Blonde MBADocumenting the life of a blonde MBA student in sunny California. Maybe some blondes DO have brains!

In the spirit of Election 2008, I just got out of the movie “W,” the new Oliver Stone biopic of, who else, President Bush. All politics and views aside, I think the movie highlighted one of the most important aspects to consider when making a decision about any leader, whether a leader of your business or of your country: decision-making.

From my organizational behavior class, there are basically three theories of decision-making (WOW some of these “b-school theories” actually make sense, AND I remember them?!?). The first decision-making theory basically involves looking at all possible alternatives & reviewing as much unbiased information as possible to make the optimal, ideal decision. This is the best-case scenario, but there is often a lack of time and information to find this optimal decision. The second theory is in picking the first available decision that meets your decision criteria, even if better options are available to at least make a “satisficing” decision. While this method is faster, it may not be the most accurate and best decision.

The final theory has to do with using images and feelings to guide the making of a decision, using decision frames of past history and successes as well as a “gut-feeling” and intuition to come up with a decision in the absence of perfect information.  This ability is probably the best and worse kind of decision-making there is, depending on if your intuition is right or not! While any leader needs to have intution, it should also have some basis to it with as much information as possible.

Most decisions are not routine as leaders do not have any guidelines for how to make them and do not know what the outcomes will be. That said, leaders need to have a combination of these decision-making abilities to make the best decision possible given all time or resource constraints.

Using one theory over another (i.e. usually the very subjective intution or “gut-feeling”) is not the best method and should be closely scrutinized when evaluating who is going to be our next President (or next CEO)…

Josh Brolin as "W"

In watching the Beijing Olympic games these last few days, most individuals are there in pursuit of their own medal, but also have to work with the rest of the team within their sport for preliminaries, relays, and overall country dominance in the games. Most often there is a leader, someone who has most likely been through the games before and has some senior experience or word of advice, but in the case of the men’s USA gymnastics team, there were many rookies and just as many leaders. As they showed the team in a huddle, each proclaiming their own words of motivation, I wondered who could actually listen as they all seemed to be talking at once?

I’ve often been party to this in the boardroom, when there are too many ‘cooks in the kitchen,’ all trying to lead and effectively not accomplishing anything. In pursuing a MBA in a competitive program, you must assume that everyone is as accomplished, ambitious, competitive, and smart as you, and is working to hone their leadership skills…why else would they be there? I’m about to take a personality test as required for my first day of orientation and I wonder what I will find out about myself, my strengths and weaknesses? I’m obviously there to work on my leadership skills, but there must be a balance between leading and listening to others on your team.

I’ll let you know my personality test results when I’m done and I’m sure my observations on the team environment in the MBA program. In the meantime, check out the blog of Steve Churm, President of Churm Media here in Orange County, on ocmetrobusiness.com…he’s at the Beijing Olympic games right now and blogging about the awesome experience!

Enjoy! ~ Blonde MBA leader
(P.S. below are some pics of my first trip to Beijing, about 9 years ago…the Beijing Olympic games are bringing back some of the memories, but not the skinny high school body *sigh*!)

Great Wall of China, circa 1999

Temple of Heaven, Beijing