“This module helped me to understand the time and place for intuitive decision-making. There are some circumstances where we don’t do enough formal analysis. But sometimes we’ve done too much and it’s time to make a decision from intuition. I find that since the module, I’ve been encouraging my subordinates to go with their instinct. I tell them, “Just do it!”
Steve Martineau
IMPM 1997
Project Manager
British Telecom
UK
THE ANALYTICAL MINDSET
Module 2
Managing Organizations: The Analytical Mindset
McGill University, Desautels Faculty of Management
Montreal, Canada
McGill University in Montreal hosts the second module, where participants break from conventional analysis through creative workshops. However, time is also spent in this module to ensure participants have a common basic knowledge of key fundamentals in marketing, finance, accounting and IT.
Here, participants look at different perspectives on the nature and practice of analysis and how it is commonly applied in organizations and decision-making. They explore the power of analysis to clarify and simplify problems, as well as its limitations.
Paralysis by analysis is also probed – a phenomenon whereby managers over-analyze a problem rather than have the courage to make a decision.
Then, towards the end of the module, they look at organizations in general from various points of view including organizational structure, complexity theory, the role of politics in management and product innovation.
In this module, participants go on field studies to North American companies, which in the past have included Alcan Inc., VIA Rail and CGI, to examine and comment on their analytical and decision-making processes. Their perspectives are also challenged with a visit to a Montreal museum that houses paintings of the same subject by 220 different artists.