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The use of preference theory facilitates more consistent decision making and helps management convey a better understanding of the desired corporate attitude toward risk taking. The process of obtaining decision makers' preference curves consists of two stages: 1) the assessment of preliminary curve, and 2) the verification and correction of that curve. Preference theory helps managers not only to enhance their own decision making, but also to gain insights into the thinking of other decision makers in the organization.

Describes the development of the company to its present preeminence in high-priced skis and the avenues that it can follow to obtain new growth.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 313120.

Many organizations are now adopting a revolutionary attitude toward change. There are a number of approaches: those that rely on unilateral authority, those that share the power, and those that delegate authority. The goal is the same: to get all levels of management psychologically redirected toward solving the problems and challenges of today's business environment.

The best strategy for a company is to create attitudes on the part of its competitors that will cause them to restrain their competition. This "persuasion" depends on emotional and intuitive factors rather than analysis or deduction. Three activities in which emotional and intuitive factors are paramount are negotiation, mutual self-restraint or cooperation, and the inhibition of aggressive competitors.

Effective decision-making requires a distinct sequence of steps. The sequence includes identifying a generic or unique problem, defining the issues of the problem, determining the required specifications, deciding what is right rather than what is acceptable, building action into the decision, and using feedback which tests the validity.

A study at Texas Instruments (TI) revealed that a lack of minimal job competence and the resultant debilitating anxieties caused failures in problem solving. To reduce the anxiety of new employees so as to speed the achievement of a competence level, manufacturing managers at TI designed a special orientation program. The results were significant gains in learning time, quality production, and job attendance.

A detailed examination of the findings of a study focusing on executive decision making in six representative companies indicates that executives rank innovation, risk-taking, flexibility, and trust as important influences for effective decision making. Results of the investigation indicate, however, that during important decision-making meetings, executives dedicate themselves to "getting the job done," which results in a suppression of creativity and innovation. Recommended methods of breaking down barriers include certain types of questioning; playing back and analyzing tape recordings of meetings; and laboratory education and its various offshoots.

Three key concepts are fundamental to professional services, and serve as a guide to the buying or selling of these services. First, a professional service must make a direct contribution to the reduction of the uncertainties involved in managing a business. Second, a professional service must address a specific, substantive problem of the business purchasing the service. Third, a professional service can only be purchased meaningfully from someone who is capable of rendering the service.

The situation requires a decision to repair a steam river boat, to substitute a diesel-powered boat, or to lease a diesel boat.

Spreadsheet Supplement for case 210101

The product life cycle measures the likelihood, character, and timing of competitive and market events. A product strategy that includes some sort of plan for a timed sequence of conditional moves provides an offensive rather than a reactive move. Most successful products pass through certain recognizable stages. Awareness of these stages affects decisions on marketing factors such as pricing, product identity, and sales and distribution networks. New uses and new customers extend the product life cycle. Planning in the early stages for product life extension helps to guide the direction of ongoing technical research in support of the product.

Discusses the development and operations of a small manufacturing and mail order company doing $3 million sales. L.L. Bean operates in violation of most reasonable business principles, but it is profitable and growing.

The growing pace of change demands that companies structure themselves to ensure that external and internal problems are both given sustained attention, instead of having managers oscillate from one group of problems to the other. Companies need management structures conducive to innovation. A new staff function, decision analysis, will help. Managers need to be broader-minded than their predecessors.

This sequel to Can You Analyze This Problem? (May-June 1965) describes the Kepner-Tregoe concepts and procedures for problem analysis. The main steps of a systematic approach to problem analysis include defining the problem, outlining the specifications, spotting the distinction, seeking the cause, and, if necessary, respecifying the problem. The use of a specification worksheet allows managers to draw a boundary around the problem and to limit the information needed for the problem's solution to only the relevant facts. In solving the problem of the case study, precise specification and careful problem analysis uncover a previously overlooked cause and prevent action which might have produced an even more serious problem.

The Kepner-Tregoe approach replaces hit-or-miss methods with a systematic method of problem solving and decision making. Managers who train in this concept of problem analysis often discover that their reasoning methods in handling problems and decisions are faulty. Readers test their own reasoning powers against the problems presented in a case history, based on an actual situation, and can then compare the results of their analysis with the solutions presented in a subsequent article, How to Analyze That Problem (July-August 1965). The main issues of the case involve questions concerning production, labor relations, and personnel.

A study testing the effectiveness of the traditional performance appraisal program involves the completion of questionnaires by and interviews with 92 employees of a large company. Half of the managers use a high participation approach and half use a low participation method to test the effects of participation on work performance. Tentative conclusions include: coaching should be a day-to-day, not a once-a-year activity; goal setting, not criticism, should be used to improve performance; and managers should hold separate appraisals for different purposes. Work planning-and-review discussions appear to be an effective approach to improving job performance.

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Presents a simple example of a production planning problem amenable to analysis using linear programming.

Self-image is an important element in a manager's development. Personal growth is a direct result of an individual's changing self-concept. While growth does not occur in clear-cut logical steps, the process involves the following elements: self-examination, which lays the groundwork for insights and changes; the identification of self-expectations; changing to meet those expectations; self-direction; the broadening of perceptions; and self-realization. Growth is the evolvement of personal goals and the sense of venture in pursuing them.