Management is decision-making

Management gurus have different definitions of what management is. According to Herbert Alexander Simon, the only Nobel Prize winner in the field of management, management is decision-making.

"Management is decision-making" is a famous saying by a famous American management scientist. Management is decision-making. This definition hits the key point of management. Because decision-making is the first step in doing anything in an enterprise, that is, the first step is to make decisions. Decide what to do, and then how to do it. Decision-making is also the most troublesome and risky core management work in an enterprise. In fact, if we look closely at many problems in the enterprise, most of them are caused by decision-making. As long as the decision is made correctly and the general direction is set, the rest becomes minutiae. The essence of decision-making is to choose the best action plan that is most beneficial to the enterprise. But for the future, it is impossible for anyone to find a ready-made answer. Therefore, decision-making is related to risk, and decision-making is related to the fate of the enterprise. When the enterprise faces a decision, it is also when the enterprise faces a major turning point, which may be further development or irreversible decline. Therefore, managers must achieve success. The success of decision-making must rely on scientific decision-making methods and theories in action.

During his 85 years of life, Herbert Simon received nine doctorates, and his research involved political science. , economics, management, sociology, psychology, operations research, computer science and many other fields, and reached academic peaks in different fields - in 1958 he received the American Psychological Association's The highest award in the field of psychology - the Outstanding Contribution Award in Psychology; in 1975, he combined psychology, computer science and decision-making theory, pioneered artificial intelligence research, and won the highest honor award in the computer field - the Turing Award; He won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1978.

Simon had a keen interest in chess since high school. He spent two years playing chess seriously when he graduated from high school. His chess skills were quite good. Since Simon had never been able to break through to the A-level level, he was not willing to just be a "fancier". Once after playing chess, he reanalyzed the chess game and through step-by-step reasoning, he found that he was making the 17th move. If he used the "bishop" to attack, he could easily defeat his opponent. Later, his chess skills improved, and he began to play chess regularly in the Pittsburgh Chess Club, and even defeated the strongest opponent in Pittsburgh at the time. Devoting all his time like a professional chess player, Simon gave up the game and kept it as a hobby.

But the inspiration he got from chess gave him a deeper understanding of management. Thinking. Managers often rely on intuition just like chess players. The higher the level of chess players, the more sensitive they are to the game. Just like managers, the higher their position in the organization, the more keen their intuition is. Simon, who has experienced it all, knows that chess masters can recognize and recall about 50,000 different arrangements of chess pieces on the chessboard, and usually rely on intuition to find clever tricks in a short time. This is because a large number of chess masters have been stored in their minds. To the master, the chess pieces in any chess game are fixed and familiar formations, not randomly placed. These formations are as easy to recognize as old friends.

The behavior of managers is therefore to master all management skills, apply them in appropriate situations, and devote their attention to new problems that require thinking. Simon divides organizational decisions into two types: programmed decisions and non-programmed decisions. For a qualified and excellent decision-maker, proficiency in using programmed decision-making is the basic prerequisite; and how to use non-programmed decision-making can often better test the decision-making level of the decision-maker. Decision makers must use intuition, judgment and creativity to improve their non-programmed decision-making capabilities on the premise of being proficient in programmed decision-making.