Decision Making Under Uncertainty

Today’s decision makers don’t just need traditional risk management skills: they need modern decision processes, and a clear understanding of criteria, heuristics, and approaches for decision-making under uncertainty. More than that, they need deep personal awareness of how they approach risk when decisions must be made, data isn’t enough, and outcomes are uncomfortably unpredictable.

Few decision makers possess all this – but they need these skills and this awareness for your business to succeed. Fortunately, you can teach them, with our proven Effective Risk-Taking.

The Effective Risk Taking Program presents a systematic decision-making model for intelligently evaluating risk and making better decisions with incomplete or ambiguous information. Participants begin by assessing their own tendencies using our exclusive Inventory & Guide, illuminating their own instincts for welcoming or avoiding risk, and recognizing opportunities to optimize their decision processes for uncertain conditions. Then, working from a deeper personal understanding, they’ll learn proven strategies, approaches, and heuristics for improving decisions involving risk and uncertainty. One step at a time, they’ll discover how to diagnose issues, assess risks associated with various options, plan and prepare for decisions, and make decisions that can be successfully implemented.

Risk-averse managers will learn to become more open to opportunities with significant upside potential. They will master a more considered approach to decision-making under uncertainty: one that respects their instinctive caution, helps them distinguish between sensible and reckless risks, and guides them to mitigate risks that can’t be precisely quantified or fully eliminated.

Risk-seeking managers will learn how to avoid exposing themselves and their organizations to unnecessary vulnerability. Building on their valuable entrepreneurial attitudes, they will discover ways to thoughtfully judge the potential impact of worst-case scenarios, compare options, and mitigate downside risks.

Embracing both decision theory and human behavior, this program is accessible to decision makers in any role, at all organizational levels. All participants – regardless of their previous intuitions about decision-making under uncertainty – will learn proven approaches for improving every decision that involves risk.

Participants Will:

• Gain deeper personal insight into their own current approaches to risk, and opportunities to build on their current strengths while optimizing decision-making under uncertainty
• Master and apply a systematic decision-making model for managing risky decisions when conditions are inherently uncertain
• Learn to handle risks with greater awareness, skill, and assurance – without falling victim to overconfidence

A Closer Look at the Program

In just four hours, participants will walk through all facets of decision-making under uncertainty, including diagnosis, planning and preparation, and implementation.

Part I: Diagnosis

Participants will learn how to:

• Clarify objectives, recognizing their top priorities and the choices available to them
• Organize and evaluate alternatives, building decision trees, comparing riskier and more conservative choices, and estimating the gain (or loss) they can reasonably anticipate from each choice, given the reality of uncertainty
• Assess their risk-taking tendencies, using a “neutral case” to identify whether they have a tendency towards risk-avoidance or risk-seeking – and then adjust their approaches to decision-making, balancing dangers and opportunities more realistically

Part II: Planning and Preparation

Participants will learn how to:

• Develop an effective change strategy, exploring the characteristics of (and differences between) incremental and transformational change
• Improve reward/risk ratios for decision-making under uncertainty by: capturing more information about time, cost, reliability, and relevance to the extent possible; using surveillance, buffering, and other techniques to increase control over factors that influence outcomes; and reducing the impact of adverse consequences by sharing or spreading risks

Part III: Implementation

Participants will learn how to:

• Overcome barriers to constructive risk-taking in uncertain situations by: clarifying stakeholder values, mastering techniques for overcoming internal and external pressures, and tapping the full range of available views, including hidden dissent
• Act, evaluate, and follow-up on decisions made under uncertainty, by developing an effective implementation plan, evaluating progress, making midcourse corrections, monitoring decisions, and learning from experience to improve future decision-making

What You’ll Get

You’ll get everything you need to successfully lead this course and help managers at all levels optimize decision-making under uncertainty and take risks more effectively.

Trainer’s Guide

Your completely scripted Trainer’s Guide gives both novice and seasoned trainers all the tools they need to teach the entire Effective Risk-taking program. This comprehensive roadmap guides you through setting up and facilitating the program from start to finish, with:

• A detailed overview of the program’s structure and content
• Preparation steps and techniques
• List of materials you’ll need, in order of presentation
• Script with clear instructions on when to use PowerPoint slides, flip charts, and other resources
• Pre-tested questions to jumpstart discussions, and more

Inventory & Guide

This guide facilitates greater understanding of behavioral patterns and teaches respondents how to take risks more skillfully. Its inventory takes about 15 minutes to complete and self-score. (20 copies included; more available for purchase)

Participant Workbook

The Participant Workbook supports your facilitator in helping learners systematically build their decision-making and risk-taking skills, master proven decision-making processes, and problem-solve more effectively. (20 copies included; more available for purchase.)