260. Leading Decision Factory feat. Max H. Bazerman & Don A. Moore

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Organizational leaders can use the power of behavioral economics to not only make better decisions themselves, but by leading their employees, their customers, and their stakeholders to make wiser decisions, make the company more effective, and also make society better off as a result.

Max H. Bazerman is Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School and the Co-Director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School. Don A. Moore is Professor in Leadership and Communication at Berkeley Haas and serves as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. Their most recent book “Decision Leadership: Empowering Others to Make Better Choices" deals with how successful leaders can maximize the potential of others by empowering them to make better decisions.

Max and Don are joining Greg to discuss how thinking systematically can help leaders make better decisions and create an environment for more people within their organizations to make more deliberate, smarter, and more ethical decisions.

They are also exchanging ideas about the importance of empowering employees and rewarding wise decision-making within organizations, even when that means taking a risk.

*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

Episode Quotes:

On helping leaders create better decisions for their organizations

[Max H. Bazerman] 10:50: When we think about leadership, we often think about people moving heavy objects from one side of the factory to the other. That isn't what most of our leaders coming out of Haas and HBS are doing these days. They're guiding an organization to make better decisions. And that's where the decision factory idea comes from, and that's where our motivation comes from—to help leaders create better decisions throughout their organization.

Encouraging decision-makers to have leadership perspective

[Don A. Moore] 12:34: We want to encourage decision-makers to think broadly about their interests and the interests of those who are affected by their decisions. That is the leader's perspective—not just what serves my interests but the long-term interests of the stakeholders, the organization, and others affected by my decisions, those who depend on me, and those I influence.

Everyone has the power to exercise leadership

[Don A.Moore] 50:25: If leadership is about affecting the behavior of those around us, then each and every one of us has some power to exercise leadership. Now, by virtue of their structural location in the organization, some of us have more such influence than others. But it is common for people to make the mistake of underestimating how much influence they have to guide the thinking and behavior of those around them.

On being a good mentor

[Max H. Bazerman] 36:17: One of the things that made me good as a mentor, and probably what I've been best at in my career, is not just telling them what to do but benefiting from what they can do better than I can do and bringing that together in an integrated way.

Show Links:

Recommended Resources:

• Howard Raiffa “The Art and Science of Negotiation”
• Cass Sunstein
• David Laibson
• Michael Norton
• Daniel Kahneman
• Keith Stanovich
• Richard West
• unSILOed - John List Episode
• unSILOed - Max H. Bazerman episode
• unSILOed - Don A. Moore episode

Guest Profile:

Max H. Bazerman

• Faculty Profile at Harvard Business School
• Max H. Bazerman on Twitter

Don A. Moore

• Faculty Profile at Berkeley Haas
• Professional Profile on Psychology Today
• Author’s Profile on HarperCollins Publishers
• Don A. Moore on LinkedIn
• Don A. Moore on Twitter

Their Work:

• New Book: Decision Leadership: Empowering Others to Make Better Choices
• Judgment in Managerial Decision Making

Max H. Bazerman Work

• Max H. Bazerman on Google Scholar
• The Power of Experiments: Decision Making in a Data-Driven World
• The Power of Noticing: What the Best Leaders See
• Blind Spots: Why We Fail to Do What’s Right and What to Do about It
• Negotiation Genius: How to Overcome Obstacles and Achieve Brilliant Results at the Bargaining Table and Beyond
• Predictable Surprises: The Disasters You Should Have Seen Coming, and How to Prevent Them (Leadership for the Common Good)

Don A. Moore Work

• Don A. Moore on Google Scholar
• Perfectly Confident: How to Calibrate Your Decisions Wisely