.
Professor Yael Grushka-Cockayne introduces the Freemark Abbey Winery case, which is taught in our Women in Leadership Program, to highlight the complexities involved with robust decision-making, how personal attitudes about risk can impact choices and how to determine what types of data are necessary to make the best final decision.
Leaders often pause to collect more data ahead of a big decision, without really questioning what bearing that data has. We set such a high premium on information that without great quantities of it, we might at times delay decisions for no really good reason.
Read the full article on Ideas to Action, where Grushka-Cockayne touches on the quality of data, the value of good questions and how to mitigate doubt.
This article is excerpted from Executive Education & Lifelong Learning’s Women in Leadership: Faculty Insights whitepaper. Download the full whitepaper to read additional perspectives on negotiation, leveraging difference, building influence and more from Darden’s world-renowned faculty experts.
