Executive Interviews: Interview with Bettina Büchel on Decision Making
May 2008 - By Dr. Nagendra V Chowdary

Bettina Büchel
Professor of Strategy and Organization at
International Institute for Management Development (IMD) located in Lansanne, Switzerland.

program where latest management trends are discussed in an interactive forum. With around 500 executives from all over the world, this high profile event allows managers to learn the latest research in a short period of time (six days).

• From your decades of teaching, research and consulting experiences, can you share with us your insights on decision-making?
  I don't explicitly focus on decisionmaking.

• Is there any perceptible difference, according to you, between women and men as far as decision-making is concerned? Do you think women make better decision makers in certain contexts than men, and vice versa?
  Given that women are in a minority in corporate executive suites, they are more likely to be faced with a situation where their values may not necessarily be shared by their followers or even peers. But it is the sharing of values and actions that promotes positive outcomes for leaders. When leaders expressing their values are not successful, followers do not perceive the leaders as authentic representatives of goals that foster the larger group. This mismatch in values gets expressed at a number of fault lines between communities. Gender is one of these fault lines.

  Women have to worry about how others view them as they are perceived to be representatives of their social group. As one woman said: "I sometimes feel inhibited and afraid to address even the most banal issues directly." Over time, coworkers start to draw their own conclusions and if these remain untested, their conclusions become set in stone. Resentments build, relationships fray, and performance suffers.

  Walking the fine line between requirements of the leadership role, which has mainly been "masculine" and the female gender which is expected to be focused on communal values by emphasizing behaviors such as kind, affectionate, sensitive and helpful makes many situations for women challenging. It is striking this balance that women need to become skilful at.

• Would fostering dissent (a constructive dissent) lead to a better decision making? Does conflict lead to better decisions? Or would it be an unqualified hindrance to decision making?
  Conflict engagement can be used to encourage groups to go through the processes of inquiry (exploring new ideas) and advocacy (proposing new interpretations of situations) and explore differences in values, beliefs and behaviors. This is frequently a necessary part of change.

• In today's corporate environment executives are often not willing to be so decisive, as they fear committing mistakes and the resulting fallout. At the same time, there is zero tolerance for indecision, lapses in integrity, and, above all, weakness all of which can be career ending. How should executives/leaders engage in a (delicate) balancing act of decisiveness and indecision; overconfidence and insufficient confidence? Would anticipatory regret hinder decisiveness?
  Learning speed is really the most important element.Organizations that allowmanagers to try and experiment and therefore potentially make mistakes may be quicker (as long as these mistakes are only made once and a risk assessment has been given thought).

• What is the role of business schools in preparing better decision makers? What specific steps do you suggest for business schools in terms of designing their curricula and delivering focused courses to prepare better decision makers?
  The Strategic Leadership for Women's program is a good example of where we play an active role in helping shape the next generation of leaders.

1. Decision Making Case Study
2. ICMR Case Collection
3. Case Study Volumes