Decision Making / 7

7 TAKING ACTION

Making decisions about risky situations involves more than deciding what to do next. If we take a simplistic view that we will solve problems as they arise we are unlikely to ever build an in-depth understanding of what is happening around us and what is causing it to happen.

This chapter brings together a number of themes developed in the preceding chapters. How formal risk-management processes can be augmented and made highly effective by what we know is discussed. A number of practical pointers about decision making and risk management are offered.

7.1 ATTITUDES CONSTRAIN AWARENESS

The following is a brief story about two people with completely different attitudes and how those attitudes can affect awareness. It is a cold winter’s evening. Bill and some of his friends have gone interstate to watch their favourite football team play in the semi-finals. Bill is sitting in his air-conditioned motel room watching television and quietly drinking a beer before going out with his mates to celebrate the football team’s win earlier in the day.

On the same evening, Jane is at home. Her husband is out for the evening at a business dinner. She ate lunch with a couple of workmates from the office, so she has not bothered to cook a meal tonight. Instead she has made a snack and settles down to read a book whilst enjoying a glass of wine.

Bill, sitting in his motel room alone begins to feel cold. He gets up and adjusts the thermostat on the wall. Nothing seems to happen, although he notices that warm air is coming out of the air-conditioner’s outlet. After a short while, Bill adjusts the thermostat a little higher and settles back to watch the re-run of the football game on television. After what seems to be a long time, the room begins to become much warmer. Soon, it is uncomfortably warm. Bill removes his cardigan and sits down in the front of the television again. It is now so warm that Bill gets up from his chair and adjusts the thermostat to cool the room down somewhat. Bill is not concerned about having the air-conditioner working in an on-demand fashion. After all the additional cost of electricity is not going to be added to his room bill. After a while it gets cold again. Bill again puts his cardigan on. Before long Bill still feels cold and again adjusts the thermostat to warm the room.

Jane and her husband have recently moved into their new home and are both working hard to pay the mortgage. Their lounge room and main living area of the house are fitted with the same type of air-conditioner as Bill’s motel room. Feeling cold, Jane looks up from her book. Looking through the window, she sees that it is really quite windy outside and thinks to herself that there could be snow before morning. Aware of the cost of heating and that the cost of heating is affected by the rate of heat loss to the outside during cold weather or heat gain from outside during hot weather, Jane draws the heavy curtains. Jane buttons up her cardigan before sitting down to continue reading. She is still cold so she gets up and discovers that she left the door to the kitchen open. She closes the door and turns up the thermostat by only a couple of degrees before sitting down again. A few minutes later, Jane is warm and comfortable. On the return of her husband, Jane gets up, turns off the air-conditioner and they retire to bed.

Bill’s rowdy mates knock on the door of his motel room. Bill quickly grabs his coat and room keys and walks out slamming the door behind him.

The comparison of Bill and Jane is summarised in Table 7-1. In essence Bill appears to be uncaring and unaware. He exhibits single-loop learning. In contrast, Jane appears to be aware of what is happening around her as far as the operation of the air-conditioner is concerned, that heat loss through the windows can be greatly reduced by closing the heavy drapes and the living room can be kept much warmer by eliminating the need to heat the kitchen as well. Jane appreciates that there are time delays involved and how cold she feels inside the room depends on the rate of heat input and the rate of heat loss; the latter being affected by the temperature difference between the inside of the house and the outside. Jane exhibits characteristics of a systems thinker and double-loop learner who has developed situation awareness. It should be noted that Bill and Jane may well change their responses if their positions were to be swapped. In Jane’s instance, the need for greater awareness may have been generated by imposition of financial pressures associated with buying her new home.

Our story about Bill and Jane is illuminating, but life is much more involved than our story suggests. In life, as shown by the cases presented and what has been drawn from the systems thinking literature things can be complicated. There is much to be achieved by modifying the way we think and decide and how we go about managing, especially in the management of risky situations.

Table 7-1. Comparison between Bill and Jane.