Blink:

I have given thought to the validity of the rationale behind decision making.

Particularly, after the passing of Donald Rumsfeld former Secretary of Defense last month and his obsession for wordy, contradictory memos, more importantly his stance (a.k.a. rationale) on WMD’s leading to the Iraq war.

Read On:

Rationale (noun): a set of reasons or a logical basis for a course of action or belief.

Data driven decision making: In my last post regarding Social Enterprise, I referenced the CMO Survey as a great reference to better understand the transformation of marketing as it relates to emerging digital, social and political trends. Being a marketing geek, data utilized is a logical approach to make informed business decisions, yet according to the CMO survey only half of the companies (48.7%) reported using quantitative metrics. Only 2.3% implemented AI or machine learning, low, but more surprising only 4.1% will implement AI in the next three years. Fortunately, AI in decision making is being utilized in other areas, especially as it relates to our planet’s environmental health.    

As much as I am an advocate of data (a.k.a. stats) I am aware of the potential for “juking the stats” a term made popular on the HBO TV hit “Wired” where both in the public and private sectors, people reclassify data points to manipulate the rationale for a specified course of action. Sound ambiguous? What about the set of obstruse reasons or logic people use to make personal decisions, especially when it comes to unprincipled behavior?

Sensible decision making utilizes rationale.