how%20to%20think%20like%20a%20manager

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how to think like a manager

• Diagnosing problems in complex, messy
  situations.Prescribing solutions to
  organizational problems.Sustaining the
  rhetorical burden of casuistic argumentation and
  ethical reasoning.

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Persuasion policy, fact, and value
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propositions of policy stock issues
(systematized common sense)

• Need for change/action identification of
  deficiencies -- problem diagnosis
• Workability of policy alternative
• Practicality of policy alternative
• Policy doesnt entail greater evils
• Best available alternative

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Workability

• The proposed policy prescription will at least
  in theory remedy the problem diagnosis.
  Proposal meets the identified need.

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practicality

• The means needed to bring about the proposed
  change are available.
• Resources
• Time
• Commitment
• Understanding

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Best policy alternative

• Compared with the alternatives, the recommended
  policy offers the best balance of advantages and
  disadvantages (benefits and costs)

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Facts(propositions of fact are not facts -- they
are belief claims for which factual evidence is
needed)

• Causal claims
• Predictive claims
• Historical claims

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Value claims

• Central to managerial reasoning
• Examples?

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Dialogue ethics I

1. Practice inquiry before advocacy. Be open to a
   variety of points of view before you embrace any
   one of them.
2. Know your subject do your homework
3. Be honest about what you know and dont know
   dont invent
4. Try to tell the truth as you perceive it dont
   lie or distort

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Dialogue ethics II

1. Dont oversimplify
2. Acknowledge possible weaknesses in your position.
   Be honest about your own ambivalence or
   uncertainty.
3. Avid irrelevant emotional appeals or diversionary
   tactics
4. Appeal to the best motives of your fellows, not
   their worst

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Dialogue ethics I

1. Be prepared to lose if winning means doing
   psychological harm to others and demeaning
   yourself in the bargain

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Reverse Engineering or Unpacking Diagnostic
Arguments

• The AFMC Case

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Problem diagnosis can be represented as follows.

• (1) Described Situation (S) AS (Perceptions,
  Theories)
• (2) Diagnosis (D) AD (Described situation,
  Theories, Values)

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Babbitts diagnostic conclusion

• (1) D A ()
• (2) D A (S, T), S is situation, T is theory
• (3) T A (PPG, KG, MAN)
• (4) MAN A (MAC, BPM)
• Where
• PPG refers to public value, with cost being a
  factor.
• KG refers to organizational knowledge, combined
  with S, needed for an assessment of future
  operating environment.
• MAN refers to practice-oriented management
  disciplines
• MAC refers to managerial accounting and control
• BPM refers to business process management

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managers engage in a half dozen different
intellectual performance

• 1. Synthesizing management ideas see formula
  (4).
• 2. Selecting and reformulating KG.
• 3. Synthesizing PPG and MAN translating
  efficiency as a good into doctrinal arguments
  about how to pursue this good in big
  organizations.
• 4. Synthesizing MAN and KG seeing some
  tendencies in governmental organizations to exert
  negative influence over the practicality of
  doctrines about how to achieve efficiency.
• 5. Perceiving S an exercise in attending and
  equivocality reduction, aided by tacit
  consideration of T.
• 6. Diagnosing mixing S and T to establish D.